Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Just this morning I saw this on a small yahoo group I belong to: there are perhaps 3 dozen members and almost all are collectors. Half a dozen members expressed the similar opinions. This is very apropos as it's an unsolicited opinion on the very subject that we're addressing...

Point well-taken, Karen! Very well said—and yours as well, Becky!

At 22 years of work in this collectible field, I'm certainly not one of the oldest of the oldsters, but nearly there. There have been several (many?) 'generations' of bear-makers/artists who have come & gone during this period as well many styles of bears.

After just a few years working, when there were still only the trade magazines and shows as the means of congregating and communicating—even email had hardly absorbed the masses by the early- to mid-90s—ppl were already talking about "how .. it just wasn't like the old days.." and "..when was it going to recover?"  " We'll just wait it out a few more years.. the economy...collectors' tastes... etc..etc.."
And the same things have been said ever since.

And here I'm going to go against the grain but am going to publicly state something I've felt for at least 15 years: that teddy bear creating and collecting is going to end up being a rather short-lived phase, though it may be one that lasts 50 years for the masses, that's still relatively short-lived when you think of classic Faberge eggs or classic cars....those which only continue to accumulate more value internationally with age.

And this is NOT to say that there won't ALWAYS be teddy bear collectors! Please don't misunderstand me on this. But most of the bear makers will have stopped producing when it's no longer profitable for them (or they're working with a negative budget) and the collectors are definitely an aging group with most younger generations beguiled by electronic devices.
While there will always be some who will love these hand-made items and continue to discover them and collect them for many heartfelt reasons, there aren't collectors enough to sustain the industry as we have known it in the past, which actually began with the 19th & 20th century manufacturers and trickled down to the hand-workers like us.

How many blacksmiths and coopers are there working today, (or wooly mammoth hunters - if you want an exercise in the totally off-the-wall but true facts) outside of museums and recreation villages? There are too many job skills that simply became obsolete as the world's needs changed. This is a reality seen in many areas, not just ours. (Holly Hobby, macrame, Cabbage Patch...)
And ours, as has been said, is not a needed object for subsistence or sustenance but a decorative item that fills the creative 'heart and soul' for the maker and the collector.

We came in at the tail end of this phenomenon (after the 75+ years of manufacturing) and all of us together weren't enough to create an industry any larger than what we have had for the past 35 years. It has been a fantastic ride so far and I certainly don't know when it will trail off, but it has felt like riding on the path of a shooting star to me—blazing at the beginning and gradually lessening over time.

Happily, I've found that I had mixed up the names! It was just a very bad coincidence. ("Close, but no cigar!") Sorry to panic anyone...  Another spelling and another gentleman - our Daniel is alive and well in Missouri....

I was leaving a condolence note on the page for my husband's Aunt in Kansas City for the funeral we're attending this weekend, and decided to scroll through the other pages of individuals being waked at the same home. I was suddenly surprised to see another name I knew very well, but had to check in Google to make certain - the city was correct.
The city listed for Daniel is one he is listed as having lived in; he was instrumental, along with Joel Hoy, in bringing the Kansas City Jubilee to the Midwest for years  after Bill Boyd passed-on-the-reins. And a splendid show it was, too!
I'm so awfully sorry to have learned of this so abruptly and if anyone else has any other information, would they please pass it on to me?
I will certainly try to learn anything I can while there: I really loved this 'giant' of a man, (he was always so accommodating for me as a teacher as well as an exhibitor) with a heart as wide as his smile.

I agree with Veronica, especially as a beginner. It's far easier (to control the color-bleeding you described) to make a complete body of one color and add the sections of the other color as stripes.

Your choice of fiber (sheep breed) also has a lot to do with the amount of wildness in the hairs you need to bring under control. Some are more prone to being hairy and sticking straight out, while others have more natural built-in crimp or curl and will be easier to bring under control this way.

Learning about the many different breed's fibers available and their inherent qualities so you can choose which ones to match and use for each project is a battle half won!

I think I've figured that part out: one sub is in my name & address and the other is in my company name and then my name and address.

I don't know why that should make a such a difference though...is EVERYTHING done by machines these days???

Just back from a class and now off to a Dr's appt. I may have to call tom.

Thx Joanne. I've gone on a hunt through my mag stack and located Before & After (the merger) issues of both magazines, checking for my ending dates. They weren't extended according to the 'before' cover labels.

