I am so pleased with myself. I was able to use the jacket pattern I made for the fox in madras with just a few tweaks, and make a jacket for this fellow. And it worked perfectly- Hurray for spending the time to figure out how to do it right!

I believe he is studying entomology.

I did it! I wrangled the dratted bleeding madras into a jacket for this dapper fellow.  If you follow me on twitter, you might have seen that I had a bit of a plaid jacket meltdown. First it was the plaid- it always seems, when I am cutting out the project, that working with plaid is going to make everything much easier- after all, a grid is part of the design. But in reality, all the littlest mistakes are glaringly obvious.

I managed to get all the plaid matched up but my first jacket ended up being a total failure. Here is a confession- most of the time I have no clue what I am doing. I start in and assume I will be able to figure it out. When I’d gotten to the point of having spent many hours trying to get it right, I realized that I needed to step back, take a deep breath, whine a little and do some other project for an evening. Next day I pulled out a human-size jacket, all my basic sewing books and a few books that have doll-size patterns for jackets. I spent the morning trying to get it all figured out and drawing up a new pattern.

In the afternoon, I started over. This time it worked out better.

This fellow looks very familiar to me. I am sure I have met his human counterpart on several occasions.

Here is a sneak peak at the vest lining.

My 1960’s fashion fox couple-

These 2 will be heading out to Indiana for a show at Vincennes University. The show is being organized and curated by Nichol Brinkman of Pink Cheeks Studios.

Sometimes when I am working on a piece, I start to imagine a character. It usually happens when I am trying to figure out what they should be wearing. I didn’t want to make another professor-type fox, so who was this fellow going to be? I thought of a fox who goes on a walking tour of the English countryside. He has his sketchbook in his bag for when he sits down for a rest.

Here he is with all his stuff-

How do you like his V-neck sweater? I love it- it came from an old sweater of mine! My personal sweaters can be difficult to use because I really wear them out before I am ready to part with them and often there isn’t much usable fabric left.

I made him a red handkerchief for his pocket.

His jacket on and buttoned up. And his olive green cashmere scarf and wool felt satchel.

He is definitely going to NYC.

I was waiting for an appointment and a young-ish man walked through the lobby. He was wearing an argyle vest. I thought, I have that same vest in my stash. I came home, unearthed it and made it fox size.

This is the last fox for now. Is it unkind for me to tell you how much fun I had making him? Yep. I really got into all the details on this one.

First, there is his brief case.

I usually put little trinkets into the bags and don’t show you but this is too much fun. Thanks Melissa for encouraging me to make some tiny little books.

It clips onto his paw-

And, a pipe.

I was walking home from the library yesterday, thinking about how my little fox professor needed a pipe and how was I going to make one? Then, I got it- Make it on a pin!

An inside peek-

and a close-up of his pin-on tie-

Toni, in the comments for the first Professor, suggested leather elbow patches… Well, of course he needs leather elbow patches!

And here he is!

Love Him!

I am busy getting ready for Renegade Brooklyn in just a few short weeks. Because of that, I will not be posting much to my Etsy shop until mid-June.

I tried to make this be more of an attache case than a messenger bag. Top stitching the tiny felt parts was a challenge. I discovered that if I iron them onto freezer paper, the top stitching goes smoothly- no felt getting sucked into the feed dogs. After the stitching, I picked off the paper.

Here is the inside look. The coat closes with a snap and has a decorative button on the outside. The bowtie is sewed onto a little safety pin so it can come off too.

I’m back to working on the foxes. Here is a boy in a wonderful striped sweater.

He’s got a super-soft cashmere scarf.

And a school bag with a brass buckle.