Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Thank you Patty!  I appreciate your comment.     I adore your bears.  SO cute.

He is absolutely adorable!  What a cute little expression. 

Thank you so much JulietK and Wigglesbears! 

  Thank you Matilda!

Thank you Kathy! 

Hi Christine!  I'm glad you got to see them in person.  Thanks for letting me know.     It's awesome knowing so many people were seeing them.  Thank you for your comments on Melody too.  I appreciate it!  I hope you are well. 

This is my newest creation!  :)
This is Melody. She is felted with Merino and Corriedale and has german glass eyes and teeth as well as mohair eyelashes.

She sits approximately 12cm or 4.7" tall.

Thank you for your comments everyone! 

Tine -  Each of these took me close to or over 20 hours to make.  I love your bears btw.     I've seen a couple on eBay and they are adorable.

Thank you Christine!     I just noticed you are from Adelaide too.  The bunny won first in the Decorative Toy category in this years Royal Show.

I just wanted to show off my 4 latest needle felted pieces.  The bunny won 1st place at our State Fair. 
The cat is felted with Merino and the other 3 with Corriedale.

The cat has bead eyes.  The other 3 have german glass eyes.  The bunny also has german glass teeth and the bunny and lion have mohair eyelashes.

Nice job!  I love your bear.   He's gorgeous.

Nice job!  I have a 17 year old cockatiel with the same colourings as this one.     You've done a great job of capturing the bird.

I can't help you with all of your questions but i'll give a couple a go.

You can dye the wool yourself if you want to but it's so easy to buy the already dyed stuff that I would just suggest going with that first.  Blacks and browns are a fairly common colour so you shouldn't have any trouble finding what you are looking for.

Embroidering over needle felting is fine too.  You wouldn't want to have undyed wool under it unless that is the look you are going for.  I would needle felt the area in the colour you want and then just embroider the nose directly over it.  If you use undyed wool under the embroidery, you might see slithers of the wool peeking though.  I hope that makes sense.

I'm not a bear maker but i'm pretty sure you can needle felt over synthetics...particularly if it has a knit or fabric backing.  Someone will correct me if i'm wrong on that.

The koala in my av has blush on his cheeks.  I gave it a pretty good rub in to set it but I have no idea on how stay-fast it will be.

Thanks Bobbie!     I've got some Prisma markers but I don't have a blender marker with them.  I think i'll just needle felt a ball of core wool and practice some of the techniques on that so I don't mess up work i've been working for hours on.

Hi Marion 

I think i'm going to try the marker technique and after reading the library, the oil paint technique too.
I'll definitely invest in the blender.

Thank you Sue Ann!!  I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction. 

I'm only new to this forum so i've never seen your work before but WOW are your rabbits gorgeous!  I can see why they are so popular.   

Thank you for all of the wonderful photos.  What an amazing array of talent.  The stands all look wonderful.  Nice job all!  :clap:

I'd love to see the idea you've come up with if you decide to make it.   Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say...I think un-traditional cute is attractive to a lot of people.

I've seen on the web people mentioning that they use copic or prisma colour markers for shading.  I'm under the impression that if you don't airbrush, you can actually draw the shading on to your needle felting?  Does anyone actually do this?  Do you need to somehow blend the ink?  Does the finished product look like you've taken a marker to your work?

Any info would be very much appreciated. 

*jaw drop*  What magnificent work!  Just...WOW.

You've done a beautiful job on her.  I love the collar.  It's such a nice touch.