The Bear Facts

Anyone who's read my blog will know that I love making miniature teddy bears.  They tend to be made intermittently depending on how well my hands are working.  I set myself a quota of at least 12 bears this year and even with everything else thats been going on, I've already achieved my goal, which has made me very happy!

I make my bears mainly for friends and family and usually have a number of people sitting patiently on my "Teddy To Do List".  When people reach the top of my list and if it's not a surprise gift, I often get asked the same questions, so this blog post is being written to address some of those queries.

Funnily enough I find miniature bears easier to sew than large ones - my left hand doesn't work as well as my right, so the smaller pieces are easier to hold than bigger bear bits and I can turn the small cotter pins I use for the neck joints, where I find the large ones impossible.  I also enjoy the challenge of working at this small scale.  I like to make sure my bears are as good as I can possibly make them so they are all hand sewn with extra strong thread and a lot of love.

I currently use three types of fabric for the main body of my bears.  All are made from synthetic fibres, as is the Ultrasuede fabric I use for the paws.  I use one basic teddy pattern which has a very traditional look and creates a bear who is approximately 8cm (3 1/4 inches) tall.  I have plans to create kitty and bunny patterns in the future, I just haven't got around to the drawing stage yet - thats on another To Do List.

1.  Cashmere
This fabric has the shortest pile but has a very touchable, soft and velvety feel, and it usually comes in a huge variety of colours...

   

Percy & Milly (made for a Hello Kitty fan) are both made from cashmere 

2.  English Velvet
I can't source this fabric anywhere at the moment.  I was lucky enough to be able to buy a small batch of this fabric a couple of years ago from a supplier who was retiring.  It has a longer pile than the cashmere and a slightly bristlier texture, though still very stroke-able.  I have much more limited colours in this, mainly natural browns and beiges, some slightly more golden shades, plus a green, a blue and a rose pink...

 

William & Raphael are both made from English velvet

3.  Sassy
This has the longest pile I currently work with.  It was developed in America specifically for miniature bears, it comes three types - frosty; long pile; and smoky - and a wide range of colours.

 

Bai & Clarabelle are both made from Sassy long pile

Frosted Sassy has a lot of colour in the base fabric but very little in the actual fur - Bai's arms, legs and ears are made from frosted fabric although as she's quite a light colour, the effect isn't too noticeable in her photo.  All coloured Sassy fabrics have been hand dyed (not by me - at least not yet...), except the white long pile and the natural grey smokey.

Sassy smokey has a dark base fabric which gives a different look, in the photo below you can see two bears - Pumpkin, who is made from cashmere and Greta, who is made from Sassy smoky, so its a good photo to see the differences in the different types of fabric...

I make a rule of never combining different types of fabric, but of course I do on occasion break my own rules - I was lucky with Sidney that it worked out, but I don't generally recommend mixing like this...

Sidney is made from a mixture of a leopard printed cashmere and an English velvet like fabric, both of which I don't seem to be able to find anymore, though I currently have a few remnants left.  And once in a while, I'll pick up a different piece of fabric, like I used for Herbert here...

I hope this post will help my friends to choose their new teddy bear friends.  At some point I'll do another post with some of the fabric colours I have in my stash and add a link on here.  If anyone has anymore questions, please feel free to ask.

A 7th Week of Happiness...

It's obviously going to take me longer than a year to get through this as some weeks I don't feel well enough to blog, but I don't think that really matters - its about changing the way you think, its about looking for things that make you smile, even if they are small things and sometimes even in the face of adversity!  I think those are the times when it's even more important to find something positive to be thankful for.

This week, it's been pretty easy to find things to be happy about - it was my birthday a few days ago and I've been overwhelmed by the kindness of others, especially as I haven't been very good at keeping track of other peoples birthdays over the past few years, which is something I really need to work on.  The two shelves above my television are crowded with beautiful birthday cards which make me smile every time I look at them, they are a reminder that I am fortunate to have some wonderful friends and family.  :)

On my birthday I had lunch with two friends I've known since I was 8 years old, we went to a lovely little cafe in an ex-coastguard station perched on top of the cliffs in the village where we grew up.  It was pretty cold and blustery so I took a photo of our view across the English Channel through the window from the comfort of our table in the tearoom...

