Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Donna,

Yes, I want to avoid real leather. I'm an amateur, who makes bears as gifts for my friends, and the bear I'm currently working on is for the daughter of a friend who is very into animal rights. In order to respect her political beliefs, I want to make this bear using only synthetic fibers, but as a hobbyist, I want to try this new technique. Therein lies my dilemma.

I'm not sure what sort of upholstery fabric you're talking about. I'll have to check that section of the fabric store. I rarely work with upholstery fabrics.

Hrm. Bad wording choice on my part. I didn't mean to imply you were getting paid by TT to monitor the forums, I meant that bear-making was your professional occupation, and therefore a part of your "job description" as self-employed bear makers is to hang out with other bear-makers and talk shop. As opposed to those poor sods of us who work for others to earn our bills, who get the hairy eyeball when their employers catch them looking at forums during the work hours.

It was meant as a joke, since I'm self-employed in a different field, and  MY boss gets grumpy when I'm not concentrating on the job at hand.

Hello,

Don't worry, I'm not a pro bear person, either! There are lots of us on the forum, but the pros have the advantage of getting paid to hang out on TT, so they can answer questions faster.

Could you include a link to an image or site showing the bear you're talking about?

Sorry Daphne, but I have a strict rule about dating poly-fill stuffed animals who are taller than me.

I mean, a guy's gotta have his standards.

Hi Donna,

Thanks for the suggestions. Can you show me pictures of bears you have made using these different nose types?

The thing that I particularly liked about the style in Tilberg's book is the nostril-effect. I guess what I'm really having trouble with is sizing the pattern piece to my bears -- I tend to make very big bears by comparison to most people here (18-36 inches tall, with aspirations to make a 96" tall bear).

I've tried ultra-suede but I guess I need a thick ultrasuede for this to work. I'll have to try wool felt, thanks for that suggestion.

Oooh, Happy Birthday SueAnn!

Ali - Actually, I'm switching to fabric noses BECAUSE I have so much trouble with the embroidery ones. I know how to stitch a line!

I think that would be pretty awkward.   

"So, you make teddy bears with my mom, huh?"
"Well, sort of, but don't think I'm obsessed with them or anything. I photograph naked chicks for a living."

I just can't see that conversation going well 

Unless you started popping kids out when you were 10, I can't imagine how your youngest daughter could be older than me. I'm 32.

Hey there Sue,

I've had the death-flu for the last week, and am finally crawling out of bed. Other than that, I've been focusing on my photography business. Oh, and trying to get back into the dating world.

You'd think that girls would be interested in a guy who makes teddy bears and does art for a living. Somehow, I can't seem to get a date though. I guess I'm out of practice.

Also, I have a stack of books I haven't found time to read. I just measured it, and it's literally four feet high. It's all in a big pile next to my bed. Pretty soon, it's going to stick out above my footboard. *sigh*

How about you? What's been going on in your life?

Another excellent choice is http://www.photo.net for reviews and instructions, as well as an excellent set of forums to ask your questions on.

Macro lenses and macro setting are only useful if your focusing range is less than 3 feet. Instead, I suggest you try using a larger telephoto lens, such as a 100mm (for digital, this'll let you zoom in super-close from about 7 feet away).

If you're serious about your pictures, I also recommend using a fixed focus lens, not a zoom lens.

I've been trying to do the leather nose technique in Nancy Tilberg's book, only without using leather. So far, no matter how thick the cotton I use, it doesn't lay correctly. Has anybody else tried to do this? Can you recommend other fabrics to try?

Check out Trengrove Studios, and call them for suggestions. http://www.trengrovestudios.com

Also, call Eager Plastics. They love it when they get artists with questions, because so much of their work is orders for construction equipment. They'll be willing to sit on the phone for hours with you. http://eagerplastics.com/

I use Bluehost, but their service is better suited for someone who has several websites.

Erin,

I'm sorry that I was absent from the board when you posted this, and I hope you're still subscribed so you can see my message.

I have found that whenever I get those "tangly wobbly loops" on the bottom of my seams that it is invariably due to the way I have threaded my bobbin. Sometimes a bit of lint or fur has gummed up the bobbin but more usually I have inserted the bobbin incorrectly so that it unwinds in the wrong direction. In either case, removing the bobbin, blowing into the bobbin casing, and then re-inserting the bobbin carefully (attending to what direction the thread will unwind from the bobbin) fixes my problem every time.

I've gone through maybe four sewing machines in the fifteen years that I've been sewing, and in my experience, the problem with cheap sewing machines is usually that the reverse button will die before anything else does. Every other major problem that I've had with cheap sewing machines has been fixed with a can of air. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Hello, folks!

I've noticed that my meager head-sculpting skills tend to make the bear heads look more like cats or rats. Thinking about this, I realized that there's very little difference between these types of animals. Mostly it's just a question of snout-shape and ear-shape (cats have pointy ears).

