Benja and her Great Big Clock

Tick-tock-tick-tock. I spy a clock.

Behind the clock, I spy a doll.

Tick-tock-tick-tock.

Shy, introverted, reserved, contemplative, perfectly happy to immerse herself in a problem so deeply that she may not even notice what time of day it is, despite the fact that her very responsibility lies in keeping that time clock ticking away.

Behind the scenes.

Cranking.

Turning.

Rotating.

Benja has a clock and she is caretaker of her clock. It's not an easy job being caretaker. One must be resilient, patient, precise, nimble, and constantly present. Benja would have it no other way. She loves her clock. Her clock is high maintenance, that one. This is a clock that needs to be wound, round the clock (no pun intended). This clock has very low tolerance for imprecision. So precise it is that a penny slipped under it's winder has the effect of minutely adjusting the time by milli-seconds per day.

When the winding is neglected at all, the clock eventually dies. And that would make for a very very sad Benja. So, Benja is ever-present, entirely devoted and whole-heartedly spends her day taking care of her clock.

The creation of Benja and her clock was inspired by Big Ben and the clock that lives at the Palace of Westminster, London. I am enthralled by this magnificent piece of engineering work....it's beauty, grace, near perfect precision, and brilliant design. Here's a fascinating article written in October of 2013 about the process of fine-tuning Big Ben's clock. And if you're even more interested, here's a fun fact article about the bell and it's clock.

Benja is a Wee-Bee Mini Elfcup doll. She stands less than 6" (15 cm) tall. She is made with all natural materials. Her doll skin is made with premium quality cotton interlock imported from Europe. She is firmly stuffed with bio-wool made in Oregon.  Her seams are sewn twice for reinforcement.  Her locks are made of mohair yarn tied into a single braid.  She has embroidered facial features. Her facial structure is sculpted giving her a sweet little face with an itty-bitty chin, round chubby cheeks and deeper set eyes. Her cheeks, nose and various body parts are blushed with red beeswax.  She is a sitting doll with sewn joints that are made flexible for easy movement and changing of clothes.  But, with some posing, she is also able to stand very stable. She also has a belly button and a bum.

Benja comes readily dressed for warm or mildly chilly days. Her vest is hand knit with 100% suri alpaca yarn done up reversed stockinette stitch style to give a warm fuzzy feeling to the fiber. Her top is crocheted with a mohair-silk blended yarn and sewn onto a floral cotton fabric. The back fully opens with nickel-plated hood and eye snaps. Her trousers are made from 100% cotton and decorated with a sweet elastic lace trim. Benja's hat is made from pre-washed, clean repurposed 100% cashmere. Her boots are hand knit with 100% suri alpaca yarn.

Benja's clock is a piece of work. Ok...so this is where I take pause to go get some chocolate....concentration food, you know.

The design of this decorative clock took what seemed like an engineering feat in itself....the calculating, the drawing, sketching, scrapping, measuring, planning, manipulating, detailing, scrapping again, then redoing until all the stars aligned. Whew!

So, here she is. Benja's clock is made from a thick cotton fabric lined with extra stiff interface so that she stands tall and strong. She is stuffed with 100% wool. Her face is embroidered on a neutral-colored linen fabric. The artwork is hand embroidered with high quality 100% cotton floss. The art design of the gears was sketched and drawn by me and then transferred to the fabric for embroidering. By the way, if you're interested in learning how to hand embroider, check out Sublime Stitching by Jenny Hart. There are simple and clear step-by-step pictorial tutorials by Jenny. This is where I learned how to do some basic embroidery stitches. This was my first embroidery project and I found it so relaxing and enjoyable.

The clock was designed with a fun crankshaft that actually does rotate manually to control the movement of the clock hand. The crankshaft and hand are attached by a small magnet sewn inside the two pieces. This was designed for practical purposes of assembly and packaging for shipping. 

Benja's clock measures approximately 16 in. (41 cm) at the base, 10 in. (25 cm) tall and 1 in. (3 cm) thick.

