Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

I was visiting my grandma for these past two weeks and she doesn't have a computer.  The only thing I really missed was my bear forums because I didn't have anyone there that loves bears, so when I talked bears they were like, oh boy, here she goes.

Yep, he's Jocko.  I love him.  Lenora has been teasing me that he's a monkey, not a bear, and my Jocko is about to use her for a ball because he's 100% bear, lol.  For those of you who don't get it, we've been teasing each other back and forth about Jocko ever since I got him.

Aww, I'd like to squuz him.  Are you selling him?  I thought he was your baby boy.

I've been out of town for a few weeks and of course I came back with a bunch of new bears.  I don't have a picture yet that I can post of this bear because I need to get my pics labeled so I know what they are, but I have to share the story behind this bear because it's awesome.

My dad showed me his antique monkey named Jocko that he's had since he was a little boy.  I fell in love with him and decided I wanted a bear named Jocko.  I know his plushie was a monkey, but I'm more into bears so I wanted a bear.  We went into a thrift store because that's my favorite place to adopt bears.  Their selection wasn't very big, but they had this Gund bear that just begged me to adopt him.

The poor baby had a big old bandaid on his stomach and a little one on his foot.  We had a fun time getting it off.  We figure that maybe his previous kid played doctor with him and put that bandaid on him.  The bandaid was pretty dirty on the outside, but he was okay when we got it off.  I wish he could tell me his history before he was brought to the thrift store.  I felt so bad for him and I just wanted to take him home and love him.

Nice site and I was able to navigate it.

I have her bear Joanie and I sleep with her a lot.  I just think she's the best.  And no it wasn't her that jabbed me.  I can turn her head easily so that that doesn't happen.  I guess I should have put her in front beside Arcto and then that wouldn't have happened, lol.

Now we just need some audio.

He's made by Becky Chase, isn't he?  I have Joanie from her and she sleeps with me a lot.  I guess for some reason last night I couldn't get comfortable.  I was getting jabbed for some reason.  I don't know what the heck was going on with that.

Oh yeah, that felt cr*p they're coming out with or whatever that stuff is.  Now I see.  I can usually get out of the fabric store for around $10 or just a little above, but I'm trying to do child safe bears, so I think that's what I need.  Unfortunately my first fabric I bought was from Hobby Lobby.  Their selection was sad, but I found this white fur that felt a lot like Arcto, so I got it.  I can't believe they let me walk out of there with that.  I love the feel of it, but I can't get anybody to cut it.  I'm still going to try, though.  I think I'll line it with cloth.  That might be easier for me to sew.  Everybody says glass eyes are pretty visual, or at least they have trouble explaining to me how to do it.

I don't know whether I can tell high quality synthetics when I see it.  I'm not good at judging bears when I see them, whether they're made of cheap or high end fur.  I can tell mohair because it has its own texture that is very distinct.  I'm told my stitching is getting better, but there have been so many bears that have been given away or sold live on sight and I wasn't able to get pictures.  I usually like to get someone with eyeballs to look at my bears to make sure there isn't anything stupid going on like gaps or anything like that before I would determine that a bear is finished.  BTW, I don't think I've ever had my paws on expensive faux fur unless that's what Becky and Lenora sent me.  IO'm afraid to buy expensive fur because I'm extremely broke and unless I can sell a bear I'm up the famous creek without a paddle, lol.  Besides, I don't want to buy fur unless I can feel it, which means I go to the fabric store and pick from what they have.

Yeah, that's true.  I wish I could adopt a bunch of artist bears and love them all to death so they wouldn't have to endure that fate.  BTW, Gabriele, can you make phone calls to the U.S.?  When I meet people I love hearing their voice so I can get a picture in my head of a person.  Bearlove to you.

How do you determine quality?  If you mean a bunch of visual stuff, they probably won't dig my bears at all, especially not the flatties, lol.  I'm trying to learn how to do this.

