Archive for the ‘Bear Making’ Category

Teddy Bears with a Past by Nancy Tillberg

Published by Krause Publiscations, 2000. This is a bear maker’s bible if you want to work wtih real fur. In its 128 pages, this book contains some valueable tips and information about working with real fur. It also provides some information for identifying fur and thoughts on what kinds of fur work best for what size bears.

There are nine full-size patterns along with instructions. For the experienced bear maker, this book is a really good refrence piece to have in your library.

This is a newer book and can probably be found at Amazon. I have not seen it listed on Ebay much.

I come to my interest in bear making honestly. This is the first teddy bear I remember owning. My mother made it from Simplicity Pattern #6810 (published in 1966). I was about five years old or so and I remember watching her cut up a couple of old shirts to use as stuffing. He is made of corduroy and filled with a combination of sawdust and fabric pieces from old shirts. He is one heavy dude.

I don’t remember when he lost his eye. I’ve never had the heart to replace it. There’s just something about keeping him just the way he is.

The structure of this bear is really very good for a huggable bear that a little child can love. I periodically see the pattern available on Ebay. I don’t recommend saw dust and old shirts as stuffing materials though.

I’ve been working on two bears for a woman in IL. The fur is an absolutely beautiful dark mink–nearly black. It is probably one of the prettiest furs I’ve worked with. However, when working with dark fur it can be hard to distinguish the facial features as much. Not only does the fur have a shine that distracts from the details, but the dark color tends to de-emphasize seams. As a result, it can be difficult to get a good expression on the face of a bear made completely out of dark fur.

I gave the woman a choice of having me create the whole bear from the fur she sent or making a two-toned bear using some lighter mink I had on hand.

I initiall suggested that the face be done in the lighter mink and the muzzle be in the darker mink. However, she asked me to make the head dark with a light muzzle instead.

I was very pleased with the way the bears turned out in the end.

Sally had a number of fur items including a 3/4 length dark muskrat fur coat, two blond mink stoles and a couple of mink collars (one mid-tone, one more grey in color). She wanted seven bears for her grandchildren.

There wasn’t enough fur from any one garment to make all seven bears from. At first I thought about trying to get seven bear bodies from the coat and do contrasting muzzles from the stole. Although I might have been able to get five bears from the coat, I couldn’t get seven full bear bodies. That meant I was not going to be able to get seven identical bears from the fur.

So, I decided to work at getting seven different bears (no two bears of the same color combination). By making two-toned bears and mixing up the furs, each bear is individual. In addition, I was able to take advantage of the different linings as part of the mix. Ultimately, I used nearly all of the fur sent me to create these babies.

I did have to cheat a bit. I needed one extra contrast fur so I added some black mink I had on hand for one of the bears. However, the black lining material on that bear came from one of the stoles.

Theodora wanted two bears from her Silver Fox coat for her granddaughters. This was my first opportunity to work with Silver Fox so I was excited to get this project.

The hide was extremely thin and held stable with some older fused interfacing. Without the interfacing, the hide tore like thin paper. The first thing I needed to do was re-enforce the hide with a stronger facing.  Normal interfacing does not stick well to animal hide. I’ve found one brand that works well for most hide in good condition, but this one needed more adhesive so I added more adhesive to the interfacing. My initial tests worked well so I set to making the bears.

As I got into the project, I did run into a little trouble with a couple of the pattern pieces. There were a couple of seams in the hide that were just too weak to hold up to the stress of sewing and turning. I ended up re-doing one head because the muzzle split. After I turned one of the bodies and started to attach the arms, the front pannel started to give way and crumbled so I had to re-cut and sew the body again. Then, while working on the joint of the last leg, a section of the leg separated from the interfacing and ripped. I had to cut and sew another leg. However, once I got that leg attached, I realized that I had accidentally put the joint in on the wrong side and the leg was backwards. So, I ended up cutting and sewing a third leg.

By the time I finished, I had two pretty stable, absolutely adorable bears from Silver Fox.

I am the adoptive mother of three special needs boys. All three of my boys have needed extensive therapy throughout their lives–and will continue to need it. One day, I was talking with my youngest son’s attachment therapist and she mentioned how much teddy bears can help her with some of her patients and how she wished she had a simple pattern to make teddy bears. She was not big on sewing, but wanted a way to make something personal for some of the children she dealt with.

I’m sure there are patterns out there like mine, but this was specifically developed for her. I wanted something that wouldn’t take cutting out more than two pieces and that needed little instruction.

Here is the pattern for this bear simple bear pattern (161 KB)  Here are the instructions simple bear directions (903 KB)

I also created an outfit pattern for added fun. Here is the pattern simple bear outfit pattern (83 KB) and here are the instructions simple bear outfit directions