Benja is recommended for ages 5+ due to the nature of her delicate design. The small parts on her and the magnetized items may pose as a hazard for children who still enjoy exploring with their mouths and the clothing closures require manipulation by hands that are adept at extra fine motor skills and can handle small parts with ease. If you are interested in giving Benja a home, she is now available in the Etsy shop.

Coming Soon!

Benja, the clock-keeper.

The Making

Designing, by which I mean making up one's own patterns, is the most thrilling and challenging part of toymaking. Assembling patterns and sewing the parts together is an exercise in logic and craft. The problem of carving out from a dead piece of fabric a three-dimensional object with a life of its own, personally, gives me a tremendous sense of satisfaction and achievement. Needless to say, there are plenty of trials and tribulations, out-takes as you would call it. But, the end reward of breathing life into something that was once without character, shape or form is the magical part of the experience of designing. For those who desire true creativity, it is an experience that is part of the whole and should not be missed out on.

Gears

They are fascinating, awe-inspiring, intriguing and beautiful. Think of circles, teeth, pressure angle, contact ratio, mating pinion, geometry, radius, circumference, mathematical curves, parabola, ellipsis, bending stress. Is your head spinning yet? Their creation requires cutting, grinding, broaching, forging, casting, extrusion, plastic and metal injection molding. Is your head aching yet? They are built into almost every machine or moveable device you use on a daily basis...bikes, refrigerators, medical equipment, sewing machines, coffee grinders, vehicles, CLOCKS. Tick-tock-tick-tock goes the clock.

Varsa Nabhas

- The Rains!

The word for rain, in Sanskrit, is Varsa. Nabhas refers to the months by which the rains span in India and it means mist, clouds or sky. This describes our little Varsa.

Varsa loves loves LOVEEES the rain. Most people get the blues on dark, foggy, misty, cloudy, rainy days. Not Varsa! Varsa laughs and jumps for joy with giddy-ness. She dresses up in her most favorite yellow raincoat and her colorful rain boots and she rushes outside to dance in the rain. She dances. She splashes puddles. She digs her toes into the mud. She laughs with the pitter-patter of the drops. She climbs. She explores. She doesn't even need a proper umbrella because she just picks up banana leaves along the way and turn them into pretty practical umbrellas. Varsa Nabhas...that's her name.

I love rain. Rain really does make my heart very happy and it really does encourage relaxation or exploration, depending on the day. Since we were so blessed with heavy rain in December, I heard Varsa calling my name. So, here she is. She sports a banana leaf umbrella as opposed to a traditional one. In many countries where manufactured umbrellas are not available or even affordable for some people, natural umbrellas can be made from palm leaves or banana leaves. And truth is...they work just as well. Have you ever been up close to a big and healthy banana tree? If you have, you understand how big and useful their leaves are and therefore, how practical they are for seeking shelter when the rains come.

Varsa is a Wee-Bee Mini Elfcup doll. She stands less than 6" (15 cm) tall. She is made with all natural materials. Her doll skin is made with premium quality cotton jersey imported from Europe. She is firmly stuffed with bio-wool made in Oregon.  Her seams are sewn twice for reinforcement.  Her locks are made of mohair yarn tied into two pigtails.  She has embroidered facial features. Her facial structure is lightly sculpted to give her an itty-bitty chin, round chubby cheeks and deeper set eyes. Her cheeks, nose and various body parts are blushed with red beeswax.  She is a sitting doll with sewn joints that are made flexible for easy movement and changing of clothes.  She also has a belly button and a bum.

Varsa comes dressed for the rain. Her yellow rain coat is made of linen and lined on the inside with a polka-dotted cotton fabric and closes at the neckline with nickel-plated hook and eye snaps. Her skirt is made of a light cotton fabric and supported underneath with tulle. The waistline of her skirt is embellished with a delicate trim and the skirt opens fully on the back with nickel-plated brass sew-on snaps. Her top is made from a cotton knit fabric. She comes with a cute pair of undies made of a cotton knit fabric and lined with a delicate trim. Her boots are hand knit with a variegated Malabrigo 100% wool yarn.

Varsa comes with a banana leaf umbrella made of 100% wool felt. The banana leaf is entirely edged with a satin stitch and there are over a hundred rows of individually and closely stitched lines that characterize the texture of a banana leaf. The leaf measures a little over 12 inches (30 cm).