I've noticed that every few years, I go down to the Bay on my birthday, so here is a photo from this year's visit...

It's the first time I've been out with my "big camera" for ages and it actually felt pretty good to be taking proper photos again  :)

I've completed my bear for January thanks to a small piece of pale green sheer fabric from one of my friends which I used for one side of the wings.  The bear is going in an exhibition at my local library next week which is being put on by the craft club I attend there once a fortnight.  Being a library based group we took some of our inspiration from books and this little bear is my take on Tinkerbell from Peter Pan...

Yesterday, I went to a morning workshop on making fused glass jewellery.  It's a shame that I can't find any cool courses like this locally but this one took place in the town where my sister lives so it was a great opportunity to spend some time with family.  It was a long and tiring day but absolutely wonderful and I don't even care that I can barely move today!

Years ago, I used to enjoy making things from stained glass until my hands started playing up to much, but was pleased to discover yesterday that I remembered how to cut glass successfully and as I've found with my bear-making, cutting small pieces is a lot easier.  It'll probably be a few weeks before I get my finished pieces back as firing glass takes too long to have got our pieces back the same day so I'm waiting very impatiently and with great excitement to see what the finished result will look like.

The photo above shows one of the pieces I'm most excited about.  The tutor told us that pieces of copper turn a beautiful deep burnished red when sandwiched between two pieces of glass.  I wanted to try this and chose a piece of white glass for the background, with a piece of "fracture and streamer" glass on top.  I thought the top piece I cut reminded me of reeds or tall grasses so I cut some tiny leaf shapes from the copper.  I'll post more pictures once I get my finished pieces back.

A Year Of Happy 6/52

I have rarely ventured outside my front door this week but I still have things to be happy about...

Firstly, I DID venture out to the Post Office on Monday - and posted all my Christmas cards and parcels that were destined for people living further away.  It's the first time I've ever been organised enough to send them all off so early AND all at the same time.  It's also the only year when I haven't bought any stamps in advance so the total postage cost was a bit of a shock but I'm SO happy to have this done so early  :)

My cards are a lot simpler this year, but they are handmade and all identical - or as identical as a handmade Christmas cards can be!  I've had complaints before that I sometimes give cards that are very like ones I've given previously, so as I've never sent anyone a card like this before - problem is solved.  I've never done so many cards of one design but it was a great challenge and a great opportunity to apply some of the skills I learned on one of the printing workshops I attended earlier this year.  I took photos as I created these cards which I'll write about very soon.

My second Happy is another gift crossed off my Christmas present "To Do List".  Earlier this year I decided I wanted to make some pretty hair clips for my youngest niece, I even bought the clips a few months ago.  I know my niece likes sunflowers and ladybirds, luckily I had dies for both, so I made two clips...

I have a cat who hates having his photo taken - except when I'm taking photos of things other than my cat, so photobombing has become a hobby of his...

I really enjoyed making these for my niece, hopefully she will enjoy wearing them  :)

Spending so much time at home this week means I have managed to cross several items of my gift list but I've also finished an extra bear I started by accident last week.  I grabbed a bag of ready cut bear bits as I headed out to Craft Club, I thought I'd picked up the pieces for a bear I've been planning to make for our Craft Club exhibition thats happening early next year, instead I picked up bear bits for another bear with the same coloured fur but in a different combination.  Once I've created the head of a hear and sewn it's little face, it tends to look accusingly at me until it has a body and limbs!  I always make bears faster when I make them head first, so even though this was a "spare bear" I just had to finish him once he started giving me that look...

Could you have resisted that little face?  I was thinking of calling him Murray until one of my friends suggested I should name for a very special person who died this week, so this is Nelson - who is no longer spare.  He very quickly found a home with one of my friends and I'm looking forward to her coming to collect him in person in the New Year  :)

100th Bear & A Giveaway!

