Why do they always look so worried? ...

He did have to sit on the dining table for days til I finally got around to finishing him.  Days just seem to whiz past don't they?

I had to re-think the size of his eyes and then, try to guess which of the 15 in the package of 4mm eyes were close to the same size.  They say 4mm, but of course, they range in size from 3 to 6 I'm sure of it.  There was a lot of uhm-ing and ahhh-ing til I made my decision.

How can you totally forget how to seat an eye properly?  Well, maybe there is no perfect way...I did look back at about 5 patterns...nobody actually mentioned how to do it the way I thought I remembered.... some tell you nothing at all... it's a great secret I guess... oh, well.  I did it my way eventually anyway... they look pretty good to me and are never going to pop out of there.  Carpet and button thread made sure of that.

There was a bit more trimming...inside the ears... and a bit more needle felting to get some extra depth in there as well ...and a bit of shading with a dry water colour pencil.  Then, some trimming around the nose and cheek areas... and, a bit more shading.

Finally a length of ribbon which was too wide but which I folded in half and stitched down... made a running stitch along the length of it .. ruffled it and stitched it into position.  They say to put on an alligator clip to attach him to the tree... we'll see if I decide to do that or not.  He could just sit on any branch I'm sure.

Here he is ... still with test eyes and just his nose finally embroidered and finished .. like I say...looking very worried isn't he?   You can click on the pics to see them even larger.

And, now...here he is finished, with the pattern bear for comparison... yep, definitely has a more worried expression...


I love him....and have named him Timothy....

Once I put up the tree and have him in a place of honour... I'll take another pic of him of course.... but, for now... a bough I found recently will have to suffice.

Thanks to Andrea Brewer for her free pattern in the old magazine I found somewhere and hung onto for years.... I'm glad I finally tried him.

...in which I show you MY way to fix baldness....

Yep....I did it.  There I was merrily plucking out a few stray hairs and trying to clean up the nose area where I wanted to embroider his nose.   All of a sudden I realized I was looking at the fabric under the fur, not the fur...damn!!@#  Somehow just plucking on a few hairs had already gotten me too deep into it and the fabric was laid bare.   How could I have been so stupid?  I wasn't even in the exact centre of the nose for heaven's sake.  Me and my eyes.  Very frustrating.  Like I mentioned, they have gotten worse, and, even working with my big magnify9ing glass I still did a stupid thing.  Sigh......................so bloody annoying.

I was contemplating tossing the head in the bin.  Or wondering if I could just make a huge nose and cover up most of the mess...or maybe pluck out some on the other side and match up a bare patch and make a bare fabric snout surrounding the actual nose.  None of the those options appealed.

When Mister BumbleVee came home and asked how the bear making was going I told him my tale of woe.  He said, "Can't you just needle felt some fluff back in?"  HUH??@#!  How the heck would he think of that?  And, of course, at first I poo-poo'ed the idea saying it was rayon and it would probably leave big holes in the fabric and I didn't think it possible to get any kind of result..etc...  but, then, I thought about it and did dig out some felting needles and plucked out some of the rayon curly fluff from near a cut edge of the fabric I was using and needled some into the bare patches.  SUCCESS!!  Wow.  that really worked.

He had remembered that I needle felted a nose onto my scratty bunny.. and figured it could be done on any other animal I suppose.  I do remember doing Eddy, but it was lovely mohair and you can needle felt to your heart's content on that and not ruin it.... rayon, I was not so sure about.  But, I'm hear to tell you....it can be done.  It doesn't look quite the same even when I try really hard to find some shiny new long pieces of fluff..and, try not to needle it much .. so the curls stay a bit...but, it covered up the bare patches and looks great.  His whole snout area looks lighter anyway for some reason...probably because I did snip and trim things a bit ..trying for a nicer shape to the snout.

Click on the pics for close ups....the eyes and also the nose are "test eyes" ... things will move or change in size for sure.  And, his nose will be embroidered.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the bald patches .. so you could see how wrecked the poor little guy was.  But, I do have photos of the fixed areas...and, I can't even tell you where they were really.   Somebody looked petty smug when I showed him the result.   There was a big cheesy grin.  He totally expects to get equal billing when we tell anybody I made the little bear head ornament on the tree I'm sure... and, well....he should....

It's weird when you think your guy is not really paying much attention to what you are doing hobby wise...and, then... they remember some reeellly important thing to help out when you totally forget about ever having done it.   Strange that........ he's definitely a keeper.

This is the first bear I made with this rayon fabric.  A wobble jointed bear named Leonard..he has a ladybug on his foot.  I knew it was a bit tricky to work with ...but, I went ahead with him anyway and he turned out fine.  Very cute actually... so I thought I would use it again.  IT gets a bit matted and flattened after handling and honestly, with rayon? ..you cannot, and I mean CANNOT just fluff it up or brush it out...it fuzzes terribly!  So... my advice ... mostly don't use it.  The chin gusset is part of this guy's nose area...it is softest suede as are the paw pads.

