Cassie: a Commission

Cassie, a photo by Je Suis Lugly! on Flickr.

I really like accepting commission work when I can as it means I'm definitely fulfilling a dream when everything works out. Cassie is a bear recently commissioned by a friend and collector names Felicity, who already has a sad little sloth of mine in her collection. We first met at my very first Hugglets and have been in touch pretty much since then.

For Cassie I was asked to make a purple bear similar to my recent collection for the Teddies Worldwide show. The colour was quite specific and hard to achieve on alpaca as alpaca is slightly shiny so it doesn't look as dark as it is (does that make sense?) It took two or three goes in the dye bath with a mix of blue and purple dyes, but I think (hope!) we got there in the end.

Cassie also has sweet black glass eyes, a hand stitched and waxed nose, purple felt paw pads and hand stitched claw marks. Wish her luck for her journey to her new home!

Chloe and the Lugly's xx

PS I haven't forgotten about the giveaway: more news on Sunday I think!

Happy Lugly Anniversary!

Who'd have thought it?

Today is Je Suis Lugly's Fifth Anniversary!

Five years ago I decided to make my mum a Mothers Day teddy bear and bought my first kit from Bear Basics. Tedward was that first bear (the blond one on the left): I'm sure you'll agree that my style has changed a lot since he was made! Bitten by the bug it wasn't long before I was making bears as a hobby in my spare time, and only three months before I was working on my first and figurehead sloth 'Poke' . I thought I would take the opportunity to show you some of my bears through time, starting with Tedward at the top and working my way down through the years to Wedgwood, my Teddies Worldwide Show preview bear.

What I would like to do is to run a little competition with a nice freebie for a lucky mailing list person: unfortunately that will have to wait a few weeks until the show is over! I gave up on my all-nighter last night at about 1am as I thought any bear I made at that time would probably be a bit scary! Anyone on my mailing list will be eligible to win whether they're new to join or one of my established people.

In addition I have recovered some of my old unfinished projects from home this week and plan to have a revival: there's a really cute giraffe that I got fed up with because his limbs were hard to turn but I know that my left over locline will make him super poseable! I think I'm in a 'Zoo' animal mood right now, but I definitely want to work on a few sloths too, epsecially as I'm not sure my mad hatter sloth will be finished in time for the show...

I'm sorry I still can't reveal my SUPER EXCITING NEWS: I was hoping I'd be able to confirm it with you all by today but I've forgotten to sort it out XD Big announcement coming soon though, probably!

Anyway, thanks for the love over the years, can't believe it's been so long! Don't forget that the Teddies Worldwide Tea Party opens in less than a week: I hope you'll go see my creatures there!

Back to the sewing board...

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx









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Progress and Insanity

Well it's less than two weeks until the first previews for the Teddies Worldwide Show are up and my elephant is continuing to challenge me: not always a good thing! I've spent today wrestling him into submission though, and will be working on his costume tonight: I hope you'll love him when he's all finished. I've been playing around with my new photo tent which I've bought for the upcoming show and I love the results already: hope you like this shot of The Bomb! Work on my show pieces is going pretty well and I have almost made all the bears I need for my minimum quota: I want to add a hare and a sloth to my five bears and an elephant so time is precious to me right now...

Careful also found a home this week and has already arrived with his new mum, but I did get one last light tent photo sesh in before he got packaged up... I can't remember if I said before but last week Careful found fame on the popular website Deviantart: he was a featured piece of artwork for a day! It's like teenage me's dream come true :D

As for the insanity, yesterday I went (under non-violent duress from the boyf) to see 'The Woman In Black' as a relaxing, recreational after-work thing. Normally I hate horror films but I figured hey, it's a 12A: what's the worst that could happen?? Full of chinese buffet we rolled in during the adverts and settled down to be mildly thrilled.

