You can now reserve the guys from the Arctic Exclusive if you feel like adopting one! All the details over at Plush You. It feels good to be a ‘creative heartbreaker’, thank you Kristen! But now I have that Led Zeppelin song in my head!

Can’t embed the live tight trouser action version, so this will have to do!

While revisiting some Led Zeppelin and chuckling at the lyrics to ‘Whole Lotta Love’, hilarious, I remembered the ‘Sex Rap’ scene from Nathan Barley. So, funny and cringe making, it is also quite rude, be warned if you click over, again embedding disabled. Annoying! CLICK HERE!

EEK, super yikes, get your skates on all you super plush stitchy poos because Plush You is coming to LA this summer. Could this news be any more exciting?! If you want to apply visit the Plush You blog for all the necessary information. You don’t want to miss it that’s for sure. Did I mention that I am excited?

How I wish I had been in Seattle on Friday for the opening of Plush You 2009. I got the first reports from the show via Danamarie of Green Star Studio fame (I *need* a knitimal!) through Twitter. I couldn’t sleep, I wanted to be with my gang, marvel at the artistry and imaginative power on display, give Kristen a hug and say hello to everyone in person. I really want to know who my creatures are hanging out with over there? Kristen puts such a lot of work and heart into Plush You and I would love to give her a big hug and a very loud *thank you* for all of her support and encouragement. Dawn, you will know her work very well, and her husband took all of the product shots for the show, a huge undertaking and they deserve a super big thank you too. You can view some of the shots over on Dawn’s blog, Plush-a-holic. Dawn took the beautiful picture of The Bird Suit (above) by the way, thanks Dawn.

Yay, some images from the show are up on Flickr here. As you can see my gang are hanging out with Melissa Sue Stanley’s incredible creatures. Jinx looks a little worried, perhaps it is the proximity of Narwhal Fish Boy’s horn? I am happy to say that all three of my little ones are off to new homes, I know they will be well behaved and give lots of love to their new owners. Congratulations to everyone involved, it has been such a privilege to take part. Three cheers!

Oh dear, a terrible pun, on with the post! I am feeling drowsy; october always brings with it the desire to hibernate, I don’t want to go out, I want to be cozy, a homebody, it’s not even cold yet. How many of you kittens have the desire to grab a grizzly and head for a cave (metaphorically of course!)? Here is a collection of some of my favourite bears from around the inter web, let’s share some ursine love. I had intended to stealthily insert an image of a new embroidery piece at the bottom of the post, yup it was bear related. But guess what, I hated the finished piece so I scrapped it and reused the elements. The experiments that don’t pan out often lead to happy accidents and now I have a couple of new things for the shop, as soon as we can squeeze in a photo shoot! I have some exciting news to share with you very soon, I would tell all now but I want to put a more considered post together about it. I hope that you are all enjoying the autumnal/spring weather (hello southern hemisphere), our house is crawling with chestnuts collected by Ishi, he fills his pockets with them, we have painted little faces onto a few, such fun. Here come the bears! Trust Your Instincts print above from AshleyG

Knitted Bear print from Julia Pott

Finding Beehives from Oh My Cavalier

Magical bear by Astulabee.

Giant Bear in a Tiny Village by Lizzy Stewart

Print from ISO50.

I have added the marvelous Master Ludwig Is Afraid To Be Alone print above from Mon Petit Fantome to correct a glaring oversight on my part. Thanks for the reminder girls! I have been in love with Mr Susan for the longest time too (love those wolves!) and have to confess that I omitted some wonderful bears for the sake of brevity and getting the post up! I must run another bear round up when I get a chance.

Oh yes, bears on the brain. I am completely obsessed with the Andean Bear at the moment. Of course Plush You begins this evening, with luck I will be back later with a small round up.

I discovered Sawako’s work via a twitter comment from Kit Lane telling the world that they had to click over and visit an amazing new Etsy shop. I found the most beautiful and original work at Alleluja, Sawako’s shop, I hadn’t come across anything similar anywhere else, an astounding combination of kawaii, colour and exquisite skill. Really it is so hard to convey just how perfectly made these tiny porcelain creatures are, you need to hold one in your hands, feel the smooth, glassy glaze next to the warm and fuzzy felt. I am a rhapsode for Sawako’s Kigurumi pincushions, oh and you can wear some of them as pendents as well!

Tell us a little about yourself, the media you work with and your creative process.

“My name is Sawako Hayakawa. I live with my partner and two cats in the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan. I work as a transcriber at my home office. In fact, I don’t know how you say my job in English correctly. It is to convert the oral conversation into the reading ones. I keep typing almost everyday. I began to go to the ceramic workshop of the neighbouring town ten years ago. That was my first experience of ceramic work.

“Also, I started to do the needle felt in my own style a few years later. In after years, I combined them with my work as the pincushion. I think it is the natural flow, because I like the wool as much as the clay. Now, I make the ceramics in my spare time. I formed porcelain soil in my home and do the glazing and the firing in the ceramic workshop.”

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From where do you draw your inspiration: music, books, people, nature etc?

“I like movies and music. Also, I like science fiction novels and manga. My work is sure to have all those influences. Usually, I draw rough sketches before making ceramic works. Every time I find any cute thing, I make a simple sketch of them in my notebook.”

“I always listen to music while making my work, and I’m an iPod user outdoors. I like music such as alternative rock, indie rock and folk music. This music uplifts my feelings and it surely leads me to better work. And I like cats. I find the “kawaii” in their casual gesture day by day. I am inspired by their cuteness.”

“Above all, I like movies very much. My screen name “alleluja” was taken from the hero in a spaghetti western movie titled “Heads I Kill You, Tails You’re Dead! They Call Me Hallalujah”. I’m a movie lover. I am dedicating my work to the movie as a hommage in a somewhat strange way.”

If you could talk briefly about the background to one of your pieces which would you choose and why? Please tell us the story behind the piece.

“I want to talk about my Kigurumi pincushion. I have begun to make this works recently. At first I intended to make Kigurumi doll of the porcelain. “Kigurumi” means a stuffed-animal suit in Japanese. I have been interested in the animal suit long before and I tried to make it with the ceramic art work. I molded an animal suit doll with clay and laid it prone. That pose of the tiny animal suit doll reminded me of a scene in a well known movie.”

“It is Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. At the outdoor party scene, a flock of birds descended on the children and attacked them. One girl who was running away fell prone, a bird stopped on her head. She was struggling to escape from the bird. She fell down on the ground and fluttered her foot. It was a very impressive scene. I felt sorry for her, and even more, I was instinctively fascinated. It was really cute! So, I decided to make Kigurumi dolls fall prone and make pincushion in their back. By such a process, the Kigurumi pincushion was completed.”

“I received a lot of responses to my Kigurumi pincushion at Etsy and Flickr. It’s wonderful! It makes me feel really happy! I want to thank KitLane who encouraged me when I was hesitating about having my Etsy shop. And thank you, Lisa! I could think deeply about my work and myself through this interview.”

Find Sawako here:
Flickr
Etsy

What a joy to learn some more about Sawako and her beautiful work. Thank you so much Sawako. I adore the story of the inspiration behind the Kigurumi pincushions, I must watch that scene again. Good bird phobia aversion therapy. Do you lovely kittens have any unusual sources of inspiration? I would love to know. I will let you into a little secret, my pieces for Plush You have been made with memories of Battle Of The Planets swirling around my head, do you remember that cartoon, I was *obsessed* with it is a child?!