This is what I plucked out to use for needle felting into his nose... the edge bits of some of the fluff.  If I tease it out gently...it doesn't fuzz or get dull .. and, then..try to needle it in with a bit of curl in place.  Tricky, but only jabbed myself one time...ouch... those needles are reeeeellllly sharp..  and then, you do have to wait a bit for the bleeding to stop before continuing.

Here is my Scratty Eddy bunny that I made years ago.  The white snout is all needle felted wool with a pink embroidered nose.   It felts easily into lovely mohair like this...but, I wasn't sure about how the rayon would hold together for repeated stabbing ...somehow it did just fine.

head first into the fray......

Now, this is the way to spend an hour working on a little bear.

Some patterns and some bear makers stitch from tip of nose down to the neck area first and then stitch in the head gusset.  Some stitch on the head gusset piece first..I guess it depends upon which you prefer after you have made a couple of bears, or which you learned first or whatever...I totally forget which I learned first or if I just followed directions for patterns and then... forgot about them and did it my way.  I seem to stitch up the nose to neck first a lot of the time.  But, then..it does seem to be a bit of a wrestling match to get the gusset to line up perfectly ...altough, it is tough either way.
Can't say one or the other is easier for me.

I stitched up the second side of the head on this day... which is always a bit of an eye opener.  You more or less have to stitch from the top side of the gusset down to the underneath side of it with each tiny stitch, as compared to the other side...which seems to be from the bottom to top if you get my drift.  It has to be because you are going in the opposite direction, but can't just back-stitch from left to right instead of right to left.  Hmmm...  maybe you could... you know what ?..I've never tried that.  Maybe I could some day.

So.. totally confused?  Okay then...I'll just show you my head so far then...

This is normally just how I work.  A tiny cluttered space with my light, my "stuff" ..oh, and on this perfect day... Mr. BumbleVee poured me a little drink to sip as well.  Perfect.

It was a cold, snowy day and nice and cozy in the house.... a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

It looks a bit cluttered on the actual head as well doesn't it?  With all those alligator clips.... but, that is an easy way to hold the seam edges tightly together without having to grip it with fingers and thumb and make my hands reeeellly sore.   You just remove them as you get stitched right up to each one..or move one and re-organize the next one if a pucker or ruffle shows up... it is an ongoing process to get a head stitched up the way I like it.

As I mentioned in my previous post..the head is actually stitched together now...and I put in some stuffing...but, I will have to load up some new pics ...so you can see that next.  Patience people.... patience.....hahahha... what am I saying?  I have no patience at all myself... ....I want things now and I mean right NOW! .. but here I am expecting everybody else to wait.  BAD me.... bad me.....

But, there was drama with the nose area.... trauma and difficulties ensued...problems were overcome and I am back in the driver's seat...

Off I go now to stitch up an ear ....

and...............next time I tell you the story of how I made the poor little guy's muzzle instantly bald with just a few plucks...

And sew, it begins......

After many years of not making any bears (or dolls either for that matter) ... and sort of letting this blog become a lot more about birds than bears..... I have begun a bear head.  Woohooo... the "Bearister" lives again!

My eyes have gotten a lot worse, but I can still manage to do a bit of stitching.  Alright!  So, Maggi, my bear making buddy, and I, decided on a short project.  Only a head really.

It is a freebie Andrea Brewer design for a Christmas ornament from an ancient bear making magazine.  A bear head with a ruffle.  So, it shouldn't take too long and maybe even a second one could be done before the big day.  I want to put them on the tree...and, it isn't that far off now is it?

I also have a wonky elbow and man, pinching the pieces together with fingers and also gripping my needle in the usual.... " grip of death"... neck and elbow were pretty sore after my first hour working on it.

Somehow, I need to give up worrying about every stitch being perfect and trying so hard to make sure every hair is tucked into the seams, etc... but, it's tough to do when you are totally anal.   Yeh....I know myself well.......

Click on any pic to see even larger...

Anyway... here is the pic of the pattern and also of the head I have begun..

The fur used on the pattern is mini bear fabric and although it looks very furry... that fabric is pretty flat unless photographed right up close.  And, I don't have a colour I like in that fabric anyway right now..so I chose this curly oatmeal coloured rayon instead.  It will be cute I'm sure even though it looks more like an Alpaca or a sheepdog at the moment...





It is now stuffed and ready for nose plucking before I embroider a nose.  She made a clay nose....but, eh...I still like to embroider them...so will do that.

Watch this space as they say...whoever 'they' is......