Post # 22: Holly Berries for Holy Bear

     Here it is...I actually finished the collar I had promised for Holly Berry. If you're wondering about the title of my blog today, it turns out that some of the younger members of Holly Berry's extended family have trouble pronouncing her name, as is the case with young folk sometimes, so occasionally she has been called Holy Bear. Well, we met just the other day, and I've got to tell you, either adorable name suits her just fine. She is one cute wiggle-butt, and I mean that in the most endearing way! What I don't need to tell you, is that I am a self-proclaimed dog-addict. I love dogs. I always have. I always will. It is not by accident that I end up involved in groups of fiber-art type people and almost all of them either have dogs or cats, or take in foster pets, or volunteer at the Humane Society, or have farm animals like chickens, goats, llamas, alpacas, & who knows what else. They say like attracts like. Fiber. Fur. You get it. But dogs are my first love. Enough said. (Sorry DH)!
 
     As I revealed in my last post, the final collar ended up looking quite different than the way I had originally laid it out (and there must have been about fifteen other variations in-between).

On the left is her original collar.On the right is the design I began with.

I ditched the white beads and added some shells I had found at the beach that I painted with iridescent paint.

 The leaves and stems on my fig tablecloth just begged for some playtime. I guess I have a bit of an attention problem. Maybe it's more of a distraction problem. Actually, it's not a problem at all. Hmm. Smile.

 The night I started on the collar I had just hemmed another pair of jeans for DH. The pieces of denim I had cut from the bottom of each leg were sitting on my table, and once again I thought this would make a fantastic base for a dog collar. If Dear Hubby was taller I guess I would have had to come up with another solution, but I love denim for this purpose and this is simply the way it was supposed to be. I also wanted to add some leather, which I cut and braided, and I added the shells for a Florida influence. The flowers are crocheted in cotton, and it is non-mercerized, so it is not ultra-shiny, and will not wear as well as the mercerized type. It will fade and it will get fuzzy. I've tried these out on Alice and I actually like the effect that age and wear has on it. It's kind of like how it's acceptable that your favorite pair of jeans fades and breaks in and wears over time...it just makes it better, even though it makes them look older.

 I could go on and on adding things, like these size 11/0 pearl white beads, till the cows come home. Sometimes I don't know when to stop or when to stop changing my mind, but it's all part of a fun and interesting process. I've spent most of my life following directions, orders. road-maps, signs, charts, graphs, and other people and their ideas, but lately I've been breaking out of that mold and I've really been enjoying mixing things up a bit: still using all of my organized charts and graphs in the crocheted flowers and the beadwork and knitting that I so love to do, but now adding a dimension of play that I had not fully allowed myself to experience before. THIS IS FUN!

     At this point I was auditioning different crystal and bead embellishments, pinning them in place temporarily until I could make up my mind. I eventually traded out the square crystal for a Swarovski margarita. 

It seemed to me that the colors needed a bit more oomph and then it hit me...Holy Bear! Holly Berry needs some holly berries! Also, since all birds and dogs seem to love each other, I felt that Holy Bear should have a little bird sitting on her shoulder chirping away, waiting for her three eggs to hatch. See her little suede beak?

Here's Holly Berry, aka Holy Bear, posing with her mom, Deborah. 

It's not always easy to get a wiggle-butt dog to pose for the camera.  ;-)

 Isn't she cute? She's so darn cute I can blame her for my inability to decide which photos to include,

so I included almost all of them, and It's Holly Berry's Fault! 

I especially like how well her new collar coordinates with her mom's knitted jacket. 

Thanks Deborah, and thanks Holly Berry, for helping me to find my peace. I think you look beautiful in your new collar and I really enjoyed creating it.

Finding peace in creativity,

Meryl