Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Sorry Shelli, dinner break this end 

It's going to take a few minutes to read this, hang tight!

Cheers,
Kelly

Fire when ready, I will help as best as I am able 

Interestingly enough, I've been working on a website overhaul of my own recently, so it's all at the forefront of my noggin.  Kudos to you for picking up HTML and all those other goodies!  The learning curve is a pain, but once you learn certain things, it's not so bad.

Cheers,
Kelly

I think there are only two rules when dealing with cats.

Rule 1.  Never question the mind of a cat.
Rule 2.  When in doubt, refer to rule 1.

Animals are funny, sometimes they figure things out on their own.  Maybe this one figured that if the food source came through that door, what lies beyond must be where all the good stuff is so ME FIRST!  Smart kitty.  Love the name!

Best wishes with your new family friend!
Kelly

Piano very briefly as a child.  I think in my case it's more that I've sat in front of a computer for most of the last 10 years, pounding away on many a keyboard...

Kelly

Hmmm, 2:15 in the morning and I got 98% accuracy with 97 wpm net.  I can live with that 

You would think this post would be longer, given that information.  However...

Cheers,
Kelly

Hello Heather!  Thanks for organizing this for everyone!  Drop me a line and let me know what you have in mind in terms of size of bears, etc.  I'm game for just about anything!

Cheers,
Kelly

Aha!  Here's a more trustworthy source than my list link, and may even be what you wanted in the first place.  Teddy Bear & Friends' online archive has "The History of the Teddy Bear", which includes mention of Beverly Port and her influence on the birth of the artist bear industry (and I had no idea, she apparently also coined the phrase "artist bear").

http://www.teddybearandfriends.com/arch … story.html

Hope this was what you were looking for!
Kelly

Oh boy, I have a bunch of the older issues, but have no idea.  I did find this in searching the web, but unfortunately have no clue how accurate it is (though it was an interesting read!):

http://bearcouture.free.fr/thebirthofar … dybear.htm

Ummmm, there appears to be code on this board that is affecting that the link.  You're going to need to manually add an apostrophe to that URL to make it work, the board removes it automatically and breaks the link.  (Though why this site put an apostrophe in it in the first place is beyond me.)  So the last part of that URL actually should be:

thebirthofartist'steddybear

NOT

thebirthofartiststeddybear

Best wishes,
Kelly

Catherine, that dress is exquisite!  I think I remember hearing that hanging an antique outfit is not a good idea.  I looked up some additional information and came across this site:

http://www.bustledress.com/z.pl/tips.html

Hope this helps!
Kelly

Laura,

I'd been wondering how you were doing preparing for your big show!  I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin's tragic death.  Unfortunately yes, huffing is EXTREMELY common.  My mother put up a fence around her property last year, as she lives partially on the edge of woods and the neighborhood kids were using the cover of the trees for, well, everything.  When the contractor's crew came out to clear brush to make way for the fence, they also cleared out garbage out after garbage bag after garbage bag after garbage bag of the kids' trash.  It was all alcohol and huffing stuff.  Beer, cheap wine, hard liquor, and lots of aerosols.  The contractor's crew, all big tough guys, were shell-shocked at the stuff that was back there.  Incidentally, the kids in question are high school age down through pre-teen.  Thank you for bringing up such an important subject.

Hugs,
Kelly

Wow Jodi, five gold stars for a job well done!  Hmmm, I don't have any gold star images to include in this message, so you'll have to settle for five of these little yellow smilies...

:clap:   :dance:  :clap:  :dance:  :clap:

Keep up the great work!
Kelly

I should probably clarify that I really don't need more fabric 

If the two swaps were divided, I would probably only do the accessory swap.  However, if my accessory swap partner would like to include fabric as part of the accessory swap, I would be willing and able to do so.  Clear as mud, right?

