Introducing...

Jodie's Quilting Rubber Duckie!

Check out my blog for more on the development of the duckie!

Having long dreamt of designing a rubber duckie and now that dream is fast becoming a reality. From my first sketch through the sculptor's fine tuning, to the molding and painting at the factory in Japan, these are the steps in the making of the duckie.

First I sent photos of old rubber duckies and a sketch to the sculptor. I was after a soft look, like the pretty ducks made in the 60's that I had collected from eBay.

The first sketch formed a starting point for communication. The duck had to ring true to quilters, so I brought the sculptor up to speed on what is an isn't quilt-y. The first issue was the quilting--this isn't a mattress pad! I scanned photos of stippling from a quilting book and sent them to Craig.  Big improvement. And the chain-pieced triangles ended up looking like flags, so we switched to squares.

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Now for the sculpt. Imagine my excitement when an e-mail would come in from Craig, clicking to open it... Wow!

She's so pretty! We stall had a ways to go with the quilting; this looks more like couched ribbon.

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Ah, just right.

Now the sculpt was off to Japan to be molded.

Next Craig asked me to color in the duck. I can do anything with fabric, but paint... !

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Yup, they took what I did literally, so I explained that what I was after was softer, pastel-y. But gosh, this is the real molded duck, hand painted in Japan. the sculpt is so wonderful I don't care what color she is!

Next the factory will send the second go at the painting...

Jodie's Quilting Rubber Duckie will be available for sale from Jodie and Company. Estimated availability is November 2006.

Celebriducks