This is Bai - her name means 100 in Chinese (according to Google translate) and she is my 100th bear! I decided before I started sewing that I would make her as a giveaway and I'm going to stick to that even though I've fallen in love with her myself! I attend a craft club at my local library once a fortnight, the next meeting is this coming Wednesday, 10th July, which is the date on which I'll get someone to draw the winning name out of a hat or something as that seems to be the fairest way to find Bai's new home.

One hundred bears sounds like a lot doesn't it? But I made my first bear back in March 1999, so its taken 14 years to reach this point!  For some reason after I'd made my 99th bear, I didn't pick up my needle and thread for days, I felt as though there was a lot of pressure to do something special for my 100th bear, but then thought that if I carried on stressing over it, I'd never get my 100th bear made at all!  So in the end, I selected a bag of bear bits I'd already cut out some weeks ago and just got on with things.  I have taken my time on Bai - firstly because my hands have been playing up lately, but also because I didn't want to rush such an important bear - I wanted to enjoy the process.

Bai, like the majority of my teddies is around 8cm (just over 3 inches) tall, she is made from Sassy Long Pile white and frosted lilac fabric with ultrasuede paws and black glass beads for her eyes.  She is NOT a toy, she is suitable for bear lovers/collectors over the age of 14.

I'm going to post Bai's photo here, on Facebook, and on my Flickr account so that hopefully most of my friends can have a chance at winning her if they want to. If you'd like to be included in the draw, please leave a comment below. I'm sorry I haven't allowed a lot of time for this but I don't want to get too attached and Bai is very impatient to find out where she's going to live.

Good Luck Everyone!


UPDATE - 10th July 2013 - Our Fibro group met at the local Wetherspoons this morning and a very nice lady who worked there drew the winning name out of the hat - I even found an actual hat  thought it looked better than a plastic supermarket bag! Anyway the person who won little Bai Bear was.... (drum roll) Clare from "Summerhouse by the Sea" who entered the draw via this blog page... there was an amazing 48 people entered in the draw! As Clare was sitting right next to me when she name was drawn, Bai has already gone to live her new home. xxx

Sue Bear

This is "Sue Bear", she was made in memory of a dear friend who died unexpectedly earlier this year.  I miss my friend dreadfully, the long conversations about anything and everything, the hard work she put into keeping our local Fibromyalgia, ME & CFS support group going, the gluten-free chocolate cupcakes she always arranged for the December meetings, her navigation skills when we went out in my car, but most of all, I miss her laugh - it was one of those infectious laughs that you just couldn't resist joining in and having a good giggle yourself!  She was truly an amazing person with such wide-ranging interests.

Sue had always encouraged me with my bears, she came up with ideas when I was stuck on how to do something and as she knew that one day I'm planning my own teddy bear's picnic story, she used to pick up little bears and other animals to play bit parts in the photographs I'll eventually take to illustrate it.

I always intended to make Sue one of my bears and I thought there would be plenty of time...  I've always had a "Teddy-to-do List" and Sue was on it - I just didn't reach her name in time.  Sue was always a keen crafter herself and some of her craft supplies and tools were left to me, in fact Sue Bear's necklace is made entirely from Sue's supplies and contains 44 beads - one for each year of Sue's life.  I chose to make this bear from green and brown fabrics because Sue had a great love for nature - and oak trees - so the colours seemed to be the right choice.

It's funny... each bear takes on it's own little personality as its made and many of my bears have quite serious expressions, but this little bear looks (to me at least) as though she has a little smile on her face.  I'm not completely sure where Sue Bear will eventually end up, I just felt that she needed to be made, but I'm sure she'll eventually end up exactly where she is supposed to be.

Hopefully I won't leave it so long before I post another blog, I've just been feeling very out of sorts lately.

