At first I thought that it was culinary but apparently it’s about their prickly cuteness.
She also likes pendants on neck-wires so I made her a slightly comical silver hedgehog to swing on one and then put on Facebook on a ‘slow news week.’
I didn’t anticipate the outpouring of love that this would lead to, including the comment ‘Look at his little nose!’
I’ve had several requests to make one now and an old school friend even asked for gold balls on the ends of the prickles and a little gold nose.
“Of course.” I said, somehow ignoring the fact that this was going to be a nightmare to make.
The problem is that the prickles have to be soldered in individually and then beaded up. The beading up I can do by using a little TIG welder to melt back the end of the wire. Soldering in the wires is more difficult as, when you heat the piece, every other solder joint flows again and all the ones you did before tend to slump or fall out. If you try and solder them all at once then it’s something like watching a forest being flattened in a storm.
It’s all good fun.
The added problem with what has now become known as the ‘Golden Hedgehog’ is that I have to solder the tiny gold beads onto the ends of each prickle without all the other ones dropping off. This made for an interesting afternoon.
If you would like to own one then you can now order them from this site. You’ll find the silver one in the Rogue’s Gallery. If you want a gold one then you’ll have to bid high and catch me on a good day.
