Bears 4 – Large and Medium Sized

Large Mohair Bears

Caitlin has called her bear Bethany, and has dressed her beautifully since these pictures were taken.

She is made from 10mm Scultz Mohair which is expensive, but gives a beautiful, long-lasting heritage result.  She should last a lifetime.

The white bear was made for a Silver Wedding Anniversary for a friend’s wife, again I used Mohair for this special bear.  I made his Silver Bow Tie to make him extra special.  He has silver grey suede paw pads and traditional Glass Eyes,.

For both of the above bears I chose not to snip the nose areas as they look more traditional.

Scruffy Bear

All the above bears were made from the same pattern, and yet turn out differently.

Scruffy belongs to my husband Michael and he will not part with him, there have been a few close calls with visiting children but he has managed to divert them to other bears.

He is made from Hembold Curly Mohair, with sand coloured paw pads.  He is fully jointed with safety joints and has safety eyes.

A little clipping took place around his eyes to tame his curls.  His eyes are a little too far forward but it gives him character.

He was awarded first prize in the local village show and the lady said if there had been a best in show prize he would have won that, she was quite taken with him.

He also achieved 20 out of 20 marks in a W.I. co-operative entry at the 2013 show.  He represented a child’s Christmas gift in a Victorian Christmas scene.

He currently has a red bow.

Black Bear

I was asked to make a bear for an 18th Birthday for a friends daughter and black seemed a good choice, sophisticated and chic.  I looked up the classic black bears to find out the correct eye and nose colours.  Brown seemed to be the best idea to compliment the light grey paws and pads.  I used 35mm cotter pin joints as this bear was going to an adult, and he is a big bear so needs big joints, measuring 18 inches seated and 24 inches stood.  As he was a special gift he needed a strong Red bow, and I was asked to find an 18th charm to complete the surprise.

Baby Bears

Sam and Erica’s Bears

Bear for Elissa

These bears were made for small children, they had sewn eyes and no joints.

Elissa’s bear looks like a Koala, the pattern enables it to sit properly.

The two tone bear above is made from the same material as the others, but I snipped the nose area and the lovely mushroom colour underneath was revealed.  The paw pads are made from the same fur in reverse, so the colour matches perfectly.

Medium Mohair Bears

The group below were made from various colours of Mohair and are the same pattern as my first bear which has been enlarged and reduced over time.  I have made 50, 60, 70 and 80% bears.

Interestingly the same bear in a different size in the same fabric can look very different as the length of the fur changes with the size of the bear.

Material Bears

These two bears were made from remnant fabric from a local interior design shop.  The heavy duty furniture fabric was not easy to work with and frayed.  It is also difficult to hide stitches.  I hand sew all my bears and machine stitches may have been more forgiving.

Work Shirt Quilt

The quilt was my main large project this year.

I started with a pile of work shirts.  They were all well worn and had been washed many times, so were lovely and soft.

I used scissors first to cut out the main areas of the shirts to be used.  Then cut out pieces 15cm square x 225 with a rotary cutter and self healing mat. 

I had two sets of fabric in dark and fine striped so I used them for the main pattern.  Each 3 x 3 square had 5 dark/fine striped pieces in the corners and middle.  Then 4 different colours for the remaining spaces.  I placed these in the same space on each block (I don’t like random patterns on things like this). 

Someone pointed out when it was finished that I should have worked out from the centre so the pattern was mirrored but I worked top to bottom.

Then pieced the 9 piece squares alternately in rows of 5, then joined the rows, ironing seams as I went.  By the end it was quite heavy, even though it is fine material.

The square sewing was completed on the boat during our summer trip, on a tiny Janome sewing machine and using a small IKEA table top ironing board (which was only used for sewing projects). 

See www.fleurofpendle.blogspot.co.uk for more information on our trip.

I used wool wadding in the centre which I bought from ‘Immanuel Fabrics’ in Burnley (a hidden gem of a store with prices starting at £1 per metre).  They also had 72” wide duvet cotton which was used for the backing.

Using the craft club floor, myself and Annette pinned the cotton to the carpet, then laid on the wadding (which must be washed, as it shrank by a third and had to be pieced with zigzag stitches).  Then finally the patchwork top.  We used safety pins to pin it together and then rolled the whole thing to take it home.

I used elastic bands to prevent the rolled ends from unwinding.

Then using a ‘Walking Foot’ (which lifts to allow the fabric to move and not bunch up) on my home machine I wrestled the quilt through.  I stitched ‘in the ditch’ between the squares on the seam.  I only quilted horizontally as it looked well quilted once the whole thing was complete.  Starting in the middle and quilting half at once.  Quilting both ways could risk puckering.

I decided to use the backing as the edging by folding it forward, machine stitching the edges and mitring the corners by hand afterwards.

The finished Quilt.

It was supposed to be a light weight summer quilt, but it has turned out quite heavy, but very cosy.

Bunting

Bunting makes me smile.

My first attempt was really cheating as I used Synthetic cord and glued the pinked/sheared pieces of cloth over it.  But as you can see below it looked OK.

Christmas Bunting 2013

I tried hard with this and precisely cut out symmetrical triangles.  I sewed the fabric right sides together and then turned them inside out and steamed my fingers whilst ironing them the right side out.  I used Bondaweb to make the letters and ironed them on.  I intended to sew around the letters but they looked fine so I saved myself a job. Then I halved a length of ribbon lengthways and inserted the triangles along the groove.

The wreath in the centre was a polystyrene ring which I tied lengths of material to. 

Note to self.  Cover the white ring first so that the gaps do not show.  It took a lot of material, tied on, to fully cover the ring.  I found some lovely small baubles to add and a length of Maribou.

Christmas Bunting 2014

Making bunting for Katie and Ella’s cafe (Eastgate Cafe, Manchester) from fabric which had Merry Christmas written on it and a one way pattern, meant that I was left with many upside down triangles which could not be used in the normal way.  So I zigzag stitched two pieces together with a small ‘pot shaped’ piece of green felt in the sandwich.  Then folding and ironing red ribbon lengthways gave a good string to attach the trees to.  A little star glued on the top of each tree and on each pot (on both sides) gave them a little extra sparkle.

The ‘Scandi’ fabric I found in ‘Greens Fabrics’ in Blackburn for just £2.50 per metre gave me the idea for the dual purpose ‘Scandi’ bunting.  The backs are made from Red Polka Dot material, so that by using it against a wall you can use it all year round.

I made a cardboard template for cutting out the triangles this time and then used it to iron each piece of fabric edging around the template.  This gave a triangle with the edges folded in.  Two pieces were sewn together and then added to a string of ribbon as above.

This is going to make nice Christmas presents, for its equally bunting mad recipients.

Bears 3 – Small Plush Bears

Faux Cashmere can be bought from Bear Suppliers (like Bear Basics and Christie Bears).  It is very short pile fur with a material like backing.  It is very easy to sew.  Pull the stitches tight to make them almost invisible.

First Plush Bear

I bought the pattern for the panda, but it took me ages to find the plush fabrix, which I now know is Faux Cashmere.  He has ‘shot’ in his belly to make him heavy.  Again not suitable for children.

Like the Pandas we love he is a twin.

He also won a first prize in the WI show.

Plush Cream Bears

I found that due to them having large feet these bears are able to stand.  They are made from combinations of cream and white Faux Cashmere.

 

Small Bear Groups

These look super cute arranged around a small teacup and saucer.  The large bear gives an idea of scale.

Hamish McHoneymoon Bear 2012

As you can tell from his name I made Hamish on my Honeymoon, sailing from Largs in Scotland to Northern Ireland.  He is made of cream suede with salmon pink paws and is wearing a little tartan sash.

Winter 2013 and Summer 2014

These plus bears are made from combinations of several different colours of Faux Cashmere.  Mixing up the colours gives different results.  No two are ever the same.