Bears of the Past

It is Christmas time and I wanted to show you a couple of teddy bears from Christmas Past. These are just two from the past,  I hope you enjoy them.

All My Teddies

Originally I thought to post all my original designs of handmade teddy bears and critters in order of their creation, but found it to be bit of a daunting undertaking, so now I am just going to post them as I find them on my saved dvd discs. I will give the information I wrote about them in a scrapbook I compiled as I made and sold them, mostly on e-bay.  Here is my second installment. 

This little girl is Anne Hester. She was born in 2002, and was made from a recycled wool coat, the little doll was made from muslin. She has glass eyes and is fully jointed, with a hand stitched mouth, nose and eyebrows. Her paw pads were made from the same coat, but tea dyed. She is wearing a vintage baby dress.  Her dolly has hand a hand drawn face and features. She sold on e-bay in June 2003 to someone in Illinois.

This little fellow is Byran Longfellow. He was born in November 2002, and is made from green upholstery velvet with reversed upholstery fabric paw pads. He is 10 inches tall, fully jointed with antique shoe button eyes. His nose mouth and eyebrows are hand stitched from perle cotton. He is wearing a cotton poet shirt with a rust ribbon tie, and a black chenille crocheted hat, all hand made by me. He has his own book of poetry. He sold on e-bay in December of  2002 to someone in Wyoming. 

This little guy is Bailey.  He was born in 2000, and is made from curly, stressed, honey brown mohair. He has glass eyes and leather paw pads and is fully jointed. He is 18 inches tall, his nose is hand stitched from black perle cotton. He wears a vintage green ribbon bow.

This is what I wrote in my scrapbook:
I made this little guy during the summer Janna, Miakoda and I had an apartment in Mt. Holly. I didn't really like the way he looked, his arm joints were too large. I sculpted his face and replaced his arm discs and he turned out to be quite a handsome bear.  He was sold on e-bay to someone in New Jersey. 

Emily Teasdale

This little teddy came into being in September 2001. She is made from Cream Berber Wool, is fully  jointed with glass eyes. She is 12 inches tall and her paw pads are cream upholstery fabric. Her nose is hand stitched from black perle cotton. Her sweater is hand knitted and crocheted. 

I wrote this comment in my journal:

I made this little bear as a patriotic teddy bear with a red, white and blue knitted scarf, but it just didn't suit her, so I knitted and crocheted the sweater for her. It suits her. 

Teddy took 8 hours to make, sweater 4 hours for a total of 12 hours.

She sold on ebay in September 2001 to someone from Illinois.

Robinson Cervantes

I made this little guy in November 2001. He is 13 inches, fully jointed, with glass eyes. He is made from recycled denim and stuffed with polyfiber and pellets. I hand stitched his nose from black perle cotton and his paw pads were reversed denim. His vest was made from the pockets of denim overalls. His sweater was hand knitted from wool and alpaca. His pants were made from cotton muslin. His scarf was hand knitted from alpaca. 

My comment on him was as follows:

This was one of my favorite teddy bears. I loved the denim I used to make him, it was a pair of my worn out overall shorts. The color was a soft warm blue. I made his vest from the back pocket of the overalls. I knitted his sweater freehand from wool with cream alpaca stripes. I also knitted his scar freehand from creme alpaca. 

Teddy took 8 hours to make, vest 2 hours, pats 1/2 hour, sweater 4 hours, total of 14 1/2 hours. He sold on e-bay in November 2001 to someone who lived in Illinois.

Review

I haven't posted anything in a year, and I have not been making teddy bears for awhile, but I am ready to start making them again. If I only make them for my own use, that's okay, but I will list some in my etsy store. 

First, though I would like to start a reveiw of all my past teddy bears, so I think I will post a story behind each one along with photos. I will try to keep them in chronological order. I kept a scrapbook for most of them along with a book of sketches for their design. I will start posting them tomorrow.