New Hounds on the block

All New Hawkes Hounds 

Finally, my latest designs are finished, and I am very pleased with them.  

For those of you offended by craft  completed in a non pet-free environment, look away please... 

The chap on the left is finished in soft chenile and the other in boiled wool and tweed, and they are so snuggly that while my back was turned Maggie snuck up and nestled in amongst them. You can see where I get the inspiration from these days. 

I had great fun making these chaps, the ears and the eyes are the most fun part and I am glad that I switched to hand making the felt eyes, they are more expressive. By mixing different materials you can get all kinds of effects for the ears, and then they can be bent as you wish. No names for these guys yet, but I have a waiting list for them already. Thanks Mr C for the super cool photos. 

New Hawkes Hounds tags and doing battle with the Cameo Silhouette and winning...

To go with the new designs I have worked on new label tags and packaging this week. Learning new skills is time consuming and I often resent the time spent, but yes I do know it is good to persevere. 

This week I was especially bold and decided to take on Photoshop and the cameo silhouette cutting programme to produce more professional tags. 

I started with this image from you guessed it - the graphic fairy: 

    

They kindly remove any text so that you can do your own thing with it. Opening it in photoshop always make a duplicate background layer by clicking on layers and then follow these instructions  You play around with the size of font and font until you have something you like. I ended up with something like this... 

 I saved it as a jpeg and then took it into the Cameo Silhouette programme. I should say that I have a love hate relationship with this programme. It reminds me of early PC days, when you spend ages looking at the screen while the cursor decides what to do before a message pops up to say "programme not responding - shut down PC" . I have learnt my lesson and save the file after every click. 

Strong coffee in hand, and after watching too many you tube tutorials  I finally managed to trace and mark the image for cutting, and after a mini break down when the printer chose to rescale the image and so the cutter cut a perfect shape about 2cm away from the printed one. Pause for a day for recovery, more reading and a supportive chat with Jo at Briar Patch Designs who is a whizz with the cameo and success! So now I just have to do a back to compliment the front, and I will be done.  

   

  

Making Felted Eyes for Stuffed Animals

The Eyes have it...

A while ago I started experimenting with eyes for my Crazyhoundstore stuffed animals, I wanted something more expressive than plain simple buttons, even vintage ones!  I mused with hand-painted eyeballs sitting neatly on cotton, side by side. I have to admit that I was not convinced by the overall effect. See? 

Tom the Terrier started out as such a friendly chap, but the eyes just seemed to ooze meanness. If he were in a Dog Shelter he would struggle to find a home.... My own dogs even eyed him up warily, so it was no good, the eyes just had to go. These were prototypes that just didn't work. After reading Abbey Gassenberg's post about persistence I took Tom off the shelf - I was not going to be beaten!  

I decided to try needle felted eyeballs instead. Felting the brown Merino wool was relatively easy (barring stabbing my fingers instead of the wool, which was very painful) . Use two foam blocks underneath the wool - The upper one with a neat circle cut out that the model eye can sit in an not move while you needle felt it. Once you are happy that the eyeball is firm enough take a small piece of black wool and form it into a flat circle that you can't see through. Needle felt it for a short time, and then position it over the brown eyeball and needle felt in position. Do the same with a smaller piece of white wool to give the eyes a catch light.   

These are Tom's new eyes ...

I think it is better, and I got a bit carried away and needle felted his paws too, and replaced the eyes on the other fellow..... 

That leaves just one left to do, as you can see in the background, but he looks OK don't you think ? 

  

Valentine and Birthday Angels

Oooh had such fun with these little things!! I wanted to make something to pop in the post to a friend for her Birthday, but really you could send them any time to cheer them up depending on the face you created. The faces are made from wooden half duck egg forms you find in scrap book store. I was stumped for a mount until I came across a stash of wooden hearts I bought years ago and had forgotten about.

Painting the faces was great fun and I think next time I will make them a bit more devilish....

Anyway, using PVA glue I stuck tiny pieces of treasured fabric to the hearts and embroidery thread made the hair. It is easier if you make a hair wig first - wind thread around a piece of cardboard cut to the desired length, you only need about three of four circuits, back stitch along the centre, this will make the centre parting.

I had read somewhere about using scouring pads for hair, I tried that but it was a disaster, I only succeeded in stabbing myself with the wire! Embroidery thread was much more controllable, and achieves that hair straightened effect that people seem to like.

So, my lovelies, one has already been dispatched, the others are waiting in the wings, pardon the pun... for next week.