A Little Awareness

This is a post I meant to write yesterday but I've not been the most organised person recently and have been going through a bit of a rough patch recently.  I feel that even though its a little late, this was a post well worth writing. Yesterday was Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day - this is an issue close to my heart as my Grandmother (who I lived with as a child) died of ovarian cancer and my sister has had her own battle with this terrible disease, I'm happy to say she has been cancer-free for about a year now.

I think raising awareness about ovarian cancer is really important as it's one of those cancers where the early signs can often be missed unless women are aware of the symptoms.  If you want to learn more, you can find plenty of information here.  Ovacome is a UK based charity that raise awareness of and provide support to those affected by ovarian cancer and my sister found them to be invaluable during her illness and has continued to support their work since and I have tried to help her in my own way.

Last year I made a bear which she auctioned at her 50th birthday party and I have since made a couple of other little bears which will soon be helping the cause...

Raphael, on the left, got his name from an article I read in the days while he was being sewn - it was about a vet called Raphael who helped to save the life of a street dog; for some reason I looked up the meaning of the name and discovered it meant 'healer' and I thought it was such a great name for a vet.  Its quite a big name for such a little bear, but it just seemed like the right name to choose - sometimes the names just happen like that.  The little fluffy girl on the right is called Faith, which seemed like a natural choice of name after making Hope for my sister, I think she comes across better in person than she does in a photograph and I hope that someone will fall in love with her when my sister takes her up to London for the Ovacome members day, where hopefully she - and Raphael - will find a new home.  One of these little teds already has someone waiting to adopt them, I'm just not sure yet which little bear she'll choose.

Above are a few other items I've made ready to take with me - some little felt broaches and a beaded keyring - made one evening when I was struggling to relax enough to sleep.  Our local library now runs a craft club once a fortnight and at our last meeting I handed out some little felt bird broach supplies in the hope that I would have a little help to make some items to raise money for the charity and I'm looking forward to seeing what my fellow crafters come up with as I gave everyone the opportunity to interpret the broach in any way they wanted.  My friend Clare has already completed hers and blogged about it on her wonderfully crafty "Summerhouse By The Sea" which you can see here.

Wishing everyone health and happiness!

Minstrel Needs A Home

This is Minstrel.  He's around 8cm tall and is made from a mixture of mini-bear fabrics - American Velvet and Cashmere; he's stuffed with polyester filling and his feet contain steel shot which gives him the stability to stand independently.

I made Minstrel for an auction arranged by some friends of mine in a group I belong to.  All the members of the group are creative people with chronic health problems and all the items have either been donated or handmade and donated by them - Minstrel is my contribution.  The auction is now open to bids, which can be made up until the closing date - 28th April 2013 - and the person who has made the highest bid will win the item.  All the money raised will be shared equally between Macmillan and Invest in M.E.

If you're interested in bidding for Minstrel you can access him directly here - alternatively you can access the rest of the auction site here.

I wish you very happy bidding, I am happy to be contributing to two great causes which are both very close to my heart, and I hope Minstrel finds himself in a lovely new home very soon.

If you want to know any more about the organisations we're supporting, please follow the links below:

Macmillan Cancer Support

Invest In M.E.

Time To Make a Start

I've been crafting for pretty much my whole life in one form or another, I've never really written about it in a serious way before, but I've come to the conclusion that its time I got started with a crafty blog!

I don't know how often I'll have the energy to post but I'm going to do my best to add new creations on a reasonably regular basis.  Just don't expect my posts to be all about a single craft, I have quite wide interests which I'm going to let you discover over time.  However I shall start you off today with one I made earlier...  

Hope the Bear was made at my sister's request as she decided she wanted to raise some money for Ovacome as part of her 50th birthday celebrations.  Her original idea was for Hope to be a raffle prize, but in the end she auctioned the bear separately and  raised £110 with her.  I was so proud of my sister that day!  In total, she raised over £400, with her employers donating a further amount at a later date.  The photo probably makes it hard to determine size, but Hope measures just over 3 inches (around 8cm) tall.

I hope you like her too.