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Awww, what a good first job, I like the wee paw pads. Did you do him as a kit? I found they were a great way to start, someone else had already worried about all the counting and measuring bits 
Anyone here knit? I want a knitted set for her!
I don't knit, but I'm hoping I'll be able to persuade my mum that she really wants to knit me a few mini things lol Maybe you can find a friend that would trade skills with you for something?
Would you be able to feel them in a huggable bear?
Erm, well I pack mine pretty solid, so no I can't feel them. If you're very softly stuffing then yes, you probably would, in which case cotter pins are the way to go.
You could try nut and bolt joints, I find them easier than large cotter pin ones
For 4 of the 5 members of the 'family' I'm currently making, they were inspired by the people they're for. My friend described the personalities of her 4 kids, and these bears will, hopefully, reflect them. Thus I have a 'boy' bear, an emo girl, a fashionable girl, and a girly girl in the works right now. For all of them I kind of let the fur dictate some of it, and then I slightly ran away with myself in the fabric shop for their clothes and accessories 
I've only used safety joints a couple of times when asked to make bears for kids, and they were a nightmare! One of them is actually coming back from Denmark (it was a present for a friend of my parents' new baby) as the head popped off one day when she was playing a bit too roughly with it. Not sure how I'm going to fix that, or rather how I'm going to be able to instruct my dad to fix it over the phone as she'll be visiting them 200 miles away from me!
My 19 " bear and I have just had a little discussion about this, and here's what we found - he has nut and bolt joints, I find them much more stable than cotter pins for larger bears. He has 5 1/2" long x 2 1/2" wide feet, and his feet are filled with plastic pellets, which I find easier to flatten than stuffing - I've not tried shot or anything other than pellets I have to say. His pads are also a kind of knit backed suede rather than ultra-suede, which prevents the pellets being felt. HTH
I tend to find it easier to use a pin to pull one end of the mohair back through the backing and then pulling that end bit, lets me also decide if I want to leave one end out to make a straight line of 'plucking' it does mean doing it before the head is sewn and stuffed though.
