Matlock The Hare

THE MAKING OF A MATLOCK...

Ever since Matlock's first ever watercolour, one thing I've always wanted to do was make a Matlock figure - so this week, and over the last few sun-turns, when not painting or working on the new book, I decided to give it a go - choosing the right fabric, working out a pattern, then giving it a go...

Day 1 - head and ears painted, green cap on...

I hadn't really done anything like this in far too many sun-turns, but it did bring me back to schooldays - rows of us struggling to thread needles as we taught the best way to insert zips etc... A bit of a glopped-up pain at the time, but something that perhaps has been lost these days. So it's saztaculous to see a recent resurgence in handmade crafts and practical skills beginning to happen. And perhaps that is the real heart of Winchett Dale, Matlock and all the other peffa-clottabussed creatures who live there - a love of simple things...

Anyway, after completing torso, head and ears, I found some more time the very next sun-turn, and took out the needle and thread once more...

Hood and cloak made, hand-painted sleeves and hood...

I suppose that by now I should have been getting on with other things, but the more the little chap came together, the more I found myself wanting to finish it (Matlock tells me that this is always Proftulous' excuse when it comes to eating tweazle-pies!) determined to make his long purple shoes, a wand, and add some handmade copper fastenings I made with a block and hammer, then curled with pliers...

Slowly getting there...saztaculous fastening on!

And then, it was over - he was done - the first ever collectable handmade Matlock cloth figure - hand painted and complete with his very own crystal-mounted magical-wand! Once again, Matlock had taken me to those majickal places of my youth I'd forgotten - but then, he 's always doing that...and I'm sure he will continue to do to whoever ends up owning him....