New Creatures in the Golf Club Area

Hello again, Everyone:  Cy Bear back again, and after that short week, slightly breathless!  Where did those days we DID have, go?

While Coldham Cuddlies were off line earlier this year, following the various technical issues we suffered, as you know Isobel's sewing activities were not hindered.  What with the Clerical Bears, who have kept her busy - and still do, and the four Bears (Two Yellow and Two Silver Grey) she was  asked to make (all of whom I've posted about here in recent weeks), she also was approached by a keen Golfer to see if she could make him a Custom Order Otter Golf Club Cover.

As you know, Isobel is always game to have a go, but is useless when it comes to creating a pattern from scratch.  However, fortuitously, daughter Clare had come across an Otter pattern (from Pinterest) a week or two earlier, and had sent it to Isobel - saying she thought that making an Otter Toy would be a great addition to the Coldham Cuddlies Shop...(https://www.etsy.com/shop/coldhamcuddlies ).  We're very lucky having her nearby offering such constructive ideas!  

While researching it further, Isobel got in touch with the original creator of the pattern to ask if she would mind us using her original as a Golf Club Cover,  "Fluffmonger" is the name of the creator, and we were given the go-ahead - and asked to let the originator have photos of the finished piece, as well as us giving her credence for her pattern (She creates other animal patterns, and makes them as well). 

This we did - as we are doing here too - when we sent the Otter Golf Club Cover off to our customer, MrPH.  (He is a member of an English Golf Club - near Liverpool - and many of the members have club head covers with animals related to their surnames, which are also often their nick-names among the group of friends).  Our customer's surname was Holt:  Otters live in "holts", so the obvious animal head he needed for this purpose was that of an Otter:  so, he'd found Isobel/ColdhamCuddlies on the internet, and approached us to see if we could help.

The original picture is for two stand-alone toys (Mother and Baby Otter):  so Isobel decided to use the top half of the Mother Toy pattern, and the arms that were also included in the pattern.  She also tried a new technique for stuffing the animal head part of our Golf Club Covers.  Normally, she makes a lining for each head, and lightly stuffs the resulting space with our usual polyester fibre stuffing.  However, we've had a supply of white long-pile plush fabric in our stash, which ought to be used for making polar bears or other white toys.  The fabric pile is too thick for our dressed Rabbit Toys, the pure white colour is really impractical when it comes to long-term Toy usage, and it's been taking up valuable space in our store cupboard.  So, Isobel cut out identical pattern pieces of this white plush fabric, and sewed each Brown fleece fabric to them, with the pile (fluffy side) on the wrong side of each fleece piece. This results in a less bulky final product, and a harder-wearing inside lining to each Club Cover.  We thus had a stuffed Otter Head ready to be attached to the knitted Club Handle cover which forms the rest of the Golf Club Head Cover.  (It's also a lot less cumbersome than the other Heads, although no one has complained about them to date).

The two separate bits joined together

In order to make our Otter Club Cover more manageable (the flapping arms would not be an acceptable "look"), Isobel decided he needed to have his arms actually holding something - and tried her hand at creating a fish!  Now this was real experimental stuff on her part, you understand, but we were both delighted with the outcome:  because the end result does actually resemble a fish!

Fish being held in place with pins prior to sewing securely to the Club Cover

This arrangement is in addition to what happens with our Golf Club covers to date, which have a collar where the head and handle pieces meet, and look like these:

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/573989964/black-and-white-panda-bear-head

This is the kind of golf club that all these Golf Club Covers are intended to cover.

This one is the sample Isobel was given when she first made these items for sale in our Shop, and although the more modern examples are made with more light weight materials, they have a lot more technical features added to them - which is a very good reason that Golfers like to look after their clubs by giving them covers.


Golfers also like to keep their special clubs from damaging each other when they are in their golf bags being "caddied" around the golf courses during their games:  and these club covers do just that as well..

Here you can see the finished Otter Golf Club Cover on the Golf Club I've shown you:  and here it is when it arrived with MrPH:

MrPH was also kind enough to write to his golfing chums in the following terms - (this was a non-Etsy connection, as many of our Orders can be).

"May I introduce you to Isobel, cc’ed above, who recently hand made my “Otter” head cover for the princely sum of £15 plus delivery. Isobel is aware of the animal nickname tradition we have…. 

So…..if any of you are interested in a bespoke peacock, wombat, seahorse or whatever…….Isobel may be able to help!!

Isobel can be contacted through - www.etsy.com/shop/coldhamcuddlies, and then scroll down the left side of the page to the section "Golf Club Head Covers". She can also be contacted on pimstgabriel@hotmail.com if some are a bit hesitant about the "cuddlies" connection!

Cheers!"

This did result in one of the 17 fellow golfers he contacted responding fairly promptly (using the suggested alternative link!).  Apparently his nickname is "The Peacock" (or something like it), and Isobel felt that the response, although very welcome, was somewhat doubtful as to whether a Peacock Golf Club Cover could actually be created!  (Don't tell anyone, at the time, so, too was Isobel!). 

However, as time has passed, and a change from the production of Clerical Bears began to be contemplated, Isobel has been cogitating.  That's always a "dangerous" thing - and just recently she has started to work on a prototype Peacock Golf Club Cover (without approaching the gentleman concerned!). 

Using the new modus operandi for creating Golf Club Covers - one semi-complete wing - centre front

If it works, Isobel will offer it to him (she kept the correspondence on file, for just this possibility).  If it doesn't, well there's no harm done........but watch this space!  The finished product, if the Challenger doesn't want to go through with the idea, and if it's acceptable quality, will then become a new member of the Coldham Cuddlies family!  We'll keep you updated as we go along!

See you all again next week, everyone.

Your Friend, Cy Bear.