Varsa is recommended for ages 5+ due to the nature of her delicate design. The small parts on her may pose as choking hazards for children who still enjoy exploring with their mouths and the clothing closures require manipulation by hands that are adept at extra fine motor skills and can handle small parts with ease. If you are interested in giving Varsa a home, she is now available in the Etsy shop.

Welcome 2015

We've had a proper winter here...as proper as it can get near the coast of Northern California anyway.

Days bring skies painted with fog and clouds, beautiful and heavy with rain.

In December, rain down poured on us leaving a much needed saturation of the ground and a filling of the lakes and reservoirs, albeit the destruction that was caused in some parts of the local terrain.

At the end of it all we received many rainbows to be enjoyed.

2015's January welcomes us with cold, cold days and nights and frosty mornings.

And these, my friends, are wonderful blessings. What a fabulous way to start another year of life.

With that said, Scarlet Elfcup is still in her first year of life...9 months old, she is. As it is with babies and pretty much anything that is in it's first year, there is such exponential growth...the learning, the processing, the experiments on what works, what doesn't. Most delightful is watching the change that occurs and being amazed and bewildered by how rapidly it occurs in that first year.

In 2014, several creations were brought to life:

Rainbaby, a creation inspired from our long spell of drought. Though they have stirred and woken to bring us some good rain, we are still in need of more. Rainbabies, I have decided, will always be here. They were Scarlet Elfcup's very first creations and a personal favorite and I will keep them to send along as companions for some Elfcup friends.

Gardien was released early on as a prototype for the idea of pocket dolls. Since then Gardien has evolved into something even more fun and lovely....the Wee-Bee Mini Elfcup.

I love love love making Wee-Bees. So, without a doubt, these little darlings will stay and we will watch them change and evolve yet even more.

As for the rest; Softlings, Owls and Kitties, and the 14" dolls...their future is a mystery. What is for certain, is that they will evolve either into a better version of themselves or into something completely different altogether.

Additionally, I would like to proudly announce that I have baby fever! Yes, friends...it is the fever. As such, some Elfcup baby patterns are in the making. When they will be ready for release, I'm still not certain. But, for sure, they will be coming round the mountain this year.

Let the adventure begin, shall we?!

For You

Please bring a warm drink. Sit down. Relax. Play the music below. It is for you. Enjoy.

Story Telling...

...has a function deeper than that of entertainment alone. It presents life in a new light. It can open the pathway to a wide range of vision and understanding and it can awaken the perception of beauty in things that are ordinary, put magic into days that are hum-drum.

Each Scarlet Elfcup doll or toy is inspired by something deeply meaningful and personal to me or by something that has moved me deeply and greatly. You see, long before the doll or toy is born, there is already a story that has been woven and the story will eventually conceive the being that comes to life. When I write a story for a doll or a toy it is a way for me to share a bit of my understanding of the world, a way for me to send small messages out into the world, a way for me to regard and respect the understanding of other people's perspectives and absorb that perspective back into my own world. And so, I dream, I create, I weave the words, and then I let it be. And most of the time...the story ends there.

But, on some occasions, the story will not just end there. The story will rise once again to show the wonder and mystery that are the elements of life and growth all around us. On some occasions, customers have come back to re-tell their own stories...stories that are deeply personal and meaningful to them...as close to the heart as one can get. It is when these stories are told that we know the world of imagination has come to life. The child or the child from within who has learned to look upon a doll or a toy as something more than mere sawdust and stuffing is inclined to awaken in themselves a treasury of personal tales. Much more, they are able to have respect for other people's treasures and to respect the sentiment that values them.

With all this said, for those who have shared their extraordinary, deeply meaningful and moving stories, I thank you for these stories and for adding that much more beauty into my life. You provide yet another view of the world, painted by the colors from your own.

To all, may your Christmas be filled with love, laughter, and warmth as you tell your stories and as you receive the ones told to you. And may you keep on passing the magic and wonder of it all on to the little ones in your life so that they might also share in the beauty of this wondrous world. Merry Christmas to all. And to all a good night!