What already? Yes, the first of my holiday art & craft sales starts next week so I have been sewing like crazy to get some things ready.
Because of the CPSIA, I have put the regular puppet making on hold. CPSIA is a new law that required lead testing in children’s toys. Great idea, however the way the law is written now, there are materials that are exempt from testing and there are materials that have to be tested. Everything for my puppets is exempt, except the little black eyes. The test to get certified lead free is about $300 and the really frustrating part is that there is no “component testing”, so I can’t test just the eyes but the whole puppet. And it can’t just be one representative puppet, but every style I make. So, I have just chosen to put the puppets on hiatus. They are constantly revising and updating the law and I am hoping that it will work out so that it makes sense for me to do puppets again.
So, I have been making new things! These little bears are all exempt materials. They are made from fulled wool, have embroidered faces and they come with a patchwork quilt and fluffy pillow (not shown). The bears are about 6 inches tall.
I am going to do a variation on these for my etsy shop using some lovely wool cashmere blend fabric in bright colors. Those will be the “Artist Bears”.
Faithful Hound Ornaments. Wool felt. I machine stitched the ones for the sale – this guy was a prototype. They have embroidered eyes, a bead nose, a tiny ribbon collar and tag. I made 4 colors – caramel, brown, black and grey with black spots. I will post more pictures of them, they are adorable.