Mouse and friends

I started life as a mysterious cone...was I a toadstool?




Eyes - now I can see! What are those long ears? Am I a rabbit?




Oh dear...I really don't feel right in these ears. but I like my big green slippers. My eyes are too small though.




Oh that's much better! I am - a mouse!




And here I am with my good friend, the blue cat.




She is a rare Chocolate Point Turquoise Siamese.



And here we are with our other friends, Peggy Goose and Yellow Dog the Third.




Tomorrow we set off on our big, secret adventure...

Grey Goosie

There was a time in the dim, distant past when I could get a new toy made in a couple of days...oh happy Land of Faraway! Now I am reduced to scrimping time, as a mouse hoards cheese rind, and my toys are fussed over in odd moments. Poor Grey Goosie, born on the edge of a cricket match, has taken longer than most. I do have orders...but I have to have one of my own going at the same time. Just - because.

Actually, Grey Goosie is now a fully fledged cricket expert - she has visited quite a few over the weeks, and was a great help at the last home match. She made sure the fielders were in the right place -




She helped Andy bowl at the oppo -




She helped lay out the tea - although she didn't make it (well, she is only small and a sandwich is so large to a toy goose).




She even made sure the umpire was keeping score properly -




She is also a bit of a real ale buff now, and enjoyed some Wadworth 6x while looking after Andy's bat.





And later, when both teams retired to the Queen's Head, she said a respectful hello to old Hobbs, the pub cat.




So although she has taken weeks to finish, I think she is the most educated of all my toys.

Sleepy Sam

...and he's not the only one. But while Sam is wearing just the one hat, I am wearing several, as it were and juggling a book job with toy making with getting my new card designs up for sale, is starting to wear a little.

Yawn...

...pick me up and put me to bed with a good book and some cocoa. Preferably not standing on my head.

Jenny Big-Foot

Good bye Jenny Big-Foot. You were only two days old when you left home and you were my favourite toy I have made so far; we both have big broad feet, and a rather shy attitude to people we don't know.





You looked so proud as I tied your official name tag round your neck and my heart twinged as I listed you on Etsy. Less than two hours later you were no longer mine...but I was so pleased to find it was a fellow illustrator, Michele who had taken you. It made it easier.




I gave your beak a little (dry) kiss as I packed you in tissue and sent you on your way. Now you are travelling hundreds of miles away, across the Atlantic ocean - farther than I have ever been or probably ever will be. The toy shelf is emptier without you.




I might have to make you again.

New best friends

I have had an unseemly amount of enjoyment with this new needle felting lark. I used to make a lot of things, which is why I have so much textile-y stuff gathering dust in corners of my studio, but I had to bite the bullet and concentrate on becoming a vaguely competent painter. However - being a typical Cancerian - I hung on to everything, as sewing paraphernalia tends to be beautiful as well as (eventually) useful. In fact - and I am somewhat horrified to count back the years - it has been about a decade since I crafted anything. This month I have other publishing work which must be completed, so grabbing a precious hour or two with my felting needle has been a very guilty pleasure, hence keeping the curious waiting for my initial efforts. As well as waiting for delivery of little ribbons with my logo on, which are obviously being hand embroidered by Mongolian elfs, they are taking so long to arrive.

My first tentative stabs were loosely based on an old artwork, Mr Apricot -

- he started off like this...



- and ended up like this. Amazingly after all these years of non-sewing, I can still just about embroider a nose and managed to make halfway decent French knots for eyes.



At this point Andy's mum should not be reading, as he is her (very late) birthday present. He was missing something though...and unexpectedly, the wonderfully kind and very wool-centric Border Tart sent me a gorgeous collection of bright fluffy 'accents', all wrapped up in a fairy tale.



Funnily enough, I had just been looking through her shop to see if she sold these self same articles. Thank you so much Lindsay! Now my rabbit has what every bunny needs; a carrot.






Many years of painting and drawing 2D toys means that I am not at a loss for designs...in fact I wish I could sprout extra limbs, in order to be able to work, spider-like, on several projects at once.

The next idea was unashamedly inspired by a story from a favourite childhood Enid Blyton book, (and from where many early ideas and images fixed themselves in my imagination, still resurfacing in my work today).

Using a cotton wool base, she started rather bizarrely; a miniature yeti-like creature.

But several thousand stabs later, a bit of embellishment and a pink heart on her posterior she emerged looking plumply cute and rather like a Japanese crafted toy.

Wanting to move back to a more vintage style, I ransacked my Moleskine again -

- and started to roll, mould and stab again. Using cotton wool in the kitten saved on actual felting wool, but I seem to get a more satisfactory, organic shape with 100% wool top. So far she is eyeless and wingless. Does she need a crown or a frock? Or both?

I find it hard to believe there was life before needle felt.