I'm curious to know what other types of animals people have made using a bear design and a few alterations.

Sadly, I've not had much spirit for bear-making lately. Although I have a "closet full of good intentions," I've been focusing on work for most of the last six months or so. One of the negative side effects of being self-employed is that there's no good way to get yourself off the clock. Ironically, I have a harder time doing things "For Myself" now that I'm my own boss.

I am currently making a 27" black bear for the 3-year old daughter of one of my models, my third bear since signing up to TT. I need to deflate the arms a bit at the joints, re-do the ears, add the tail, and have been trying to use the leather nose technique from "101 Bears To Make" (Tilberg) using the same stiff cotton material that I made the footpads and inner ears with.

This is the first time that the ears have looked the way you and I have wanted, and this is entirely due to the C-shaped joining. However, the ears still look overstuffed to me. I have a lot of cotton batting left over from a cloth infant's picture book project, so I think I'll use several layers of batting for ears from now on. I suspect that I'll be able to shape the ears much better this way.

Another idea that I'm considering is that instead of a C-shaped, I will try attaching the ears with a G-shape, so that the parts of the ears closest to the gusset will turn inward on the ear.

A while ago, I bought a spool of black ribbon which I wanted to use as a maker's tag. Of course, I came up with this idea mere days after buying a new sewing machine that doesn't embroider letters. The closest friend I have with an embroidery machine lives about 90 minutes from me. *sigh*

Hrm, what else is new this time around? I successfully built the bear without ever looking at my directions. I have all the parts memorized, except  I forgot to leave a seam open so that I reverse the bear and stuff him. Instead, I stuffed each limb separately, soft-sculpted the head (which I still do not have the knack for) and then had to try to attach a fully stuffed head to a fully stuffed body. That was not my most favorite activity in the world.

Oh, and audio-books! I have discovered the great joy of listening to audio books while sewing. It really helps during those marathon bear-making sessions. I find that I have just enough brain left to listen to a story while I'm doing everything except head-design.

I'll post pictures of the bear as soon as I finish him.

http://www.teddy-talk.com/viewtopic.php?id=16211

There's a lot of noise in this signal, but I asked the same question when I first signed on, and Sue Ann was kind enough to answer my ear question, with drawings and everything.

I hope this helps.

Sorry, I'm a little confused. How exactly do you want the bear to look like he's swimming without getting wet? Do you want the bear to look like it is IN some kind of container of water? Or are you talking about making a bear that is wearing something that has beads of water on it, like a swimming cap or goggles?

Perhaps this link will help?

http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/

I only briefly skimmed it for content, but it seems to give the advice and images I want to give you.

Doodlebears wins! And I feel like this thread has died...

"So... you still desire me after all these years? The old ball and chain?"
"Forever!"
"I'll get them."

The Lost Boys?

Elle,

Your monitor should have a calibration program built into it. Play with the menu button directly on your monitor. Trust me, it is not nearly as complex as it sounds, although it is important to do the calibration in the same lighting conditions as when you're usually on your computer.

Matilda,

Laminating your card provides a richer color because of the way light scatters. When light hits a rough surface, it bounces off in every direction. By applying the laminate, you fill in the bumpy paper surface, and create a flat surface for the light to hit. That's a really simplistic explanation, but it's basically true. You'll notice the same thing with different types of photo paper - glossy surfaces will have the richest colors and greatest contrast, luster less so (but smudge-free), while matte paper is very dull and flat by comparison, and watercolor paper even more so.

I cheated and used two open source CMS systems, Gallery 2, http://gallery.menalto.com/, for the image gallery, and Word Press, http://www.wordpress.org, for my blogging/news section. I custom designed my WordPress theme (which I want to redo) quite quickly, since it's mostly just a matter of writing .CSS stuff, or stealing ideas from other people's themes and then blending them seamlessly. By the time I got to installing Gallery, though, I didn't have the time, and had a programmer savvy friend of mine edit the color pack (essentially a .CSS) to match the WP implementation. She said it took her more time to pick better colors than it did for her to do the Gallery edit, but she's familiar with the source code.

Gallery took me about an hour to install, and is surprisingly functional for open source software. It takes me seconds to update the site with new images, thanks to their Gallery Remote program, which basically just lets me drag-and-drop.

As a photographer, I'm particularly happy with the half dozen print-on-demand shopping cart programs that have pre-built plugins. I don't know if there's code to let you sell non-image items. For that, I'd suggest using something like OS Commerce. Again, all you have to do is skin it to your taste, which is MUCH easier than coding from scratch, and more professional looking to boot.

Can someone point me to the link where I pre-register for the Schaumberg show this year?

Over the spring, Sue Ann mentioned the show to me a few days before it started and I just showed up.