Hiccups -- And the Start of the Circus Set

At the beginning of the year, I make a list of the ornaments I want to make that year for the people who receive one annually.   Then I vary my strategy from year-to-year.  Sometimes I give myself the months of January and February to make whatever ornaments I want for myself and then move on to everyone else's.  Sometimes I take a one-for-them/one-for-me approach.  This year, I decided to do the ones for everyone else as fast as I could and then make whatever I wanted for the rest of the year.  That proved to be a valuable incentive because I was done with everyone else's by the end of March.  

I really like designing new ornaments and I have some of those to do this year.  But I also love the Carolyn DeAngelis patterns and there are lots of hers I still want to do.  Sometimes the timing works out so that I finish an ornament and don't have the time to design a new one before I have more stitching time.  That's when I reach for one of Carolyn's existing patterns.  That's what happened with this guy.  I finished an ornament in the middle of a movie and wanted to start cutting out another one right away.  I loved Clif's version of Hiccups and loved him when I did him for my nephew back in 2009 and always thought I'd like to make him for myself.  Here are mine and Clif's:

As I sat cutting out the little pieces, I thought of Carolyn's other clown patterns and thought maybe I'd make a set.  Caleb said, "You know what you should do?  Make a whole circus set!  And use beads and sequins like you did on the Wizard of Oz and Wicked ones."  He's nothing if not particular.  But a circus set . . . . indeed.  Yes.  This could work.  I'm not gonna lie, for several days I obsessed over the idea of this.  RING MASTER!  ELEPHANTS!  SEAL WITH A BALL!  I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at clipart on Etsy for inspiration.  And in looking through my DeAngelis patterns, I realized I already had a lot to work with. 

Caleb and I brainstormed and we came up with a twelve-piece set.  Yikes.  That's ambitious!  And with sequins and beads, no less.  Whew -- I'm tired already!  But I really do love the sequins and beads and the sparkle they add to the tree.  I wouldn't want to do them on every ornament, but the circus seems like the right place for them.  I get my glass seed beads at JoAnn Fabrics and I order my sequins from Cartwright's Sequins.  I use mostly metallic sequins in 4mm or 5mm.  Try not to spend all your inheritance on that site.

I'm through with the first half of the set and wanted to share them with you right away.  Here's the guy who started it all!

Popcorn

Once I finished Hiccups, I knew I wanted to do one of the other clown patterns.  My kids were displeased.  Apparently, they're not fans of clowns.  When did clowns get such a bad rap, anyway?  I had never seen the Popcorn pattern made up before, so I decided to give it a go.  I labored hard over color choice so he wouldn't clash with Hiccups because these are the things I lose sleep over.

I decided to use multi-colored sequins with clear beads on the body and white sequins and multi-colored beads on the sleeves.  I love how it turned out!  I also decided not to do a white face on this one.  I went with the flesh felt and then cut a piece from white for that area around the mouth like some clowns have.  I think he turned out great!

Ringmaster/Lion Tamer

Okay . . . I'm not the only one in my house who gets a little excited about felt ornaments.  (We don't get out much.)  Once I said I was making a circus set, everyone started giving me helpful suggestions.  Mostly along this line:

You're making a lion tamer, right? 

You've GOT to make a lion tamer!

You can't have a circus without a lion tamer!

I had already designed a ringmaster because I figure he's the star of the show!  I went through the Deangelis patterns to see what I had that I could adapt and stumbled upon Lucky Larry, the groom.  His jacket was perfect with that lapel situation.  Just needed to add a bowtie.  And different pants.  And boots instead of shoes.  And a top hat.  And a cane in his hand.  No big deal -- right?  

But my crew was still squawking about a lion tamer.  So I did some Googling and ran into a little dilemma.  The ringmaster and the lion tamer apparently shop at the same store.  

See what I mean?  I don't know . . . maybe it really is the same guy doing both jobs in some circuses but my felt ornament people were not meant to multi-task.  I was all ready to just go ahead with the ringmaster as planned and tell the fam to get over themselves.  But I know these people.  Every Christmas for the rest of my life, I'd hear, " You never did make a lion tamer."  So at the last second, I cut a different jacket with one arm going up, cut the cane in half and stuck a piece of black wire in it for a whip, and just used a pipe cleaner for a hoop.  He turned out pretty darn good!  

His body is the standard size I make my ornaments, but the whip and hoop make this ornament look huge!  And guess what I noticed when I got him done?  Foxy also shops at that store -- LOL!!!  

Here are the adaptations I made to Larry to create the new pattern for the Ringmaster/Lion Tamer:

And I figured out how to deal with that top hat so the sides of the head don't pull in like they did on my Good Cheer ornament.  I'll share that in an upcoming post.  And now you can all camp out and wait for the lion!  

Calliope

As I looked through loads of circus pictures, I kept seeing all the fancy, decorated circus horses and knew I had to do one.  The Carolyn DeAngelis pattern really didn't do anything for me:

See what I mean?  Not very circusy.  Then I thought of the carousel horse pattern called Dobin-Go-Round:

Still not quite right.  But I did remember that I was able to use that one and adapt it when I made Peggy.  If I did it once, I could do it again -- right?  I bought a circus-related clipart set from Etsy that had several images I want to use for ornaments.  It had a horse I loved and I was able to tweak this carousel horse to make it work.  Because I'm a little over-zealous when it comes to these ornaments, I sometimes get hung up on a name.  I even went so far as to Google "famous circus horses" but that didn't turn up anything that set me on fire.  I finally decided on Calliope.  That would probably make more sense for a carousel horse, but I don't care.  Once my brain got stuck on that name, that's all it could be!

I feel like enough of this pattern is mine that I can share it with you:

Oh . . . and I decided on those feather plumes after I'd already made the pattern.  I actually just cut those freehand from felt.  

Bobby

In all my perusing of circus clipart, I saw a bear standing on top of a ball.  "That looks easy enough," I thought.  I went to my Carolyn Deangelis bear patterns to see if I had a bear the right shape that I could adapt and, lo and behold, there was Bobby riding a unicycle!  It was like Carolyn had designed the circus herself!!

Trumpet & Lil Toot

This one was super easy and a no-brainer to add to the set.  The only change I made was to add that little thing to the mama elephant's head just to make her a little fancier.  I got that idea after looking at some pictures of circus elephants for inspiration.  I had this 9x12 piece of textured felt that I bought years ago.  I remember thinking it'd be perfect for elephant skin and it was!  This one worked up quick and easy.