Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

EJ,
thanks a lot, I have already written to her. Let´s see what comes back. :)
I have more mystery bears, all of the cute as hell, so there will be more :D
Maggie

hello, dear bear people:),
Recently I got into vintage/antique bears and I still need some know-how. I have successfully surface cleaned old mohair bears with fur still on, but now I have a sorry little ted here, who is indeed very, very dirty including what looks like a coffee stain. He is made of plush, so he lost most of his fur, but the banking is nice and solid, no tears, no precariously thin spots. Now he's resting in the freezer and I am wondering about the next steps: how do I clean him without damaging whatever is left of his teddy hair? tips will be greatly appreciated. Promise to send a before/after pic:)

Dear Becky,
many thanks for your opinion. I guess he could be pretty much anything, maybe even Fechter, but as you said - I am missing the open mouth and then, close mouthed Fechter bears look different. I thought maybe English or even US or so? He lived in Hamburg and many people travelled from there, so he could be from anywhere in the north Atlantic world... He is quite stubby, mouse-eared, the mohair is indeed very high quality and so is the manufacturing, so I wouldn't think he'd be a no-name bear. But I have never stumbled across a bear like this. He has that teddy baby look minus open mouth... What a sweet mystery.

Hello everyone,
it's been a while since I was here last. Besides the good old bear making, I picked up the passion for old bears, which I didn't have before.
Since I live in Germany now, I study all I can on vintage bears, but I come across bears I love and can't ID. Like this one. I have him from a lady, whose auntie was the original owner. The lady remembers this bear from her early childhood and she is going on 60, so the bear could be made in the late 1950ies or - that's even more probable - 1960ies. He is mohair, fully jointed and biiig (60 cm), hard wooden wool stuffing, felt pads.
I went through my German manufacturer books and couldn't find anything. Also, he seems a bit too "round" for any of the German bears.
Does anyone recognize him? Any tips will be appreciated. :)
Best,
Maggie

YES, YES, YES, YOU GO GIRRRRLS!!! Sorry I haven´t posted anything for so long - I´m working (seasonally) as a tour guide and I´ve got a turkish children´s choir to take care of. That means 33 kids and 5 adults.. A lot of work, mainly because none of the adults speaks much English (or German,or Polish, or Czech or Slovak or even Hebrew or anything I´m at least able to understand a bit), but thank God there´s one little girl who grew up in Malaysia and speaks English...yippeeee!!! But poor little girl, now she´ll have to translate everything:-) But since I know there is a birthday kid in the group, I need to go back to work and find a way to get her a small present and a cake without being seen and being needed. I´m sitting in a hotel lobby, typing this and sipping on my coffee - this job (working for the choir festival) means that I have to be with the kids 24/7, so I either sleep in the hotel with them (if the hotel is located outside the city centre) or I can go home to sleep after all the kids are safe in bed. And even then, I just have to be o n the phone. But I LOVE doing this. Hotel lobbies, buses, reception desks, hotel rooms and restaurants..that´s my world. :-) And since I used to be a little choir singer, too (from 4 to 18), it just takes me back in time. It´s a lot of stress, a lot of nerves, but I love this job.
And, of course, there is a lot of possibilities to be kind in this environment:-)

Good job, Ivuško:-)

WOW...he looks so..REAL!!! GREAT JOB!!

Jodi, that´s so very sweet of you..I bet the lady was just frustrated, full of inferiority complex or something..yes, there are people in the world like this.

they´re hilarious!!!          :crackup:  :crackup:

