Hello ! I’ve just finished making this cute little fox for Theo. And he has a nice little outfit too. A reversible waistcoat and a pair of smart trousers, no less. Quite dapper little chappy, no?
I was recently the lucky winner of the James Fox pattern from a giveaway run over on instagram by his designer Lisa of A Sewing Life, along with the patterns for his trousers and waistcoat. So I thought since I made a bunny for Arthur not that long ago, I should make some sort of an animal for Theo too.
I couldn’t find any appropriately coloured felt in the shops here, so I ordered some. I ended up getting some hand-dyed wool felt from Indigo Inspirations; this is the Rust colourway, and I ordered some plain white from the same shop at the same time, for his chest and the other white detailing. His gloves and boots are dark chocolate brown cotton corduroy, leftover from my recently made brown skirt, originally from Tessuti, in Melbourne? I think? It was a gift from Cassie.. Buttons are old stash.
I redid his nose several times until I was totally happy. Faces can be tricky and I’m very happy with how his turned out in the end!
His trousers have POCKETS… oh my gosh how gorgeous is that?! Of course I had to pose him with his paws shoved insouciantly down into them. He looks exceptionally debonair like so, in my humble opinion…
hide and seek…
He has fully articulated limbs, which make it lots of fun to pose him. He doesn’t really stand up by himself very well; in fact he topples over at the drop of a hat. I’m not sure if I overstuffed his head, making it too heavy? but I do know from experience that you have to stuff a doll’s head very firmly in order for it to look any good at all. So I don’t know how the instability could be avoided? Anyway, he props against a wall very well.
“paint me like one of your French girls…”
Achieving the aforementioned articulation was a little fiddly, because of the difficulty of manipulating a needle through two buttons inside half-stuffed arms and body, but it turned out ok in the end, I think. My first go at stitching up the backs of his fully stuffed arms wasn’t very neat, and it’s an area that’s really on show on the finished fox. Before giving him away, I unpicked my previous stitching and carefully redid it to be a lot neater.
All his clothes are made from some of Craig’s old shirts; which I always keep for the buttons as well as for the (usually) beautiful quality fabrics.
I hope Theo enjoys his new fox, and I can’t wait to see him played with! I wonder what his name will be?
