What is it about mini things that we love so much? We love mini cars, mini people (think they’re called babies), mini creatures like puppies and kittens and, well, just about anything ‘little’ that has a bigger counterpart. Being miniaturised immediately adds a big dollop of cute, and who doesn’t love cute?
When I received Tone Finnanger’s latest Tilda project book, ‘Winter Wonderland’, I was immediately attracted to some miniature figures she had included. There are boy and girl versions of a fox, bear, bunny and deer – all in great little fabric prints and with gorgeous little faces. None of them stand over 15cm, which is pretty tiny – but they pack a powerful punch of cute! My initial reaction to them was: “yes! I have to make these”. My almost immediate follow up reaction was: “no! they will be so fiddly!”.
My initial reaction did eventually win and I made three of the little boy critters about a month ago, complete with their super little shorts. They weren’t perfect and the super little shorts drove me insane as I tried to make them to a standard I was happy with. I said to myself: “hmm, they’re cute, but I will never make anything that small again – even using my surgical hemostats (viscious scissor like pincers with a vice like grip), turning out the tiny body parts after hand sewing them was very tricky.
Then I posted them on facebook and everyone loved them. I mentioned to a few people that there were girl versions of these that had twirly skirts, and as they seemed quite keen to see these and I do like to please people if I can (plus am partial to a twirly skirt myself), I decided to give them a try. As usual with these things, second time around was much easier and I was much more pleased with the final critters, so have decided to add them to the shop – I think I can bear to make the little blighters again…