Cheers,
Kelly

Hi Krista,

Looks like your original auction is running normally.  The message your received was not legitimate.  There is a slight chance that eBay hiccuped and sent the message in error.   Most likely is that it is a spoof, trying to get you to click on a link in the email so they can steal your eBay user ID and password.  There are a lot of eBay spoof versions oout there... I've received fake "question for your item" emails when I had no auctions running, fake "second chance offer" emails when I hadn't bid on anything, and many, many more.  I have no doubt there are fake "your item has been relisted" emails as well.  As long as you didn't click on the link in the email and enter any information, there's nothing to worry about, just delete it.

Cheers,
Kelly

Me too, please!

Kelly - any size bear mini to biggie, will swap anything including mohair & other fabrics, and I'll ship anywhere in the world.

I think that covers just about everything 
Kelly

Shantell, tell me about it.  I just HAD to ask about the French Velour...  <sigh>.  It's a terrible thing to be a teddy bear artist with no willpower.  Now where's my credit card...

Cheers,
Kelly

I'm working on a synthetic bear now too, so it should be hard to pass this challenge up!   

Cheers,
Kelly

Wow, great photos Krista!  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words 

Excellent point also about adjusting the pattern so you don't get "giraffe neck". (OK, I admit that a few giraffes have wandered through this studio...)  That is absolutely correct, the bear pattern that you're adding a double-jointed neck to undoubtedly already had one neck, so it's a good idea not to just slap on a second one without taking that into consideration.  LOL!

Bear hugs,
Kelly

Ooooh, I thought of something else to mention... with capping the neck wedge, that does mean the base of your head and top of your body will need matching caps as well, to keep both ends of the joints smooth.  This does mean you will need to leave an opening in the head for turning and stuffing as well.  I try to leave the opening under the jaw if there is enough room, if not I leave the opening running down one side of the forehead.  I just look for the largest space without a bunch of curves, really.  If you're working on a smaller head, you may need to use the same trick mentioned above for inserting the disc.  Sew the smaller cap on fully, half the larger cap, flip the head rightside out, insert the disc in the head, then finish closing that cap.  The body is always the easiest one to cap, there's tons of room in there! 

Wendy, I don't know why shaving a bit more off the caps makes such a big difference, but I've tried it both ways, and it really does seem to help.  With sewing the caps on, technically you lose the width of your seam allowance once it's sewn anyway, which makes the cap wind up that much smaller than the disc anyway.  Oddly enough, it seems to need just a bit more taken off first, for that seam to really roll under the disc when it's all put together.

I'm laughing at using the term "bubble neck" above, I think I borrowed the term from someone on this board when we were last discussing double-jointed necks.  Can't remember who said it, but it's so brilliantly descriptive that "bubble neck" has been stuck in my head ever since!

Best wishes,
Kelly

Hey, thanks Jenny!  That was just what I was looking for 

Hugs,
Kelly

I seem to do a lot of double-jointed necks, so I hope I can be of some assistance.  A few pointers from the way I do double-jointed necks, though I know there are many different ways that people accomplish the same tasks.

Presuming you don't have a paper pattern yet... Your neck piece pattern should be in the shape of a wedge.  The best way to check the angle of it is to play with your paper pattern, cut out all your pattern pieces and set them on the table so you get the silhouette of your bear.  If your bear is on all fours, place the neck in the down position (longer side of the wedge up), to make sure it looks like you want it to, this should show the normal profile of the bear.  Then flip the neck piece so that the longer part of the wedge is now on the bottom, just like you'd rotated the neck on the bear, he should be looking up now.  (If you have more of a teddy upright pattern, the long part goes on the back of the head to check his normal profile, flipping the longer side to the front of his body should make him look up.)  With the bear looking up, make sure the head is not pointing so high up in the air that the neck looks dislocated.  Your bear will thank you.  Too great an incline will make it look painful, too shallow an incline and you won't notice any difference in the position of the head no matter which direction the neck piece is in.  Of course, make sure you have added in seam allowances to your new neck pattern piece as well.

