The Magic Box

Tweet

The picture is of Petey the brave cat that ran and hid in the bedroom when I opened the woven footstool. The purple bear is one of my creations. Sorry it's sold. I've been kind of bored since I broke a couple of ribs, and today I decided that I would ignore my doctor's orders and tackle the storage shed that I've been wanting to clean up. It's been not quite two weeks since the accident so I should be ready for.... I have rubber maid bins stacked three high in the storage locker, plus a ton of loose stuff around them that heaven knows what it is. I know there is bear making stuff and possibly completed teddy bears, and even some fur...acrylic, mohair and fur coats that are from the sixties and earlier that I am going to recycle into bears and other creatures and donate the money to the local humane societies. I just need to get to the containers....but these darned ribs.... So I was sitting here sipping on my morning tea and then going to make my morning coffee thinking about tackling the storage when my eyes lit on the little (well it's only 24 inches square by 24 inches tall) wicker woven basket with a lid. I decided to open it and take a peek. Slowly I opened the lid. Petey who had been sitting waiting for the lid to come off ran for his life and hid in the bedroom. I carefully set the lid to one side and the morning sunlight fell on the contents. I pondered them for a couple of moments and then took a sip of tea. Since there was no screaming from the studio/livingroom, Petey returned and peeked in the basket. He sneezed in disgust, made a hummmmpppphhh noise and marched off to the bedroom, tail held high, to take his morning nap. So much for my scaring the daylights out of him, it won't ruin his schedule and he wouldn't admit it scared him anyhow. I started going through the stuff. I had packed it before I moved out of the cabin at the lake. I found many of the patterns I designed and thought they were lost in the fire and gone forever. Needless to say I was thrilled at finding them!!! I dug a bit deeper and struck mohair. For those of you who don't know what mohair is, it is hair that is clipped from the mohair goat and processed into fabric and the hair that isn't woven into the fabric is used to make the fabric "hairy" for teddy bears and other animals. It is a time consuming process and through much of my research I found that Germany is the leading producer of the fabric. That is why a yard of mohair is so expensive. It can run from $90 for a short pile mohair to over $500 for a really long pile mohair. I don't know how much mohair fabric would run, I don't know of any stores locally that carry mohair fabric. Anyhow that is why any mohair stuffed animal is so expensive,, Steiff is even more so. If my ribs didn't hurt so badly I would have jumped up and danced a jig when I found all that mohair! I found a bonanza of about $600 in mohair fur. Then in the very bottom of the basket I found a note written in my beloved Bill's hand writing. While it wasn't telling me per-se not to tackle the storage shed, he was letting me know through the magic box to take it easy for awhile and let my ribs heal. This is one time I'm going to pay attention....thank you Bill!