The Premiere Issue was April 2012 so this is actually the second set of double copies rec'd; I guess my DH put the first ones onto my pile w/o me even noticing. The most recent issue has the TOBY ballots enclosed so that's what brought it to my attention.

The Editor, Joyce Greenholdt, does state that "...if you subscribe to both titles, your subscription will be extended so that you'll get all of the issues you're entitled to."
I guess I can make that call now. Gosh I hate having to do other people's work for them....

Before I make the phone call and embarrass myself - if I indeed have a faulty memory, does anyone else remember a statement about the future of the merging of the two companies and their proposed policy?

It was my thought that when Teddy Bear & Friends℠ and Teddy Bear Review® magazines were to be combined, the subscriptions were going to be combined and extended to reflect the total number of issues remaining in both publications.

I received 2 copies of the first, new combined issue a few weeks ago. That's not what I understood the 'new program' to be: I certainly don't need/want 2 copies of the same magazine. I want the extended option of a single magazine: if I had 28 months of TBF remaining and 15 of TBR, I'd like to receive 41 months of the new, combined publication.

Does anyone else remember this differently? Did you have to contact the publisher to set up your account differently? I'd like to know this info before I take the next step, as I have several years yet to go on my subscription(s) to Teddy Bear & Friends℠ and cannot afford to be receiving double issues!

TIA!

I hadn't given it that much thought yet Randy, but knowing the gauge that those particular knit pins/hooks produce, by running a practice run with X-amount of a known amount of yardage, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out in advance how much yarn to pre-load: in separate colors/ in pre-marked lengths/etc - - -  to determine the time by observing the knitted tube.
Individual 1 - 5 minute sets could be differentiated is stripes though I'm not I'd want to go as detailed as that in an Art piece!
Great problem-solving, even if the final price tag is going to be out-of-my budget!

I've forgotten which list I saw this on, but since Knitting is my first love, I just HAD to find out more about it!
http://www.sirenelisewilhelmsen.com/work.html  - 365 (Day) Clocks

The theory is to knit one st per minute - how the time is calculated I'm not certain (how you know what time it is?) but as a frustrated Industrial Engineer - I ♥ it!

It was said that if one writes to her you can get on her mailing list to find out about availability; I did and I received a cheery email from her the next day.
They're not in production now but I'll post it if I ever hear what the cost of these clocks are!

Wall clock:

Grandfather's Clock:

Close-up of 'Face':

Great - we'll be peeking over your shoulder, urging you on! Don't forget that this is such a 'forgiving' medium. It can be pulled off/cut away, re-applied, added more on or taken away from——which is the advantage over fabric bear-creating——until you finally have created what you had pictured in your mind's eye.
Relax & have fun!

It's also on You Tube -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMgAwie … r_embedded
Is it yours 'Bearing'? I can't help but note the similarity of names...

Sarah, you can't go wrong with listening to these voices-of-experience as your general guides and then experiment on your own (perhaps on some heads that you've discarded because they didn't turn out for other bears as you hoped they would?) to find your own methods of working and that special Sarah-Look.

If you have an extra head to practice on that's a good place to start.
If the muzzle is your usual size, by the time you add on fiber it will be too large and out of proportion to the rest of the face.

Making the muzzle slightly smaller than you normally would to begin with is a good idea, because you'll gain confidence as you get used to needling onto fabric; at first you'll probably needle on only a thinner layer of fabric. Many people do this to start with. Later on some make a face with no muzzle a all (flat faced) and build a complete muzzle out of wool. 
But the more usual practice is to sew a smaller muzzle and as your confidence grows, begin to add more and more fiber, developing curves for cheek-lines, smile lines (as Martina has in her Avatar) even open mouths as Marianne is showing (beautiful too).
Joanne shows the whole technique in  her most-sharing blog)

One last note, remove all of the fiber/nap from the area that you'll want to cover with needle felted fiber. It helps the wool fiber to bond better if it's in continuous contact with the bear's fabric backing while needling. Either shave it off or pluck it out.
Please post pix to show us your progress!

But then - how can that be?
It says that the renewal ran from 2006 - 2013
This happened last Oct?

This is only 2012; the renewal date shows up here as "having expired on 10/23/2013" which has not yet occurred'.
How could someone swoop in and claim a domain name that hasn't yet expired???
Something isn't correct here.