When you have your pattern piece all set, here are a few more things to remember.  Depending on your pattern, you may either be using the same size discs at the top and bottom of the neck, or you may be using a smaller pair of discs on the top of the neck, where it joins to the body.  Get your neck piece all sewn up and ready to go, flip it so that the outside is out, just like your finished bear will be.  Find the correct disc size for each end by inserting various sizes of discs in that end and seeing what fits... a good fit is the largest disc you can put in there WITHOUT distorting the fabric and bulging it outwards.  I close the wedge by capping it, NOT gathering, although some do the latter.  I find that gathering a double-jointed neck makes for the dreaded "bubble neck disease", where there is a visible indentation where the joints meet and the center of the wedge section seems to puff outwards.

To cap the wedge, first you need your correctly sized discs.  I use ultrasuede for my caps in a color that blends in with the color of the bear (you should NOT see the cap on the finished bear if you do this correctly, but it never hurts to use something that matches just in case!).  I take my discs and cut around them on the ultrasuede to get a circle of the exact same size.  Then I carefully cut around my circle of ultrasuede and shave off a small amount all the way around.  I literally take a shaving off for a small disc, I may take 1/8" inch or more off for a big disc.  This is because you want your cap just a bit smaller than the disc, that way it will disappear when the bear is put together, and you won't be able to see or feel a big lumpy seam where your joint meets.

That's the gist of it.  Only other thing to remember is this... I leave an opening on the long side of the wedge for turning once the end caps are on and stuffing the finished product.  This works great if you are working with a big enough neck, just make sure the opening is sized so that your largest disc can still pass through it.  If there just isn't enough room for that disc to pass through the opening, you'll have to plan things out a little more carefully.  In that case, I will sew the cap on the smaller side of the wedge completely with the neck piece inside out, as usual.  I will sew HALF of the larger cap on with the neck piece still inside out.  Then flip the neck piece rightside out through that opening.  Insert your discs now, both the little one in the finished end, and the big one near the unfinished end.  NOW finish closing the larger neck cap, rightside out, with whatever secure stitch you are comfortable with.  Use the opening in the long side of the wedge for stuffing, tucking your cotterpin or bolts through the discs that are inside, and so forth.

Hope this helps!
Kelly

No Gladys, I apologize, you should not have to.  I certainly never intended to stir the pot in any way, and for giving that impression I am truly sorry.  Daphne, I also apologize for steering your thread in the wrong direction.  Everybody friends again, I hope?
:hug:

Back to the subject!  I have the prefurs sample pack, and it is very soft, luscious fur.  Along these same lines is the faux fur at Fabulous Furs (who also has a sample pack): http://www.fabulousfurs.com/search.asp_ … sap_E_true

And on another related note, does anyone know a good supplier for French Velour?  I have a small piece from Sassy's, but I know it comes in many colors and I'd really like a larger amount.  Thoughts?

Bear hugs,
Kelly

When was there NOT peace on this thread???

My response above looked out of sync when, in the time that I typed it, two other responses were posted.  When mine was posted, it looked like I was flogging a dead horse.  Que sera.  Nobody attacked anybody, I knew the problem was one of wording in the first place.  I wouldn't have responded at all, except that there is, among some artists and collectors, the unfortunate impression that synthetics are cr*p.  I didn't think I was telling Shelli anything she did not already know, or indeed she had already mentioned herself (simultaneously to when I was writing it, in some cases!).  I posted what I did for anyone else who might come across this thread later.  There, we are all in agreement, quality synthetics are not cr*p.

I think I will go back to all that work I had to do...
Best wishes,
Kelly

OK, I must be typing slow today.  Two other posts were made while I was typing that last one 

Cheers,
Kelly

Uh, Shelli.  I'm thinking perhaps your statement above might not have come out quite as intended, you don't normally shoot people down like that.  But, I must express my disagreement with it as written.  Quality synthetics ARE high quality, as Karen points out above.  They are in no way in the same class as inferior grade synthetics, but they ARE in line with quality mohair or alpaca.  I could also point out that mohair comes in a WIDE range of quality as well, I think we all know that.  Yes, there's really bad mohair out there. 