Gabriele, my name is Jessie.  If you would like to do a bear swop I would love that.  I dread shipping overseas, but such is life for a bear artist I guess.  Right now there are no available bears because I'm out of thread and I need some eyeballs because I'm working on a new pattern and I'm stuck.  After that I plan to start making some teds to sell.  I think you would be able to have one of my bears easily because I like to keep them around $15 or $20 US dollars.  I've sold a mohair flattie for $30 to someone who isn't really a collector, but I didn't feel bad about charging her because she's loaded and she's a straightie.

I haven't spent a lot of money on the bears.  Two were given to me and one I got in a swop.  This is the bad thing about being broke or there would be scads of artist bears here.  However, if I spent a lot on a bear, I would most definitely love on that bear.  I don't know whether I'd sleep with them.  It would depend on how awkward it was, but I would definitely love that bear a lot.  Would I spend several thousand dollars on a grand piano and never play it?  I don't think so!!!  I feel the same about bears.  I don't think I could say to my bear, sorry dude.  You're an expensive artist bear, so I have to stick you on a shelf.  Meanwhile he gets to watch me love on the other bears.  That would be kind of cruel.  BTW, when I get a bear I always ask the artist whether it's okay to sleep with them before I do.

Eva, which bear is this?  Do I have this one?  I know when you posted this you didn't know me that well and I wasn't here so you didn't know that someone would need a description, but I'm really curious about the teddy.  If he's not one I have, do you still have him?

Mole hair, lol.  I was a little slow on the uptake there because my screen reader reads fast and it sounded alike.  That reminds me of my best friend when I told her about mohair bears.  She asked what that was and I told her goat fur because I didn't know how to explain it either.  Out of her mouth came, "I ain't never heard of a goat called a Mo!!!"  Needless to say, the first mohair
Braille teddy was named Mo.

The thing that I noticed about the article that didn't make me laugh, it made me pure D mad, was the comment that a bear without movable arms and legs is not a teddy bear, just a plain toy bear.  Sorry I have to do this, but Arcto has something to say about that and I'll be typing from his point of view.  I know it's weird, but he does this in his blog all the time.

What's this jazz about I'm not a teddy bear because I don't have joints?  Who is this dude?  I think I need to write him a letter.  Of course I'm a teddy bear.

I don't do a lot of arranging, but sometimes I just switch them around to a different spot just to give them a change of pace.  And yes, there are some couples in my hug also.  There are two in my cubby on top of my desk that are really not happy if they're separated.  For this reason I won't travel with one of them and make them leave the other.

Weekly basis?  I go crazy if I have to spend even an hour without a bear in my arms or beside me.  Yep, go ahead and commit me, just as long as I can have Arcto.

I came up with my business name Braille Teddies because I'm pretty sure, especially after spending all this time here, that nobody would be using it.  Also, I'm kind of playing up the fact that I'm a blind bear maker because I think collectors would think it's cool to have a bear made by a blind person because we see the world so differently.  Also, I felt I had to explain why there probably isn't a lot of visual beauty in my teds.  I think if people think I'm sighted and they see my very basic flatties, they'll think my bears are just blah and have no personality, but if they know I'm blind, they'll realize that I'm interpreting the world as I see it.  It's really hard because apparently the world of collector bears is so blasted visual.  In life, I don't like to walk up to someone and go, "Hi, I'm Jessie and I'm blind", but I figure if I'm stuck with blindness, I might as well use it to my advantage when selling bears.

Oh absolutely.  I mostly prefer bigger bears, not huge, but about 12 or 13 inches tall, but that's mainly because if I get a bunch of little bears and then drop one I'll never see that ted again, but I have a few little bitty bears and I hug them and kiss them.  It's a little bit awkward, especially with my bear Vicky who is about two or three inches tall because I can't give her a full hug with my body like I normally do.  I have to put her in my hand and squuz her that way, but she has as much love inside her as the bigger guys.  Also, she's very special because she goes everywhere with me.

I'm thinking about doing some online shows in the future, when I'm able to and have some experience.  Do most shows have restrictions about what kind of bears people have and the way they price them?  I almost cried when I looked at the Teddies Worldwide show application and saw that you had to be making your bears for a long time before you could participate.  I also was told by an artist that she was trying to join a group, but they have a minimum you have to charge before you can be a part of that group.  She said that if the group had artists selling bears for lower than the limit it would make the group look bad or something like that. 

