Ready for Assembly and Details

Purple Bear For Baby

Here's Purple Bear, as safe as I can think to make it.

I started by sewing the head to the body instead of putting in a joint. I sewed in a good 1/2 inch from the head edge with a ladder stitch.

Next I sewed bears arms and legs on with yarn and a long needle.
Here's the procedure:

1" from top of arm on the inside poke needle and yarn through to outside.
1/8" over go back through to inside of arm
1" or so from head at shoulder go through to other shoulder
1" down on inside of next arm go through to outside of arm
1/8" over go back through to inside of arm
1/8" from last point, at that shoulder, go back through to other shoulder 1/8" over from last point

This completes a rotation. Tighten this to almost where you want it and do it all again. Twice is good, you'll notice we end under the arm. Tighten where you want it, pull out on arms to make sure there's no slack yarn and knot 3 times. Don't cut it yet!!!

I took this yarn invisibly to the inside of the bear and knotted the 2 pieces together so they can't be pulled out. Do this same procedure for the legs positioning the legs so that bear can sit nicely on his bum. I recommend you keep the back open until the end, it's a great place to hide and secure stuff.

I stink at embroidery so I needle felted the features. I used my fine grade wool so it was extra clean for baby!

Now a sweet grandmom needs to make bear some clothes!

If you don't mind scrolling through lots of pages I have a "complete" tutorial here: Teddy Bear Making on making your own bear with local materials.

Bears for Babies

By now I've made a few bears and stuffed animals and just recently I was asked to make a couple more. These bears will be given to a baby and small child and that means special care must be taken.

I was thinking about safety joints and safety eyes but all of those things could be pulled out. I'll need to stick to appliqués, embroidery, and needle felting. I'll also be sewing the jointed legs and arms so that they can still move.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Remembering Peep Peep

I don't recommend that you become the baby bird rescuer in your neighborhood but every once in while it works out. Trust me, I put a lot of work into this little one. I had to feed him Alpo off my finger! This was years ago, I was still in high school.

Everyday I watch the robins in my neighborhood and think of him. I'll always have a soft spot for robins. Look how young my leg looks! That day he was learning how to find worms.

This is Peep Peep taking a bath on a paper plate.

This is the little peepster we found a couple years back, on the ground, in our heavily populated feral cat community. We put him up in a box and his mom found him.

These are the baby squirrels my son found when my neighbor had the tree trimmers out. You don't want to know how far they fell! We called a squirrel rescue and they told us how to get them through the night. Next morning we put them up in the same tree for their mother to find. She was a bit dim so I put pecans all around them. That did the trick. I've lost many baby birds trying to save them, it's not foolproof. You always want to let their parents care for them if they're around. Every once in a while we can help out!