With the info on the whois.com site,  I would contact that international registry site if I were you.

Yes, we don't realize some of the freedoms that we take for granted here in the States. Even that phrase just rolls off our tongues..
When the Chamberlains were purchasing fabrics from me, they had to have a business invoice mailed to them first from me, showing their requested amount of goods, the price they'd be paying and the shipping fees, to take into their bank in order for their bank to release their own money to them to allow it to leave So Africa. (sigh)

We in the States are so used to crossing State borders, country borders, language borders, just doing whatever we please as if we are entitled to do so by dint of being a human being... we have NO idea how most of the rest of our fellow inhabitants of this same planet live.
Internet interaction and travel is certainly very broadening, if one is willing to listen and learn.

Oh, yes, I do understand that nothing will put the hard drives back into running order once something goes wrong. Fortunately we're only 2 miles from a major Apple store and the tower (MacPro) fits into a rolling suitcase and that goes into the car and then to the mall.
Well.. I've covered all of my bases, haven't I, Randy, with Time Machine, Crash Machine and the email backed up?

But it's not the control that I'm concerned about; nothing there is that time-sensitive that I must get at it within a matter of hours or days - like the bank analogy.

But if the data has been lost, that's kind of hard to do! I'd rather know that it's been saved into 2 different types of systems, than put my trust into just one.

And if it's as you say, it's only the files and not the keys to the files, then those are still in the Time Machine, which should be recoverable when the HDs are restored (unless they're totally corrupted, which has also happened) and the link to access them is broken or missing?

I'm considering Crash Machine to be just a secondary set of 'folder & files' (for lack of my knowledge of a more technical general term for the guts of my machine) just because I don't want to put my trust into another external HD, because of the expensive one that once let me down.
And it's not in the budget to purchase another one if I did want to go that route.
So this was my best-judgment call of the feasible options I saw available to me, at least those that I could maneuver in and understandably operate by myself...I guess that's the bottom line.
Perhaps I'm not seeing this from a techy-enough angle, I know that you work in this every day and are 1 million times better at explaining this. I only know what works and what doesn't (or hasn't) because it's failed me in the 15 years of PCs and even the 18+ Mac yrs and I need to have it simple enough that I don't even have to open the " - - for Dummies' books.

One of these days I'm going to give myself the present of one-on-one, in-store time with a Mac Genius and get to ask all of the questions and get instructions for what's most important to me for the way I use my own computer.
Now THAT would be true luxury!
I will check into Mac Help, though, to see what they tell me about Time Machine - to refresh my memory!

Hi Sophie,

I run Time Machine, and it's very good for looking at an older version of a document from yesterday or 2 months or 2 years ago. But it's still on this computer and if this computer fails... I'm toast!

I had a 500 GB external HD that saved every night at 2 AM and was humming along beautifully for a few years - - - until one March when we discovered that for some unknown reason it had stopped functioning in December. I felt very vulnerable—loads of business data: mailing lists, invoices, suppliers, N/L columns, book research, patterns, etc—were in danger of being lost. (At least we Macs don't face that dreaded Blue Screen of Death....) but crashes happen to every computer brand.

In July I purchased Crash Plan, one of the more recommended off-site programs for saving all of the data on your computer. For $25 a year it is a wonderful feeling of relief to know that all of my computer is 'somewhere else - on a cloud'! And I have no state-secrets or any sensitive material on my computer so I'm not trying to hide anything. It did take a little more than 3 months to completely  back up all of the hard drives however, as I just gave them the green-light to begin, and it slowly went through the entire 300+ GB used, though one can certainly choose individual files to save or to begin with.

The only thing not backed up was email: for that I opened a private Yahoo group (I'm the only member) and I just forward the mail I want to save to it.  Other ways I'd looked into just sent the mail forward as a non-specific, sequential number. Not good, as there was no way to identify any particular individual email you would be searching for.
I feel pretty well covered now!

And this is a good reminder for all of us... every time that darned ole Software Update Window pops up and we click 'Not NOW!' (puuulEASE!) - as this is sometimes the outcome... (just checked now and there was only an iTunes update waiting, but I'm not waiting to be told again!! Heaven forbid I should lose one podcast episode!)
I've learned my lesson the hard way and say "Yes, Mom."
And shut down what I'm doing (even when I've got a kajillion windows open) and let it do its thing.
Trust me.
It's worth it in the long run.

Hmmm... I wonder if 'doll artists' was a slip-of-the-mind while typing??? They should be expecting TEDDY BEAR Artists to give input.

And this looks like the place for all of us who would like to see items (like separate categories for dressed and un-dressed minis) continue to be on the voting ballots in the combined competition.
Let our voices be heard, now and during the coming Spring, before they have decided on the format this Fall for 2013!

http://www.teddybearreview.com/articles … wards.html

Jones Publishing suspends 2012 Golden Teddy Awards           
Written by Joyce Greenholdt      
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 14:08
Jones Publishing has announced that it is suspending its 2012 Golden Teddy Award (GTA) program following the merger of Teddy Bear Review with Teddy Bear & Friends, which has already announced its Industry Choice winners for its own TOBY Awards for 2012.

The merged magazine, now being published bimonthly by Jones Publishing under the title Teddy Bear & Friends, will complete the TOBY Awards process for 2012 by publishing the Public Choice ballot in the August issue of the magazine, which will be released in early June. Winners will be announced at Teddy Bear Artist Invitational held in Binghampton, N.Y., Aug. 16-18. In addition, the two awards programs will be combined next year, with registration for the 2013 competition opening this fall.

“Once we had the chance to talk with industry professionals after the merger was announced at the IDEX show in Orlando, Fla., in late January, it became clear to us that we could not conduct two separate awards programs in the same year and still maintain the high standards that both artists and collectors have come to expect from the GTAs and the TOBY Awards,† said Teddy Bear & Friends Publisher Carie Ferg.

“Instead, as we work to combine the best of both magazines into the new bimonthly Teddy Bear & Friends, we will plan a single combined awards program for 2013 and take advantage of this opportunity to solicit input from doll artists and manufacturers on categories, scheduling, and other concerns before the 2013 awards program is opened for entries this fall.â€

To stay up-to-date on the latest news regarding awards presentations and the opening of the 2013 awards program, sign up for Teddy Bear & Friends’ free e-mail newsletter at www.teddybearreview.com.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 February 2012 14:18 )

Here is a story from the V&A... stunning....

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/230 … ds-eletter

Copy & Paste the whole link if clicking on it doesn't open it.

Didn't your machine come with Cathy's own booklet of Hints & Tips? I'm pretty sure that's included with all of her sales.
If possible she also includes a reprinted (and if available—the original) Owner's Manual.

She had a machine for the very month and year we were married, but it was in Celery Green and I thought at least my first (should I ever be inclined towards a second!) should be the standard Black.
Perhaps you'll find one and/or both inside the case when you open it....

Excellent suggestions, Randy. Maybe all 'Moms' might just like this Together-Time, whether they have memory problems or not!

This discussion must have sent out very strong vibes today - our DD gave us a call at noon today from AZ, just as we were leaving the house. Good bonding was done; we don't talk often enough - who cares if I missed half of my T'ai Chi class - it was worth it catching up on their busy busy lives!!

Having worked with 2 parents who lived with spiraling dementias until the end of their lives - this is very sound advice Randy gives!! They are so easily confused, but the moment you can reassure them that they are doing 'no wrong' in any situation (at least while they are still in the stages of comprehending speech—and I'd guess so if your MIL is capable of letting you know of her wishes for the disposal of her machine, Andrea) you can divert her attention away from 'taking' into 'Giving', similar to what is suggested here.
It sounds like a Win-Win idea, if you can present it in the right way... "My machine isn't working out and I wondered if you could show me how you would handle this situation if it were you working with your own machine...."

When it comes right down to it, you may find that she truly has gone past the point of actually being able to work her machine properly: my DH said just today that he was really worried about dementia due to not remembering a fact/name/recipe/etc for more than a nansecond.
I had to remind him that dementia isn't just the forgetting bit, but that individuals forget Cause-and-Effect: that if you do X, then Y will be the result.  E.g., if you turn the knob on the radio, you'll hear your favorite station - or that that's how you do get your favorite station to come on. That's a 180° difference in just forgetting things on a list.... you forget what a list is for - or how to make one!

So your MIL may not wish to give up that 'root', that memory of what pleasure she had in her sewing past, but she might share it with you, depending on your relationship with her, and how much she can deal with now in the process Cause & Effect.