Will I ever be able to sell my bears at online shows or regular shows (big maybe here because I'm not able to travel) because of my prices?  I'm not trying to be competition for any other artist, but I just want anyone who wants a Braille Teddy to be able to have one.  I mean no disrespect to anyone here, but I'm the type of person who would give my bears away if money were no object.  I just would like to have enough money to get my material and hopefully adopt more bears.

Here's an unusual question for y'all.  I have a few artist bears, three that are child safe bears, a few that are flatties that my friends have made for me as samples for a pattern they gave me, and three that are full on collector bears with mohair, glass eyes, stuff inside that makes them a bit hard, and the whole nine yards.  As you all know, the collector bears are stuffed really hard in their heads and their faces have a lot of sculpting.  I'm really close to these bears, so I love sleeping with them.  The bad thing is that if I cuddle a big group of bears together when I'm lying down to go to sleep, sometimes I can get jabbed in the chest with the hard, sculpted face.  Then I wind up putting the artist bears beside me and just snuggling Arcto or one of my plushies.  Is there any way I could stop the bears from jabbing me or does that just come with the territory?  If I have one or two artist bears and a few manufactured bears I can usually position them creatively so I'll have a soft bear against my chest, but sometimes I have all artist bears except one.  I hope this isn't a stupid topic, but I've just been getting jabbed in the chest tonight and I couldn't sleep, well that's probably because of other stuff.  Thanks a lot bears, lol.

I hope I don't hit any bad chords by saying this, but I was reading the archives and it kind of got me to thinking.  As you know, I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE teddy bears and I'm kind of obsessed with them to the annoyance of my poor husband, but we are also both disabled and on a very fixed income.  I've always collected regular manufactured teddy bears from the store and my new passion is to rescue secondhand bears and plushies that no one wants anymore and take them home and give them love.

In the past year, since being on teddy bear forums and since I've started making bears, I've become fascinated by artist bears.  How they're made or what materials are used or the labels don't mean anything to me, probably because I can't see them, but I love the thought of having a bear that someone has made by hand.  I now have a few artist bears, three that I've bought, a few that some artists that I've gotten really close to have given me, and one I got in a swop.  I think they're the coolest thing since sliced bread, not necessarily because they're worth a lot, but because they're handmade and because they have a different feel than my other bears and it's something you don't see every day.

There is an artist that I love, her as a person and her bears, Eva J., who made child safe bears that are priced reasonably and they're very accessible for anyone who loves bears.  Sadly, she is not making bears anymore and she's switched to restoring dolls *cries on a bear*.  She still has bears left and I'm working, slowly but surely, on adopting every bear she has left, which is going to take me forever because of the way our financial situation is, but I'm wondering if there are any other bear artists like her so I'll have another artist I can get bears from.  Of course I hope that by the time I've adopted all of Eva J.'s bears, we'll have jobs and then I can support artists whose bears are a little more pricey, but I would love to find more artist bears like Eva makes, or at least in that same style.  Eva says I should stick with my manufactured plushies, which I'll never stop collecting no matter how many artist bears I'm able to have.

I have taken that direction with my bears, but I'm curious about how to go about marketing that type of bear.  I would like to reach avid collectors, but also I would like for anyone to be able to have my bears.  I'm curious to know what collectors of artist bears think about this.  I think it would be cool to make a few really expensive bears, but I don't know how that would work selling them alongside my cheaper bears.  Besides, I know that the expensive bears have a lot of elaborate visual detail, which I don't think I'll be able to do because I've never had vision in my life, so I don't look at a bear I make and say, "He needs this or that visual thing done to him."  It's just not there and I can't wrap my brain around it.  I appologize for the long post, but I guess I have a lot of questions.

I have to bring back this thread.  I'm reading the archives because forums are a hobby of mine, and this post made my life.  I believe that teddies store all the hugs inside them and it's what keeps them alive.  Just like we need food to live, teddies need hugs.  They absorb them inside their hearts and then they have a lot of love to give to their humans *hugs two bears*.

Yay.  I can't wait to hear everyone's experiences doing a braille bear.