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Posts: 8,574What was your favorite stuffed animal, that you owned, as a child or adult? Who gave it to you and why? Do you still have it?
Dilu
Past Time BearsUnfortunately, I didn't have any soft, stuffed toys as a child, but I was lucky enough to find my first teddy bear during a really awful period of my life (as a VERY MATURE adult). That's when I became hooked on teddies and eventually started my bearmaking career. And yes, I still have the bear that turned my life around.
Posts: 8,574Yeah Sue Ann
This is what I had in mind. I bet we can get some really great stories.
I find it interesting that you and Judi had teds to help you through a rough patch.
I feel the same way-I needed something small that I could do in my lap that kept me busy but was not a long drawn out complicated Quilt project because I didn't have the energy or strength.
The little guys gave me purpose again, as I have not been able to work at my profession. I cant go to heaven until I use up my stash-right? so I have to get better, which means no pity parties, just do what you have to do.
Oh and keep buying supplies 
Delartful BearsOooh that would have to be my Pink Panther. Apprently I was about 3, and I was at a second hand sale, fell inlove with this already dead looking thing LOL My father apprently didn't want me to buy it because it was already so old and tired looking, but I fell in love with it. I bought it, and apprently would carry it around like it was a baby. I still have it... scruffy old looking thing it is, but I couldn't part with it... no way!
I had a Cookie Monster with googly eyes that made a little sandy sound when they wobbled. He went to bed with me and got all matted and blicky. But I think he was a little bit affectation, because I WANTED to have a Cookie Monster special somebody to sleep with.
My real first stuffed love would therefore have to be PINKY, the elephant. He was about ten inches tall , made of pink cotton with white polka dots, and was created to be almost totally flat... kinda like a flounder, with one eye on each side of him. He had only a single ear that you could flip to one side or the other, depending on which of his sides you were looking at (since you couldn't look at him head-on due to his inherent flatness.)
I was very recently delighted to find a new "retro" version of my PINKY at our local, very cool boutique gift store, in the baby toy section.
One day when I was little, we travelled to Wisconsin by car from California -- my folks are Madison born and raised and moved to Cali in their thirties before I was born. Once there, PINKY was nowhere to be found. My mom told me that he must have gotten misplaced on the trip. Of course, I was heartbroken. But I survived, and grew up a little at the same time.
Imagine my surprise -- and horror! -- to discover PINKY a year or two ago in the cedar chest my folks gave me for safekeeping. I learned two things that day:
1) PINKY lives! and,
2) Moms lie!
:D:D
DoodlebearsMy sister was given two teddy bears when she was born so when I made an appearance I was give one of the bears. I love this bear so much and kept him safe and wouldn't go anywhere without Teddy. He is made from real lamb's skin and he is all soft and curlew. I can't believe that toys were made the way my bear was made. He is jointed with thick wire and his eyes are on wire stems. I say eyes but it's the case of eye now as he lost one eye somewhere through the years. His jointing satem has loosened and one leg hangs loose. When my daughter Eve was very unwell as a small child she asked if she could hold Teddy...she is still holding onto Teddy! In her delirium she thought that I had given my treasured Teddy to her and I still to this day haven't got the heart to ask for him to be returned to me. Yep I daft but I love Teddy but I love my daughter more and she has often said that she can't believe I gave her my beloved Teddy when she was so ill. I now have a house full of bears but tucked away in my heart is a big space ready for Teddy if he should ever be returned to me. :)
Jane.
http://www.doodlebears.co.uk
http://www.craftyfolksads.co.uk
Posts: 3,177I had a teddy bear for my 5th birthday and i loved him to bits - i still have him today! He has a little chime box inside him which still works. I think it was the lovely sound he made that really attracted me to him plus he was very soft and cuddly.
I called him Tinka-Tonk as that was the sound he made - i occasionally get him out of the cabinet and give him a shake, it still makes me smile!
Penny 
Cool stories! I had an entire bed full of stuffed animals... all of whom I slept with! Mostly bunnies... no bears believe it or not! I think my most special one was actually a pillow. I called him "Racoonie" (I wasn't real good with names :lol:) He was just one of those early printed fabric panels that you sew and stuff. Just 2 sides, but I loved him 
Back Road BearsThe love of 'stuffies' runs deep in my family. My first stuffie was my mom's white cat that she'd had when she was a child (it's now over 60 years old, very grungy but in one piece, with eyes, plastic red tongue and a little fur!!). It and my very first teddy (ugly chum but his wind up mechanism still works - that lullaby brings back memories) keeps kitty company in a chair in our guest room.
I had oodles of stuffed animals growing up (someone gave me a barbie, I chopped it's hair off and it laid naked under my bed for ages! I did NOT like dolls!!) all were favorites with special names (Cocoa the dog, ChiChi the monkey, Fleegle the frog). They covered my bed and were a great source of entertainment as an only child.
My FAVORITE stuffie of all time is 'Morgan' a floppy Boyd's Bear my mom gave me when I went through my divorce about 10 years ago. He's a great hugger, absorbs tears well and always makes me feel better when ever I'm blue. He sits on my bed with my new hubby's favorite bear, a white polar by Gund named Schlepp.
Great topic, Dilu! :rolleyes:I think I did more than answer your question - woman of few words, I am not!
Posts: 11I've still got my bear given to me when I was born. He's a white Wendy Boston and still goes every where with me. he's been patched, repatched, covered and recovered and he knows all!!!
PottersHouse BearsI had several stuffed animals as a child. My teddy bears did not survive. My mom said that every teddy bear that I had was loved to death. I guess back then they just tossed them away when they became worn. What a shame. I do remember a little lion that I had and I still have a big donkey that I got when I went to Cedar Point (an amusement park) with my aunt. My most cherished though is my dad's old Petz bear.
Millie
Baird'sBearsLike Laura, I slept with all my animals--and a younger sister. Most of the animals, and sometimes my sister, ended up on the floor by morning. Here we are in Falls Church Virginia. I'm the one on the left, sprawled out in a rather unladylike pose!
Eileen
Posts: 8,574Eileen,
What a fun memory and fun picture. I kind of miss those carefree days of 'unladylikeness'
Thanks for sharing you picture.
Dilu
Oh Eileen that picture is priceless!!
Baird'sBearsThanks, Dale I'll get the hang of this sooner or later.
But I digressed. My alltime favorite animal was Aroma the skunk. I can't remember where he came from, or how I got him, but he went everywhere with me. It wasn't until many, many years later that I was stopped in my tracks by a violent existential shock. Aroma wasn't a skunk at all. Never had been. Aroma was a RACCOON, ringed tail and all. Double Duh. I've never really got over it. Anyway, here's me with Aroma, my Dad and one of my sisters with some weird creature I can't remember or identify!!
Daddy's girl,
Eileen
That's hysterical! I'm still recovering, myself, from that huge ol' fib about my elephant, PINKY. The things that traumatize us. But thank goodness, because otherwise folks like my husband -- who is a therapist -- would be out of a job!!! :D:D
Baird'sBearsAbsolutely. Thank heaven for the psychotherapists. I wonder if there's a name for stuffed-animal trauma?
Aroma's picture appeared in my preview, but seems to have disappeared. He was a weird skunk. Raccoon.
Eileen