Well as it happens the worst that could happen is me coming home, physically scared of anything with glass eyes and wanting to die to avoid being scared: less worried for the souls of the children I teach, more for myself and my sanity. Anyway, the logical thing to do in this situation is hide the dolls and bears and so on away, right? Well as I was planning to do this I thought 'oh no, then they'll think I hate them and will wreak horrible vengeance on me. Clearly any punishment is more likely to come from those I've neglected in the last week or so'. As a result in order to placate a fictional character who actually has nothing to do with toys at all I have taken lots more photos today alongside my sewing.

I hate horror films.

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

Gem: a New Bear

My first bear of 2012 :) Gem was pretty much finished in December, but I've been adding the final touches now I'm back at University. He stands at a COLOSSAL 10" (lol!) and has the same facial pattern as Bombardier, although I've adapted it for a horizontal neck joint rather than Bomb's vertical one. I hope you like him! His body pattern is based off of Roux: my first bear that I ever sold: you can see them both on my Flickr account. I loved his pudgy body and have tweaked it ever so slightly to fit this non needle felted face a little better.

I'm very pleased with this design and and already plotting my next order of mohair for these little guys...

Hope you all had a good New Year? I had a great time and went to two new cities that I've never been to before. One of them was Bath, which is basically Jane Austin land. Despite this it's a really lovely city: very Olde Worlde but not as unkempt feeling as York, which is my other favourite old city in England. The picture shows the old Roman Baths in Bath, the only natural hot springs in the UK. We went to the fancy, modern baths too which was really cool: rooftop heated pool, steam rooms and a lazy river? Sold!

Happy New Year,

Chloe and the Lugly's xx

Two Lugly nominations at the BBAAs, woo hoo!

Yey! Both Bombardier the Bear and Jack the Hare have been nominated for a British Bear Artist Award!

Bomb is nominated in the Modern Bear category, so I'm sure he'll be up against some pretty cool bears... I'm very excited to have a nomination for him though, as he's such a new concept for me :) I'd be dead chuffed if he won an award! I'm working on a white bear from the same pattern but a little smaller... it's amazing what a difference such a small change makes.

Jack is my first ever animal nomination in the BBAAs, believe it or not. I think that last year my bear and my sloth got lumped into the same category because they both had needlefelted features, which is a bit annoying... surely you shouldn't compare such diverse creations purely because of one technique? I mean, you wouldn't have a seperate category for trapunto toes, or armatures... would you? Anyhoo, Jack is my first animal nomination: I know that'll be a really tough category. I'm likely to be up against some heavy hitters... I hope Jack at least looks like he belongs on the table!

I'm wondering if I should have a stall at the show this year? I'm just starting my teaching qualification and it looks like I'll be in school three or four days a week: eep! I don't know if I'll have time to make a pile of bears and animals in time for the show... I think I'll see how this first week goes and decide after that :)

Anyhoo, hope you're excited! I am! Please let me know if you're going to the fair and if you think I should get a stall or not... I was planning on having this as a pattern year rather than a sale one, but I do like meeting collectors in person...

Cheers,

Chloe and the Luglys xxx

Bombardier!

Do you ever have a moment when something just.... comes together?

I've been working on Bombardier's pattern FOREVER,it seems: I first decided to make a bear with a front neck joint nearly two years ago! Since then I've made three or four draft bears, way more than it took to get my first sloth pattern. It's been a frustrating journey, but I would like you to meet Bombardier the Bear at long last.



I've named him after a train company in the UK, purely because a) I've heard the name a lot recently, and b) he has got a massive BOMB ;)

You may also notice the complete lack of needlefelting on him... I may add felted toes in the future to this design as the embriodered claws are just not showing through, but for now I've left them off as I find more and more that bears with needle felting seem to get pigeon holed into one catagory for competitions and so on, and I would like to enter him (or this pattern at least) in the next year or so, starting with the British Bear Artist Awards. He's just in time to be entered, so please wish us luck!



In other news, I hope you've noticed the big revamp on my website? I'm still ironing out some problems, but I'm so glad to have upgraded at least from the teeny tiny site I had before! Fingers crossed it'll be polished and look really, REALLY fancy before long :)

Love,

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx