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The Fabulous Fleece Company Blog

The making of Granny Greymuzzle

While most Fabulous Fleece customers buy our sheepskins to use rugs and throws in their homes, we sometimes receive orders where they are being using in more unusual ways.

Our fleeces have been ordered to dress characters for theatre or TV - the English National Opera for their production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, or the production team needing costumes for making a Game of Thrones style TV advert for Aldi.

We’ve also had talented makers out there buying a fleece to dress a rocking sheep before. So we were really intrigued to find out about Granny Greymuzzle - a sheep character crowned with hair made from one of our lambskins that was created by York-based artist Jay McGahan.

After initially asking if Jay would mind sharing some pictures and the process of how she made Granny Greymuzzle, we also discovered a compelling backstory behind the character and its creator. It’s an inspiring insight into how 29 year old Jay has used her artistic talents to create a character that helps her connect with an enthusiastic animal-loving community and also cope with her chronic illness.

So over to Jay to tell us more…

"In 2011, I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease, a spinal condition that causes constant pain in my lower back and lower half of my body. So I had to give up my career as a tattooist as I was no longer able to work. I've seen specialists and had a number of treatments, but there’s currently no cure in my case, so I've had to adjust to life being chronically ill.

"With medication, aids, and regular physiotherapy I'm coping better now, and despite my health issues, I still continue with my art as I find a lot of joy in creating things. However they are mostly hobby projects for myself or my friends because my health means they progress at a very slow pace.

Jay's myriad materials for making her characters

Finding the furry fandom

Before I can tell you about Granny, I'll have to tell you about the furries - in its most basic description, it is a fandom of people who enjoy anthropomorphic characters. That's animals with human like characteristics; a good example is Disney cartoons. The furry community is huge, and heavily driven by people being creative and making up their own characters through art and writing, or even music, videos and costumes.

We have conventions and meet-ups in cities all over the world, and often do entertainment for kids and fund raising for charity. In fact, I recently went to the UK's biggest furry convention 'ConFuzzled' 2019, where they raised over £30,000 for The Vale Wildlife Hospital. It's through this amazing community of artists and animal lovers that I found life-long friends as it's a very supportive group.

I've been a furry since I was around 13 year old and first discovered them on the internet, but it wasn't until my health issues stopped me working that I invested more of my creative efforts into making my own fursuit, which is what we call our costumes.

Creative costumes with many purposes

"Granny for me, is just a fun costume to wear when I go to these sort of events. But for everyone that has their own suit, bought from makers or built themselves, they can mean and be used for so much more.

These fursuits are used for TV and movies, for charity fundraising, general entertainment and performance. Some people even use them to help ease their anxiety and depression by becoming something fun and different for a while. I know that creating Granny and using her has certainly made me happy."

Designing around disability

"I had made some characters before Granny, but I eventually figured out that with my health conditions I needed a fursuit that would be easy and comfy for me to wear, and not look out of place using my cane or rollator.

That's when I came up with the idea for Granny, I designed her specifically around my disability and aids, and so that people would be more likely to treat me gently. People often design their own characters as an ideal animal version of themselves, or an alter ego they can play.

In Granny's case, she's very much a character. Her second name 'Grey-muzzle', is an affectionate term people in our fandom use for older members of our community, so 'Granny Greymuzzle' was the name I based her whole design around."

Finding strength in weakness

"Most people have just been calling her Granny though, since she's the first elderly character that I know of that has been made into a fursuit. And as for why a sheep? I just like sheep, and one of my first stuffed animals as a kid was a big fluffy one that I still have.

The response I got while making Granny's début at ConFuzzled was amazing - what really touched me was how many people said how Granny reminded them of their own grandmothers. One person in particular told me how they too have chronic health issues and they thought Granny was a great idea of how to play off that weakness."

How Granny Greymuzzle was made

"The base is made out of upholstery foam, which I hot glued, carved and sculpted into shape. Then I taped the base up with regular parcel tape, then cut it off and made darts and seams for it to lay flat on paper to make a temporary pattern. The rest is mostly just a lot of hand sewing and acrylic paint.

Granny’s eyes, nails and hoofs were sculpted out of wax clay, which I then molded using silicone and made resin casts of. The part you see out of, the iris and pupil, is acrylic painted buckram. Her eyelashes are made from foam and cut out plasticard. And her glasses are just some metal craft rings and a bit of metal from the DIY store that I haphazardly stuck together!

Lastly, she also has a small 9V battery powered fan inside her snout, which makes wearing her a lot more tolerable, but she's still quite hot to wear! I also have a ice-pack neck scarf that was specifically designed for costume performers to help with the heat."

Wow - the resourcefulness and attention to detail that has gone into this character is astounding. Thank you so much Jay for sharing your personal story - your creativity and determination in the face of such adversity is truly inspiring.

If you’d like to find out more about Jay’s work, please click these links below.

https://www.instagram.com/grizguts
https://www.facebook.com/GrizGuts
https://www.deviantart.com/grizguts

All images ⓒ Jay McGahan.

Autumn style for your home

Image credit: mlovesm.com

There's lots to enjoy about autumn before the Christmas chaos sets in. Yes, Halloween is a big focus of the season but it seems a shame to decorate your home for just this one night of activity when anything spooky is outdated come November 2nd.

So we've compiled some inspiration for decoration that more widely celebrates the fall season, to bring in the beautiful colours and textures we're enjoying outside.

Hang a natural wreath

Wreaths may be a more of a Christmas tradition, but autumn ones look equally great on your front door and make a stylish entrance. There are lots of natural foliage you can entwine together to make one, and designs can range natural mono shades to something with more colour.

This great article by interiors stylist and blogger Kerry Lockwood has some great ideas for different styles of autumn wreaths to inspire you.

Image credits: 1. Anthropologie.com; 2. kerrylockwoodindetails.co.uk

Add in autumnal colours

Take a colour cue from the changing shades in the trees and landscape outside - palettes of golden ochre, pumpkin orange, russet red and deep chestnut brown.

You could bring these colours in to your interior temporarily, by changing soft furnishings and accessories. Celebrate natural brown shades by creating a display of small brown glass bottles, or make a larger brown demijohn a focal point to hold some autumnal foliage.

Image credits: 1. hello-hello.fr; 2. bestinterior.live

If you're looking for a more permanent style update, you could use the autumnal palette to inspire a new interior scheme as an accent colour used on walls or with key pieces of furniture. Pumpkin orange or russet red looks great contrasted against dark grey walls, and neutral furniture can be pepped up by some ochre yellow paint.

Image credits: 1. homegardenpoint.com; 2. clemaroundthecorner.com

Layer on soft and chunky textures

The temperatures are dropping now and fires are being lit, so add lots of layers to your chairs, sofas and beds with big cable knit blankets and sheepskins, of course!

If the blankets feature autumnal golden and russet shades then all the better. They look great folded and piled on top of a deep brown leather trunk or wooden blanket box.

Images credits: 1. polkadotfarm.typapad.co.uk; 2. makingyourhomebeautiful.com

Light candles to add ambience

The clocks have gone back, which means there's going to be a lot more dark hours coming up so make your indoors a cosy place to retreat to by adding lots of candles or warm fairy lights. Particularly great when added to your favourite reading nook!

Image credits: 1. jessica-elizabeth.net; 2. Unknown via Pinterest

Bring seasonal fruits and foliage inside

There is lots of decorative materials to be harvested from outdoors at this time of year. Autumn sees an abundance of apples, which are great to have for table displays, as are pumpkins and mini gourds.

Image credits: 1. ninahendrick.com; 2. thecottagemarket.com

You can also use pine cones and acorns to make natural garlands to string across some plain walls. Or take some nice crisp leaves collected from the falling trees and simply tape them to the walls for something super quick!

Image credits: 1. couchstyle.de; 2. thehappyhousie.com

These are just a few ideas for ways to bring the best of fall into your home interior. For more seasonal inspiration, visit our autumnal home style board on Pinterest.

Sending your sheepskin to a specialist cleaner

When your sheepskin desperately needs bringing back to life, you might be frightened to take drastic action. But there’s no need to be daunted or haunted if you use a sheepskin cleaning specialist. We tried the service out for ourselves to see what’s involved...

Sheepskin owners will know how quickly a fleece can embed itself as a beloved item in their household. After a while though, lots of love and usage means the sheepskin can start to lose its lustre.

Regular brushing and washing - if your fleece is small enough to fit in your machine and you follow our care guide - will often do the trick although please take into consideration that some sheepskins may be heat sensitive and set hard in the process. However if you have a large or bespoke sewn skin or one that’s in a sorry state from years of use, you will need to have your sheepskin professionally cleaned.

That’s when sending it to a specialist leather and hide cleaner is the best plan. But if you’ve not used a service like this before, it might be a little daunting to send your precious fleece off for treatment.

Finding a sheepskin cleaning expert

To get some behind-the-scenes insight into what the process involves, we sent an item to London based family business Ace of Suedes, a specialist leather and hide cleaners. To really set them a challenge, we picked one of Lucy’s well-worn quad sheepskins embedded in dog hair that had seen heavy use when travelling to numerous country fairs in her van.

We were confident it would be in safe hands though, as Ace of Suedes cleans hundreds of sheepskins every week. Its specialist machines, equipment and processes are uniquely tailored to help clean, re-oil, brush and finish all types of sheepskin, suede, leather, furs and hides.

The company also has many years' experience - it was set up over 30 years ago and has since become the first choice supplier of specialist cleaning services to dry cleaners throughout London, the south east and beyond.

The cleaning process in more detail

So when your sheepskin first arrives, it is booked in, inspected and photographed to assess its current state. Ace of Suedes’ experience makes them able to advise customers quite accurately on the likely results and outcome of treatment, which helps to manage expectations.

Happily most sheepskin rugs can be successfully cleaned and so they embark on a two-step process that includes being infused in genuine leather oil. This is different from a standard dry cleaning method, where the chemicals and temperatures used would damage the skin in most cases, making it very dry and discoloured.

Ace is equipped with big machines too, so can cope with sheepskins like our quad - plus much bigger and heavier ones.

In most cases, the cleaning process will remove most unwanted odours such as those from pets, but if smells remain, an ozone chamber is used to tackle them and neutralise germs and bacteria. Ozone is also especially useful for water, mould or smoke damaged items.

After cleaning, the skin is tumbled for a considerable amount of time before being thoroughly brushed to try and regain its original texture and appearance.

If you’re thinking of sending in an animal hide for cleaning, and wondering about that process, the cleaning part is largely the same but the finishing varies depending on the type of item / skin.

Before and after - the big reveal

To see the final results of the skin we sent and there’s nothing like a good before and after photo comparison to show the transformation. So here’s the big reveal…

Although these images were taken by different cameras in different light conditions (the before pic was taken at Ace and the after pics were taken by Lucy when returned) you can clearly see the massive improvement in the appearance of the skin to the right. So it's safe to say we were very happy with the final results.

Here’s a detail of the cleaned fleece’s texture with full fluffiness restored...

Based on our experience, we’d highly recommend getting your Fabulous Fleece or animal hide cleaned by Ace of Suedes. They offer a free weekly collection and delivery service throughout London and the surrounding counties. If you live further afield in the UK, you can still access Ace’s services by posting your item to them.

For more details visit https://aceofsuedes.co.uk, call 0208 981 3232 or email info@aceofsuedes.co.uk

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