Lambs for Easter

It's slowly but surely warming up here in Western Massachusetts. We can see the heads of our Spring bulbs pushing through the thawed soil and peering out from behind the piles of leaves. (This reminds me I have quite a bit of yard clean up to get started on). In our studio we have finished the first two batches of something new--lambs for Spring! 

I named these lambs Clover Grazer after imagining them laying atop in the overgrown meadows of New England farms. Clover is inspired by vintage pull along toy sheep and hand drawn Victorian Easter cards. 

We're releasing two editions of Clover. The first is in a classic undyed vintage white cotton. These are soft, creamy, off-white fabrics that mimic the natural color of sheep's wool. We used a thinner fleece for the legs, ears, face, and tail where we wanted to draw attention to the delicate detail and structure, and a thicker teddy bear sherpa fabric for the plush body. They're finished with a hand-sewn 100% silk necktie.

The second edition of Clover is in a hand dyed version of our teddy cotton fabric dyed with avocado pits. This used a similar process to our tea dyed fabric for our latest bunnies. We pretreat the fabric in soymilk, let it cure so the fibers can bond to the protein and then make a dye bath by gently heating avocado pits for a few hours. The fabric sits in the strained dye bath for 24 hours  and is then dried for a week before rinsing and washing. We love the delicate peachy pink that came out of this process and it works great with the midnight black cotton fleece contrasting fabric.

I can imagine these little wool stuffed lambs would fit perfectly in this year's Easter basket! They also pair great with our bunny Aster Cottontail.

Enjoy the last days of March!
All the best,
Haviland

Ps. We have exactly ONE Alder Barred Owl left in the shop. This is the final owl of this first edition. I am so happy you all loved them. It has inspired me to start designing the next edition after writing this.