OK, here are the news - on my way to work I overheard a conversation in English. I turned around and there were two girls, staring into the map, obviously lost. So I asked them if they needed help and they told me they were looking for a specific hotel. So, instead of just explaining where it is, I  took them right to it. Later, when I was standing in the line for a hamburger, there was a little boy who wanted one, too but realized he was short on cash. So I paid the rest. And let me announce the foundation of "The League for Kinder University Environment" - so far, it´s a one man show, but I´m quite sure it will spread. I hate the way everybody is so indifferent to each other in my school. Professors don´t care about us. The secreteries don´t care about anyone. The students are in a constant rat race (I wish it was more of a Raggy Rat race:-)). So I started with hanging a caleidoscope on a strong thread on a window in the main corridor with the note that everyone can use it...Maybe the inner child in them will tell them they are people in the first place. Actually,a most amazing thing happened to me. About two months ago, one of our professors (an exception to the rule, really, because he says hello to us when he enters the room and actually smiles) had a hard time, because his Mom died and also one of his colleagues he had to arrange funeral for. And since it was St. Joseph´s day - his nameday - my two roommates and I sent him a card and I made him a bear with his name. We left it with his colleague, since he wasn´t there and left. The next class, he thanked us for it and we were quite happy, but this still wasn´t all. Time went by and we almost forgot about the whole incident. When the last class of the semester was comming to an end, he asked all the Polish Studies group (that is my two roommates, me and one more girl) to come to his office. We were a bit nervous, because he told us he had something serious to discuss with us. We thought - hmm..did we mess up the term paper? He asked us to sit down on that old couch of his and proclaimed "I really have some serious problems with you guys.." With these words, he pulled plates full of cookies and other things and a bottle of Ukrainian wine from inder the table. :-)) For the next two hours, we sat there, talked about our families and plans and he was telling us jokes and about all the congresses and conferences he´s been to and about his life in Ukraine and so on. the four of us were just speechless...we sat there and we almost cried, because normally a professor (at least in our dpt) would not even say hello to us. Thank God there are still some good people in this world:-)

yeah..blogs rock..I just wish I had the patience to keep one..btw, gaby, what´s new in Wien?

Kellisa is sure a hero...just like all the kid fighting this disease..YOU GO, GIRL!!!

Hello!
I´ve got a little different challenge here - not really a bear making one, but since I know what bear people are like....
Well, let´s put it like this. We all watch the news, read the paper, listen to the radio, surf the net. And what do we see? Blood, wars, hatred, corruption...etc. So I decided to start my own "war against terrorism." I started doing one kind act a day. (or more if there is a chance). Just little things. Random kindness. To family,f riends, but mostly to complete strangers. It can be anything you don´t  have to do that might help somebody, or make them feel loved, appreciated, etc.. So my challenge is: try it for a week starting Monday morning...and let us know how it´s going. What do you think about that? Maybe one person cannot change the world, but maybe I can change another person´s day..(and if you wonder where I got this attitude, ask me and I will tell you a story about it:-))
So, if you feel like doing it, good luck and keep us posted.
Magda

Hello everybody.
I finally got myslef into organizing my appartment..and guess what I´ve found - a plastic bag full of real fur pieces. Some or smaller, some are bigger, but one thing is for sure - I´m not gonna use them. People(well, old relatives, to be more specific) bring me these things sometimes (like old fur coats and stuff) and explaining that I don´t really use this material doesn´t really work. I know there are some teddy people who "revive" old fur like this. It´s still good quality, but I just don´t  like fur, but I also don´t wanna just throw it away like that. IS there anyone who would appreciate something like that? (I´d pick the biggest and nicest pieces, so that I don´t pay an arm and a leg for postage). So - if you think you´re interested, just let me know. First come, first served:-)
Mada

AWWWWW!!! I love puppies!And these two guys are just incredibly cute...

AWWWW...what a cute bear! Good luck - i´m quite sure your bears will do just fine.

IGNORE IT!! It´s free country..and besides that - it isn´t about making dogs or cats or bears or whatever...it´s about the artist´s soul that the work is reflecting. The person who wrote it just didn´t get it.

WOW! one of the most beautiful bears I´ve ever seen.

AWWWWW!! I love the nose and the eyes..KEEP HER! :-)

Hello..
I don´t usually make minis, but this one is for a special friend, who´s going abroad for a month, so this will be his tiny companion. And..it´s my first mi ni that doesn´t look like a monster:-) He´s all packed up and ready to go.

