Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

What a little sweetie! I love your choice of colours

Thanks for all your lovely words! I have tried making a polymer nose, though I think it's a little too big - I have to go to work now, but I will update with a picture later on and see what you guys think!

Totally cramping each others styles! Hahaha. Though now I look again, I think they may be different - there's tonnes like that out there!

I'm a little bit envious you have the courage to go straight into selling your bears, so go you! Fingers crossed 

This is the offender bear -

At the moment I've just shaded the area I want the nose to roughly go, (the nose's end result should be a little larger).

Thank you for your suggestions I was going to try doing a polymer clay nose as an experiment(I even bought a small block of fimo today ). But I think I would still like this bear to have an embroidered nose at the end. Maybe I will try the polymer nose for this bear either way!

I will get there, I haven't ruined a bear past "saving" yet, so in theory it should be ok! I was just venting my frustration with the post before (It helps to have a vent to people who understand a little better about why noses are so frustrating)

Argh so the bear that inspired me to write this post is at it again, but this time it's the nose instead of the ears. ARGH! It's gone wrong once already and I had to cut the nose thread off. Silly silly thingsss, now I don't wanna try again in case it goes wrong because everytime I do it the material will get weaker buuu

Wahoo, I hope he finds a new home

Also, I totally think I got the same tags as you - I accidentally bought the wrong size though, so they're way too big for my bears!

Sue, I just saw your signature, Ohhhh my gosh am I struggling with those darn noses!!!

and Ekaterina, I'm still aww-ing over your gorgeous little fox! He's so wonderful!

Aww he's so adorable <3 I totally wish I had spare money to bid for him!

I have no idea if you found one that suited you but there's this one https://www.etsy.com/listing/103955972/ … like-hippo obviously you have to pay for it though :)

EDIT: I just realised I posted this in "free patterns" I'm sorry ha. I'll pay more attention next time

This is interesting, I have a half written blog post about basically this. I decided to ramble about patterns and how I deal with new designs and so on (though it's still super rough so no publishing yet!)

Now to actually answer your post I tend to just iterate my patterns, I take my old one scan it or redraw it and then just change bits, exaggerate features, thin it out, fatten it up etc etc..

Once in a while (Though I've maybe only done this three times? I'm still new!) I just jump in and draw a pattern from scratch - usually this entails a few mishaps, and I'm too impatient so I've gone straight to mohair with two of them, one was not like a normal bear at all so I tested it in scrap cotton first as it was to be a present!

This is great! Thanks

It's wonderful to be able to see some of the techniques people use, especially those that I have no experience with. I have used fimo before, so I might have a go at making some noses, just to see how much practise my sculpting skills need.

Claire, thanks a lot for your kind words.

I am slowly taking photos and writing posts for each of my bears - I'm finding it much more difficult/time consuming than I thought! Though again, with everything practise makes perfect.

I am also biting the bullet and sewing my current bears ears on after too long deliberating where to put them!

Emily x

Thanks for all of your advice and support!

I usually have 1-3 bears on the go, and eventually after getting all nervous and silly about ruining some of the bears I tend to just suck it up and get at it. I haven't had any -too- disastrous results yet. But I just wondered how other people dealt with the worry! One of the major things that always gets me are noses, I've to resign to the fact they'll never be neat whilst I do them, but hey it gives them some personality!

By reading you guys' responses it's made me think about how some of my bears work out in the end, and I agree with Claire on the point that some bears are definitely very "ready" to be made and just flow and end up exactly how you pictured them, whilst others are much slower to be realised or are dramatically different than expected. i think this is one of the things that I love so much about making bears. You can work for hours on a creation getting slight hints at what the end result might look like, but only near the very end do you get to see the personality start coming to life

I also definitely think it's the high expectations and goals I set myself, and the fear of not meeting them too! Confidence - we need to have confidence in ourselves and let the mistakes be a learning experience, and also let them be a part of the bears personality! (I think I'm having a much more positive day about mistakes and the trying thing, I shall try to keep up this attitude)

It's definitely helped to hear about other bear makers who have struggled with this too you just see all these people making wonderful creations and don't get to see all their hard work!

Emily x

Hi there

I have a few questions about a few different types of unfinished bears;

1. How many times have you had a bear that for some reason or another you just can't finish it?

I think I have two lingering around and every time I think "I should finish those" it just never gets done! I can't decide what's stopping me from finishing them? coincidentally they are of the same mohair? Maybe I just don't like it? Who knows!

2. Do you ever have bears you're making that you're really pleased with and so you become increasingly 'scared' of making a big mistake and ruining the poor thing?

I think this one's a big one for me, I always get really scared of ruining bears. I'm still fairly new to this (only have around 15 bears under my belt) and well I really don't like to waste things, especially good things! It's so heartbreaking when you're doing something like trimming the muzzle area and you accidentally snip a bit too much off, because it's not like you can sellotape it back on!

3. How do you make those "big" decisions with bears that you think are going really well. eg overcome the fear of choosing "wrong" etc

I guess what I'm asking for is a little moral support so I know I'm not the only one out there who is silly! and some advice to get around my sillyness!

Emily x

woowww she is really cute