I am so overwhelmed by the response to the otter naming competition!
Such a big thank you to all who entered and to those who helped to promote it and 'liked' it on Facebook - what lovely, lovely people you are.
So as I sit here with my cuppa I am forced to decide on a winner and it's SO HARD as they are all so brilliant. I didn't envisage this when I started and now I feel a bit sad. So to make myself feel a tiny bit less cruel and beastly I am going to have an overall winner and two runners up, who will win otter keyrings, each featuring one of their chosen names and hobbies.
RUNNERS UP (in no particular order)
A cheeky little otter keyring is on its way to:
BECCA - as your hobbies were all so brilliant (stamp- collecting and torches!) and
KEEPER - as I just howled with laughter at yours - 'at his happiest when viewing exposed piping' and Wellington's 'little otter brain' will have me chuckling for hours.
But the WINNER for the sheer depth and magnitude of her descriptions and because they made me laugh AND cry is:
LOULOUTE & BÉATRICE - who named them specifically in the order they appeared and gave so much information - what an imagination!
They are so poetic and imaginative but quite detailed, so I can only include one otter here:
Olga : She’s the descendant of the Romanoffs and her grandfather came to
France during WW 1 after the Soviet Revolution and, after the war, he settled
in London where he married an English noblewoman.
Olga’s mother was prima ballerina at Covent Garden where she excelled
performing the dying otter in the tragic ballet “The Otters’ Lake”. Olga grew
up among many artistic Russian otters and she’s just unbeatable at quotations
of 19th century’s Russian writers. She tried to write a novel herself about the
migration of Russian otters but she finally founded a ballet school since she
wasn’t as talented as her mother. She’s very efficient though, preparing young
awkward otter pups to the opera ballet or to dance in British and American
films. One of her most famous pupils was the actor of Billy Otter.
She’s quite severe but she’s romantic and fascinated by her task. She’s very
quick and agile and of course playful like all otters. Her fur is particularly
brilliant and smooth. She’s nostalgic of Russian moors and snowy winters and
she’s still waiting for a Russian Snow Prince who’ll come and take her away on
his sledge.
If you feel you could be her Snow Prince, even if you’re not a Russian otter, so,
please, pester your keeper he’ll adopt her and let you have many little, squeaky
cubs !
Aristotle will be winging his way to you on Monday - he's terribly excited.
Can you email me your addresses so I can send you your little treasures? sarah@sharkalley.co.uk
Thanks again to everyone who entered - they were all fab, and it was a nightmare to choose!
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| Yaaaay - we all have names! Gourmand, Hazel & Olga |
If you would like to own a standy-up otter like Aristotle (and indeed like Gourmand, Hazel and Olga) they are currently available to buy from my
Etsy shop and will soon be featured on my website
along with other felty things that I have been stitching away at. I shall let you know when they're on there and it should be quite soon, as
Phil is hard at work! Please pop by for a visit any time.
They will also be on sale at the Makers Boutique event tomorrow in Brighton
So come and say 'hi' if you're passing - there'll be loads of great stuff there.
At this point, I'd like to say that
10% of the money I receive from the sale of all otters will be donated to the very wonderful Otters & Butterflies sanctuary in Devon to help them in their work looking after and rehabilitating orphaned and endangered otters. They also need £90,000 to build a new feeding station, and keeper Matt Heaton is doing all sorts of sponsored things to help raise this.
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| Here is Matt being greeted (eated?!) by Asian Short-Clawed otters Paprika and Nutmeg |
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Some time spent with the family finally gave me the opportunity to make the Shark Alley bunting for my stall. What a palaver - I started it on Sunday evening and finished it on Wednesday morning! I probably made it more time consuming than it needed to be, but I was making it up as I went along and I wanted it to be super-perfect. So there was cutting of templates, then selecting, reselecting, arranging and rearranging fabrics, buying more fabric, trying to work my Mum's sewing machine, cutting out letters and hand sewing them on, realising one long strand wasn't going to work and trying to find more tape for the 'string', then dealing with floppy triangles . . . . it was never-ending! The latter problem was solved by spray-on starch - appearing in the form of this can from the 1970s! Amazing! The contents are probably completely toxic by now, but still working nevertheless.
