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mingrul Dec 21, 2007

Last night I was trying to get the same output as Silvia bears (enclose link) http://www.silviagilles.de/html/galerie.html on the bridge part.

I measure where i want the eyes to be located, so to the right and left of the eye location, i measure 0.2/0.3mm on both sides of the eyes. I thread a very strong thread going back and forth from both eyes. When i pull, it seems as if some of the fabric might tear... am i doing the wrong method? Or should i be pulling in a cross position instead to lessen the tear?

I really want a very pronounce bright so that the eyes will look deeper and giving the bear alot of character...  this is something i have never done, so would like to give it a try. For the first time, my sewing was pretty good but i dont want to repeat the head because of the tear!   help! :pray:

teeeej Dec 22, 2007

When I sculpt the nose area I always push the fabric together with my fingers so that I am not actually pulling on the fabric with the thread. This seems to prevent the tearing. I use a figure 8 method when scultpting. In above the seam, out below the seam on the opposite side. Then in above the seam and out below the seam... I repeat until I get the desired sculpting.

mingrul Dec 25, 2007

hi teeeej, well, that is the method i did, i dont know if its the fabric or what, but it seems that after sewing double, when i did the soft sculpting as what you guys called it, it seems to be breaking the fabric abit...

The problem is im using eyes on wire, and its harder to use than i thought... i need to make the hole for the eyes soooo big! 

Little Bear Guy Dec 25, 2007

Hi Ming,

The eyes on the wire that you are using, are you pinching the wires together?  If you pinch the wires together you shouldn't really have to make that big of a hole for the eyes to be inserted.  I have to agree with teeeej that when we do sculpting we also squeeze the fabric where we did the sculpting before we pull on the thread.  This puts a lot sell stress on the fabric, also the bridge area of the nose should be fairly softly stuffed when you do the sculpting you can always go back in afterwards and add more stuffing.

hugs

Shane

mingrul Dec 25, 2007

Hi shane,

you mentioned fairly soft stuffed? really?  :doh: because after stuffing the head firmly, i close the neck opening. than do the sculpting of the eyes. Actually this was the first time i use eyes on wire and i did twirl is as close as i can so that hole size is minimal.. I never had this problem with eyes on loop...

ok, for the next bear, i will sculpt the eyes first before sealing the head. and hope the eyes on wire will not give me a hard time  :pray:  ill post tonight the results of my first bear.. there is a slight tear on the fabric, but it might not be that obvious on the picture.... and you will notice my eye placement got abit off from its original location... 

eyes on wire is a whole lot cheaper so i thought i would give it a try, but encounter some problems because i cant seem to get the same results as before with eyes on loop.. 

kathytaylor Dec 26, 2007

I use the eyes on loops ( I love the narrow loop eyes) but still have to squeeze the loop to make it smaller, and you can imagine how tiny the whole is on a mini bears head!!But I too set the eyes and sculpt them in before closing the neck whole. sometimes I have to reset the eyes deeper after I add more stuffing, i just tighten them up a little more so they are deeper set.

Little Bear Guy Dec 26, 2007

Ming I agree that most people tend to stuff their heads firmly and then close them up.  What you can do is just make sure you stuff the nose area really firmly and the rest of the head not so firm.  It all comes with practice,  I don't much care for the eyes on wire, the eyes on the loops seem to work the best for us.   Just keep trying and practicing and you will get the hang of it.

big hugs

Shane

mingrul Dec 26, 2007

thanks shane... that would be my project tonight, just making the head! i guess i will be having so many heads later on with no matching body... :crackup: the effect i want to get is like the one on your avatar.. and same as some of caya's cub...

kathy, its just that when i took lessons, we did it in the process i describe. I will however need to try ur method and shane's also. its just that u get the feeling if u dont close the opening, than the cotton will all fall out! doesnt it?    sorry, that is my way of thinking so never thought of doing it that way... 

and shane, yes its much easier to work with eyes on loop! i just got a bunch of it for experiment.. now im stuck with stocks... sigh...

thanks a bunch for your help guys...  :hug:

Little Bear Guy Dec 26, 2007

Hi Ming,

No the stuffing won't fall out , a little bit might but not to much.  Remember when you take classes that the person teaching the class is only showing you the way they do it, doesn't mean that is the right way or the wrong way.  We tell people that when we teach classes, we are teaching them the way we do it, but there are bound to be lots of other ways to do things and we encourage them to try them all. 

big hugs

Shane

mingrul Dec 28, 2007

:clap: that is a nice phylosophy shane.. i cant agree with you more. Actually that is what i told my students when i teach the basic class.. its just that when you read the japanese books, it seems to write those method so you never thought there are other methods.

I guess i need to do more reading and research on different techniques... thanks again shane... by any chance of you guys coming to taiwan? ahhaa i might take a class with you guys and learn some new techniques...

:hug:

Little Bear Guy Dec 29, 2007

Ohhhhhh  I'd love to come to Taiwan and teach a class , now if I only had the money to be able to do that    .   

big hugs

Shane

karenaus Dec 29, 2007

I agree with the stuffing part- don't stuff into the eye area, stuff the snout and the head and just let the two areas meet, but don't hard stuff the eye area.
   I like to close the head before I sculpt and set the eyes. Also make sure you don't just pull the sculpting thread when you tighten, press the area you are indenting as well, as you tighten the thread. Another thing, don't try to do it with one stitch, sometimes it takes quite a few tries!

mingrul Jan 4, 2008

shane... hmm.. what about squeezing into a luggage?  ok.. if I get to travel there for my honeymoon within the year, i will set aside a day to learn from you and let my hubby wait!

Karen, at times i stuff it so hard that its hard to press down when you pull. the head seems to make a sound of "tong" on the table when I drop it. Err... my first teacher told me that its the way to test that your head is hard!  But when you said "dont hard stuff the eye area" you meant that i put lot of cotton on the head part but lightly pack on the part where the eyes will go?

thanks so much for your tips... really really appreciate it.  :hug: