Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

For me too, Lisa! My finger joints just won't do it anymore - - -LLLLLLL 
They still struggle w/the minis but honestly cannot make anything larger than about 3" to 4" at the largest (but now in Needle Felting for the past decade.)
It's the sense of proportion in the design end; anything larger and I just don't have the right combination in my mind's eye.

Yes, it's generally understood that teds under 6" are considered Minis.

Micro-minis are still variable (shorter still to some) but generally under 2".

Maps & Dictionaries!

Now my realistic bears tend to have 'titles', not like 'Sir this' or 'Lady that', but in the style of She Who Must Be Obeyed and The Lion & The Lamb Shall Lie Down Together (2 opposites in the animal world, like a polar bear and a seal)

Ahh, Joanne was right about having 2 wires to work with and I missed the point completely - sorry for skimming the first time!
Now I personally wouldn't chance moving them as in curling them down, as you are more likely to agitate the bases if they're still that close together.
As to annealing them with heat - were you thinking of bonding on another wire? That would work. You only need a soldering iron, flux and solder.
'Sister' another wire alongside both legs of existing wires and that will bond them together while bridging the gap.
The heat generated by this isn't hot enough to do any damage to the glass bead - I do stained glass work and am familiar with the melting of metals alongside glass.
I think I've had only 2 pieces of glass crack due to heat build-up and glass is very much thinner than an eye bead: I just plain held the iron in one spot too long. You need only to melt the solder until it runs along the wire to bond the 2 for the short length of perhaps ¼" in both directions? The glass probably won't even get warm-to-the-touch.

Yes - what Joanne is describing is just what I too meant, but didn't go into enough detail like she did!
Picture a pig - (the eye bead) - with a curly tail - (the curled-down wire.)

That's what I was trying to describe, except adding a bit of reinforcement around the base of the remaining wire, as they aren't embedded into the molten glass very deeply and a lot of pressure is put on them while in place in the face. And if one wire broke off it has shattered the glass around the base where both wires emerged from the glass. That area is now compromised.
I'd do as much as I could to bond the two component parts of wire and glass back together before inserting it into the face, because it's easier to do it now than to have to replace that eye bead (or both if you don't have a matching one) after the bear is completed.
Awful thing to happen after this goes off to a customer too - - -

There are so many good epoxies available now it might just work, but I would probably tend to use the remaining wire and  Oh So 'c  a  r  e  f  u  l  l  y'  (without budging the base of it even a smidgen!) curl it over into a double or triple looped ring and use that as my tie-off to thread into the bear.

That would make a stronger thing to pull against than something which you're not sure will hold, especially if you have to put pressure on it to pull it into a sculpted eye socket.

As added insurance, I'd build up the epoxy around the base of the remaining wire coming out of the bead, where the wire and glass meet, just in case that other wire was jostled and its bond within the glass sphere was weakened when the other one snapped.

JMO!! But I work only in miniatures and probably don't have the same amounts of pressure building up that you artists do dealing with the larger cousins!

I agree, Amy - you're off to a Great beginning! Welcome to this fascinating world of Needling - where there's something new to be thought of or discovered every day!!!

Thank you Donna! I don't tweet or 'face-off' so if anyone has those capabilities under their belt, I sure could use their help utilizing those skills right now!

Hi all,

I'm trying to reach Mindy Kinsey; she is listed as being Editor of Doll Reader but I've just had an email from Kathryn Peck that she's no longer with Madavor.
Does anyone know here she is/how to reach her?

And also, a contact for Linda Mullins? I'm not sure where Life has taken her in the last few years. This is for a time-stamped thing and I am on a deadline - any help would be appreciated!! - you can contact me off list -

rkr4cds@att.net
TIA!

Bobbie

I laughed right out loud when this window popped up after I bought something last night (won an auction) and went to pay via PP... there was this nice & shiny new ad about their wonderful new PLAN of Buy-It-Now-&-Bill-Me-Later (I do believe it even had a little ® for a trademark on it!!)
Underneath was a long, brightly colored 'button' to show me where to click for activating this great new plan.
On many sites you have to hunt a bit to find the location of the clickable or downloadable activation button—I even asked my DH who sits at the computer next to mine if he could see the button after I'd located it—it's so UN-BOLDED and white text in a light gray background, saying "No, Thanks" rather than YES, PLEASE SIGN ME UP! that I almost missed it even though it was sitting right next to the other one....

Really... lame....

I do have some needle sculpting (Thx, Amy!) done on fabric bears, from a book I wrote in '95.
Let me pull it out and scan some of the drawn images and text on working the faces/muzzles/eye areas. That will give you some basic places to start. We have out-of-town family coming in tomorrow and we'll be showing off the Chicago area with them until mid-weekend.

There are virtually no places that can't be improved on a bear with a little (or a lot) of needle sculpting, but the head/face are good starting points. So look through your reject baskets for a head or two that didn't quite turn out as you'd hoped, or make up a basic head and stuff it, so you can practice next week!

Stay tuned!

hggzzz
Bobbie

Krista, you absolutely 'NAIL' these dogs! No pun intended!!
There is no one doing short-haired dogs that can replicate them like you, bar NONE.
One could say instead that you duplicate them.
Just think: no barking, no walkies, no feeding, no grooming.. it will live forever.. endless cuddles ... hmmm. ......
What's the downside here???

You GO, girl!!

Wow - that a great looking textile Home page!!
LOL - your secret's safe with me: I live in Nowhere'sville, suburban Chicago and know no one connected to your group!

Sympathy Hugs - and I loved Michelle's idea, along with the rest...
Bobbie

The fusing materials don't show, either the iron-on or the sticky-backed, though I prefer the iron-on if you can find it and if your fabric can take it. Use a pressing cloth or (cooking) parchment paper to keep the iron off the fabric surface.

I have a 'needle board', used to press velvet, and once did this very same thing when I wanted to bond the short, bristly mohair for a miniature to a brocade but didn't want to crush down the mohair fibers. It worked wonderfully!

The products like this are quite thin and just melt - they disappear between the two outer fabrics. Just bond them together according to whatever directions are given for your product and trim the edges; they will have a sharp, clean edge and it prevents any further fraying of the backing.
Or you could create a fuzzy raggedy edge if you'd like that too - the fabrics will stay bonded together if they are thoroughly bonded to begin with!

Gosh, this is an old 'thread'.. LOL!! And there doesn't seem to be anything about this company on even Google, which is a bit of a surprise. What little I could glean are these 2 bits: a reference to their manufacture and a reference to their suitability on an embroidery chat list, about the 4th or 5th post down.

and -

http://www.amayausers.com/boards/cgi-bi … 4;t=000556

To go OT for a minute - back in 2008, I mentioned the John James large (golden) eyed, #8 & #10 needles which I used during my decade+ of sewing minis and for kit supplying.
I haven't done this for over a decade and know that I never will again, but still have needles left - at least as many as fit in a canister for a roll of 35 mm film for each size...several hundred?

I'd be happy to split these up and share these out to some of the TTers here, or all to one person, for the cost of shipping and any PP fees if that's how the fee is sent.
I think the pkg should weigh about 1/2 lb or less...

WELCOME to Johnni's Gr-Daughter!!
We absolutely LV the high sense of whimsey & delightful expressive faces that Johnni works into her faces through needle felting, plus adding many other art mediums into her work - just beautiful

Please introduce yourself to us; what type of art do you do?

LOL - Thx Joanne, I know just what you mean! I didn't mean non-permanent in that way, in that it would ooze or rub off... and gosh, you needn't tiptoe around me - I've got a really thick head and pretty thick skin!

I too know your excellent work and know that NOTHING is ever going to come off yours, but there are waxed noses and then there are 'waxed' noses... and unfortunately not as many go to the trouble of buffing in as many layers for as long as you do, until it becomes an integral part of the face.

And the nature of some of the (softer) needle felting being done leads to a more non-stable base, so that the wax cannot be rubbed and buffed in until it virtually melts in by virtue of 'elbow grease'.

Rubbing a waxed surface to buff it would certainly dislodge much of the more softly needled work that I've seen on offer online, even much that I've seen advertised as firmly needled. I'm not quite sure how deeply the wax will sink in if they've applied paint, (how much paint? how many layers? it's all subjective..) as it wiii(? might?) seal the surface and the waxed area will become firmer than the surrounding fiber; buffing it may then distort the nose shape and muzzle and it will not be possible to reshape them with the needle.

Sophie, you didn't describe or show us an image of particular nose you were working on—I know that you were working under time limitations and I wasn't checking TT at the time you posted your query so I missed the original time frame—my only thought for asking why you might want to still add wax on top of the paint as a top coat was because of the multitude of finishing types of paints available, from flat matte to high gloss, giving so many different looks to the nose.

I found that paints bonded better to the under-layer of other paint than wax (or at least I wasn't as worried about getting into every miniscule spot in the fibers.
And that may also be the major part of my answer's background, because I'm coming from a miniaturist's standpoint.
That Roly Poly panda you saw, Joanne, is about the second or third largest item I've ever needled so the nose was about ⅔" across. I don't usually have that much space! Most things I create are about 2" to 3" tall and the noses in miniscule about ⅛" wide.

The smallest 'drop' of wax is larger than that and is hard to control and apply accurately w/o messing up the muzzle around the nose edges.
The tip of a tiny/narrow paintbrush, filled with a dot of paint will fill in all of the spaces between the fibers with complete control during applying and also give me all of the different wet-to-dull looks that I want a nose to look like, depending on the species.

So the difference in firmness of needling the project and the size of the project were behind my questioning applying wax over paint rather than staying with more paint as top coat.
I too didn't mean to step on any toes!!!
hggzz

Wow - I haven't been online for a month, and an alert from a followed thread came in today, leading me into Teddy Talk, where I stayed for half an hour, reading what everyone's been talking about.
And then I went into email just now - and from one of my favorite publications, comes its newsletter - with this very subject!! It combines both the topic of pressed open seams and clipping the seam allowances!

Here's the link: they are discussing clothing - the bodice top of a dress, but with a bit of imagination, those 3 pcs are the same ones with almost the same curves that we have with the Head sides and Gusset/Muzzle piece.

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/147 … ves/page/1

As Katy said, the width of your seam allowance is in relationship to your overall ted's size, but the process is the same here, is very clearly explained in photographic detail in 3 pages and I think that one or two of the steps (along with the basting stitching) would certainly overcome any bumpy prob you'll ever encounter in future!

YES! Acrylic paints work perfectly on fiber!
But I'm not sure why you'd need to wax afterwards, as there are many other sealing applications, from full gloss to the flattest matte, that can be applied to finish it off with and they all are more 'permanently' bonded to the nose than wax.
JMHO!

Now there's a thought.... greeting cards already have the recordable capability for this.
Could you take one of those cards apart and insert that mechanism?

And there are many other standard greetings - Birthday/ Anniversary / etc, besides all of the specialty nostalgia and current music clips.
That might be a really novel new inclusion!

Richy - That's BRILLIANT!!! I was going to comment on your excellent analogy about ironing, as to opening the seam when running the stuffing tool up the seams when placing the stuffing, especially along the forehead and top of the muzzle, because that's exactly what causes that awful line of the nap being 'folded over toward one side along a seam, and no amount of manipulation from the outside with fix it because the real fix is properly spreading apart the seam allowances.
That's best done in the earliest stuffing stages.

But when you suggest a long running basting st in a contrasting color to hold the seam allowances apart until the stuffing will hold them there  ——well that's sheer genius! One of those forehead-smacking moments when one says "Why didn't I think of that!"

Thank you SO much for sharing that!!!

Hi Debbie,

I go back too, but not quite as far as you. Next year is my 20th anniversary.
I know that your birds and lampwork beads—and more than likely, several more artistic evolutions have taken place in your life—but you did set the feet of many miniaturists on this pathway in one way or another, to piggyback on each other, so that your contributions and those of many others are now layered down very far underneath the current type of work being done but are the basic beginnings of the miniature world.

It's nice to hear from you!!

Welcome Mandy,

That's a good positioning, because it wraps to the back and kind of hugs the curve of the leg.

How tall are your pups?
I like the look of the way you add your fiber; adding it in randomly-oriented amounts rather than wrapping it around the project.
It gives a uniform surface that looks realistic rather than showing where each section was added and needled on.

I'll say it here, for probably the first time in print, because none of you would ever be involved with those involved - I had an abusive time in my childhood past. I deal with it in my own way. These bears don't 'speak' to me in any way at all of that.

I think that The Rabbit Maker alluded most closely to the point that abuse is a sign of extreme wear; on a ted it's on the outside, in a human it's on the inside.....and that's mostly where it doesn't show here—the bears' inside seams are pristine? That doesn't represent wear & tear... His message is confusing and a little esoteric, but I guess that could be said of many artists!

What I am still upset about is that it hasn't been made clear (does anyone know, PLS??) - are these his own work or are they manufactured bears? They look like manufactured pcs which have just been turned inside out, the eyes moved to the new outside and lightly re-stuffed. They haven't been destroyed, the seams are intact and the fabric is whole cloth.
Credit should be given, whether they are his own or someone elses.

I hope you find one Sheila. I bought one with my first knitting machine in 1980, for $15. I'm shocked to see the same plastic ones now for $50.

Have you checked the fiber 'housecleaning' list? I don't have that link here but will look it up for you when I get home late next week.
I have an electric one I have to post there later this summer - and I've satisfactorily  sold and purchased many items there. - Sort of a Craigslist for fiber ppl!