bearmaking

Little Bear.

Recently I made a little 7 inch bear for the beautiful Sue. Well, it wasn’t exactly for Sue, but rather for her son Thomas’ birthday. If Thomas was still with us he would have turned 14, the same age as my son. Unfortunately, he passed away not long after his birth.

Sue’s tradition has been to buy a bear for Thomas each year on his birthday, isn’t that beautiful? However, as you can imagine there is now quite an accumulation of bears in her house and she thought a miniature might be appropriate this year.

I loved making this little bear (Sue has named him Paul) for such a special purpose. He was stitched entirely by hand from lovely mohair and I knitted a mini scarf for him from soft alpaca yarn too. I know he will be a treasured part of Sue’s collection.

I purchased a kit from Gerry’s (if you ever want to make a bear a kit is a very good way to go – it comes with everything you need).

Did I mention that Sue is an author? She has published two books, the first being “Grief, Love and Hope”, a touching book about Thomas and also “The Angels of Abbey Creek” which is a fictional

children’s novel (soon to be reviewed here!) Reading her writings and experiences of unschooling has been a major influence on the way we home educate and I’m very grateful to her.

You can find Sue at her blogs Stories of an Unschooling Family and Sue Elvis Writes, as well as her Facebook page.

The finished bear

by Kelly 7 Comments

Well, almost finished anyway, I’m thinking about making a dress as well (which some members of my family find very strange – “why would you put a dress on a bear?!”)

If you missed my last beary post, this is a design by Joan Blyton and is 12 inches tall.

This was a steep learning curve for me – the jointing and positioning of limbs as well as the facial features was really challenging, and I found the instructions sadly lacking in detail. I ended up needle sculpting the face quite a bit as I didn’t like the way it looked.

I’m not really happy with this bear, I think it’s a “cute” bear but lacks character. I’m sufficiently pleased though to have another go in the near future, I’ve already started drawing up some designs to hopefully achieve the look that I like.

I must also say a big thank you to Sandi for her help and encouragement!

Gulp…. I’m scared!

by Kelly 7 Comments

OK, I’ve come this far, and I’ll readily admit it’s been a challenge. “But you’re a doll maker!” I hear you say. “Making bears should be easy for you – right?!”

WRONG!

You may notice that my otherwise assembled bear remains earless and faceless. There is a reason for that. Today I started to tentatively snip some hairy bits from around the muzzle, as you do, but was suddenly paralyzed (scissors in mid air) with fear that I was going to stuff it up. Badly. I don’t like to stuff up badly, especially when I’ve invested considerable time and money in the first place.

So maybe I need to get over myself a little, but in the meantime the bear will sit and look (well not actually look – she doesn’t have eyes) but just sit there until I get some courage to finish her off.

P.S. Any tips or recommendations will be heartily welcomed!

Teddy bears!

by Kelly 2 Comments

I’ve been loving bears for some time now, I even made one last year. Unfortunately it wasn’t the most positive experience. I was too scared to buy expensive mohair in case I mucked it up so I got a synthetic, half of which I believe I ended up inhaling. Lots of sneezing, not nice!
Although my bear turned out pretty cute his joints are very wobbly and if you look close you can see how shonky he is.
So… I’ve just purchased a bear kit for the first time (real mohair!!) from Beary Cheap and I’ll hope for more success this time.
In the meantime, here are some real cuties from Flickr.

By The Craggy More – love that little outfit!

From Bumpkin Bears

And this rugged up cutie from Trobertabq.

Wish me luck – I think I’ll need it!