Timothy in the tree

Finished and still looking a bit worried even though he has buddies and friends in the tree with him .. there are other little bears... mousies in their walnut shells... a black sheep ... and several little owls and other birds.....

Where I placed him, I can see him from the kitchen ... watching and wondering.....

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.