If I were given an option between using a high quality synthetic or a mohair, my decision would be based upon what attributes I wanted for that particular creation, NOT by what the material itself was made out of. 

I could also point out that Michelle Lamb, whom I know you think very highly of, makes A LOT of synthetic bears.  Would you tell her that these are inherently inferior to her mohair bears?

Best wishes,
Kelly

Daphne, if you want to start something, I'm in.  Now is the perfect time to plan 2007 ventures anyway 

I was never in the industry during the grand old line-down-the-block days of shows, but I'm confident the industry ebbs and flows like any other.  Everything will improve eventually.  I'm certainly not going to shows and counting bodies lined up at the door, though it's nice to see it when you can.  I think what's important is the customer-to-artist ratio over the course of the day.  The obvious answer is to bring in MORE people through the door.  The flip side of this is to do what several shows have started over the last few years, and that is to admit LESS artists.  Either way, it improves the customer-to-artist ratio in favor of more sales per artist.  It keeps the artists happier, sure.   It's hard to take a financial loss at a show, and I'm sure it's even harder for artists that WERE there in better days and DO remember those long lines.

I had an interesting show experience this spring (there's a reason for this story, I'll get to that).  I went to a show in Frankenmuth, Michigan... one of the most tourist-y places on the face of the planet, I've no doubt.  Frankenmuth is made to look like a German village, it holds Bavarian festivals, has hotels with indoor water parks, and has the largest Christmas store in the world.  It's jam-packed with tourists every day of the year.  They hold a bear show every year, too.  They usually hold it in a little warren of rooms on an upper floor of the restaurant, but due to a wedding this past year, they spread the artists out over three floors.  It made for a very interesting experiment!  The artists in the 'normal' location, in the little rooms on the top floor, had bear collector traffic from people that knew about the show and came every year.  They put a handful of artists in another room on the middle floor, but put them on the complete opposite end of the building.  If you didn't know where they were (I had a horrible time finding them, and I knew where they were!), nobody really found them.  Unless you happened to walk through one particular door for your lunch reservation at the restaurant, whereupon you ran right into them.  Otherwise, they were hidden.  They had very little traffic at all.  The last few artists (including me), were placed in the hallways of the lowest level of the building.  The lowest level of the building had all of their gift & specialty shops that were affiliated with the restaurant and hotel.  The traffic flow was amazing, it was almost constant people going by.  It brought bear artists tables out into Joe Q. Public and made them go "huh?".  We made some sales to bear collectors, but we also made sales to Joe Q. Public.  Sure, we also had a few men with the "they want $200 for a TEDDY BEAR?!" attitude, but overall it was a great opportunity to educate the public. 

I strongly believe that there ARE people out there who would be artist bear collectors if they only knew about them!  My mother has made bears her entire life... she would have been in this industry in its infancy IF she had known about it.  She ultimately found out about artist bears through me, and I stumbled across them ON EBAY!

So here's my point to that little story.  How about a challenge out there to show promoters.  Bring bear shows out of hotels, back rooms and banquet halls, and put them IN the public.  Somewhere with Joe Q. Public walking past.  What about malls?  It wouldn't be the first time it was done.  Isn't there a show in Australia that's at a mall?  I know the old successful Toledo bear show used to be at a mall.  That's one very important thing that the internet holds over shows.  The internet (or if you want to be more specific, a place like eBay) can reach EVERYBODY.  That includes people who are established bear collectors, people who like teddies but don't really know about artist bears, and people that don't even know they like bears until they stumble across one that just happens to be perfect.   Today's bear shows reach out to only the first group... established bear collectors.  They read the magazines, they know the artists, they know the venues.  Bless 'em all.  But some of those established collectors just aren't attending shows like they used to, whatever the reason.  Yes, and neither are the artists.  I'm sure one affects the other, and vice versa.  I don't know where it started or why, but I know it's a vicious cycle.

Well, I've posted more in the last day than the last year combined     

Best wishes,
Kelly