WOOOW !!! I just love the colors!

Oh yeah..definitely..good I don´t live out in the country, I´d end up with a bunch of animals:-)

see, it´s not only Pepina, occupying the beds:-))

She is a mutt, yorkie + poodle, I suppose. She looks much bigger here than she really is. She weighs about 4,5 kilo, so she´s really the size of a slightly overgrown yorkie:-)
I got her last summer from my friend, who´s a rescuer. She has about 50 doggers now. She tries to find homes, but once she finds home for some, more just come in. But I gotta say - she´s really great - clean and providing the best care for the dogs.
Pepina (Peppi, Pepsi, Pep :-)) has quite a sad past. She was at a place they call "dog shelter" but it really wasn´t a shelter, it was something terrible. The dogs were neglected and so hungry they were actually eating each other. Pepina was lucky enough to be on her own, but she didn´t  get propper food and she was left out the whole winter, even at night when it was - 20 (celsius) outside.Her water had frozen over and she barely had food and was almost frozen. Because of the bad nutrition, she also had some serious intestinal problems. As she was lying on the concrete floor of her outside kennel, frozen, dehydrated, starving and with a part of her intestine poking out, FINALLY some staff member noticed her and brought her in to have her put to sleep. At that very moment, the rescuer MRs. Synkova, came by and begged the vet and the staff to give or sell her the dog. They gladly agreed and she took Pepina to her vet and then home. Even the vet said she might not make it, but Mrs. Synkova didn´t give up and after half a year of gentle care and a surgery, Pepina was back to a healthy normal doggie. And at that moment, I was looking for some company for my dog Bandit - he si neutered, so I didn´t have to worry about pups- so I decided to take a doggie girl. For some reason, there are always more males than females at shelters and I wanted someone small (after all, I live in an appartment) and I wanted it to be a doggie girl and I also needed to check, whether she´d be compatible with Bandit. So I was searching and searching and searching and finally, I found Mrs. Synkova web site and thought, wow, she´s got some small bitches! So I went over for a visit with Bandit to see if there is a doggie girl that would match him. And it was there I met Pepina. Mrs. Synkova warned me that she was extremely skittish, but when I called her, she came and let me shortly pet her. And she also got along well with Bandit. So I decided to take her. I had to go to France, though, so I waited a fortnight before I finally returned to pick her up. When I came to pick her up, Mrs. Synkova let her out and she came running to me, hopped into my arms and let me put her collar and leash on. This was amazing, since she´d probably never worn one before (Mrs. Synkova has a huge garden, actually it´s more of a field, with a bog fence, so the dogs can run freely). Mrs. Synkova cried that she´d never seen Pepina running to someone like that, but I think Pepi must have known she was going home. I wanted to pay Mrs. Synkova at least for de-worming, shots and food, but she didn´t wanna accept any money. You know what - I was leaving her home at lunchtime and she gave me a big lunch bag with a bunch of steaks she´d made for lunch. I just had to promise I´d call and send pics, which I gladly do:-) So that´s how Pepina came to me. One the way back (cca 1,5 hr train ride), she behaved like a lady, sitting on my lap and letting me pet her. She didn´t even take much time to get her housebroken - she actually peed inside just once. And I gotta tell you - what a change!!! First, she was really shy, especially scaredo f men, barking at anything in sight. I was so desperate at times. But we really made a bond and now she´s a totally different dog. She loves people (when we go out for a walk, she´d come and sniff all passers-by:-)), she loves attention (her hair needs a lot of brushing every day) and she loves to run around and play with Bandit. They´re a great match. And she´s also very soft and gentle with kids and other animals. That´s why we´re training to make her a dogotherapist. You need special test to get a certificate, but I think she´ll do well. I already take her to the hospital (my Dad is the head of the ENT dpt and if the patients wish to see a dog, he lets me and Pepina in, so that we can train.) This little dog is just giving out so much love..and just to think she was just a second form being put to sleep..brrrr...!!

Should be better now..sry:-)