I'm Lady Fortune, and I'm a hugger!

So, as we reviewed in this post, the Birka Queen's Challenge for 2016 is PIXAR.

My garb will be based off the following character from Toy Story 3:



Lotso Huggin' Bear!

He smells like strawberries!

You see, I've had the length of fuchsia damask in my stash for a couple years and I keep passing it when sewing other projects and I realized when this was announced this is what that fabric was waiting for.

If you haven't seen Toy Story 3, it's wonderful. If you're in your late twenties early thirties you might want to watch it with a box of tissues. I saw it at the Leicester Drive-in with friends, and we all got teary. Just a minivan full of weepy late 20-somethings. Move along...

And if you HAVE seen Toy Story 3 you know the secret: Lotso is the villain. The strawberry-scented evil overlord of Sunnyside Daycare Center.

That's more like the real Lotso.

The dress style I have come to favor are the extremely low necked dresses of the Venetian region from 1515-1530 or so. Which is perfect with his white belly, it's the the low scoop front of one of those gown.




Portrait of a Married Couple - Lorenzo Lotto
c. 1523-24
The Hermiage, St Petersburg





The Seduction - Giovanni Cariani
c. 1515-1516
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Three Courtesans and Four Gentleman - Giovanni Cariani
c 1515
Private Collection

The dress in white here is what I'm basing my preliminary sketch on for the most part. See here for the finished product!



I'm unsure if I'll do the mallet right yet...

I've also created a strawberry shaped pouch to wear that I'm beading in tiny gold seed beads and embroidering the green leaves.

I based the pattern off of a the Strawberry Treat Box on Oh Happy Day!



It's so cute!



The pattern

I patterned out the pouch on red wool, left over from Viking Sailor Moon. A total of 5 panels.


The strawberry takes shape!

 The felt is all one piece, I just did a small whip stitch on the edges of the panels to give it some shape and body. This way the panels know where to fold when the top drawstring is closed.


The leaves!

 The leaves were drafted by trial and error. I liked the layered look of the different leaves.



What a finished panel will look like.

As we all know, I get impatient and have to see how things will look when done. I'm not 100% sold on the gold blanket stitching, but it does give some definition to the leaves.

I'm very excited for this challenge.