Pink Bear

OK, he's mauve. I keep talking about the brown bear but I ran out of #6-32 hardware. I have lots of #8-32 hardware so I needed to make a bigger bear. I just bought what I thought would be the perfect fur for this bigger bear. It had a stiffer, more cottony jersey knit backing that I thought would be easier to use.

As you can see that was not the case.

OK, don't give up yet! What do you do when even your seemingly better fabric twists on you?

My problem this time wasn't the fact that my backing was slippery, it was that the thicker fur was pushing the bottom piece. When I sewed the 2 pieces together the top piece might have a large seam and the bottom might wind up with a small seam, maybe even not catching at all. I tried ripping the bad seams out and trying again. It continued to happen.

Did I really want to sew this guy by hand? No, so think. Well, if I chose a more forgiving pattern with a simple thicker leg with less turns and curves and was really careful sewing...

Simple leg, less turns and curves and careful sewing on the machine did the trick. Remember I'm talking to you folks who are buying inexpensive fur material at your local fabric store. I'm assuming that when I'm ready to buy expensive mohair, which I'm looking forward to buying one day, that I won't have these problems.(sure) In the mean time I'll do what I can with what I can get my hands on.

Here's my mauve bear so far. I'm in the middle of joining him but you can see that my small compromise will not affect how cute he'll be.

Working With Longer Fur

Bunnies ears are pinned on and he's lookin good!

But on this post I'm gonna point out some of the things you'll need to be aware of when working with this type of fur or any longer fur you might use.

Check out these seams. A lot of fur is caught in the stitches but it doesn't have to stay that way.

Take a needle or seam ripper and gently pull that fur out. Start further away from the seam and then work towards it. You don't have to get every last hair out especially closest to the seam.

That looks much better.

This guy has already been named Celery. He will go to one of my girlfriends kids who I sent the material to. I understand they are planning on making hats for their bunnies. I hope they send a picture for us!

Anyway back to work.

#1 When cutting long fur material, only cut the backing and not the fur side.

#2 It's easier to sew in the direction the fur is going.

#3 You can trim or shave the fur within the seam allowance if it's thick.

#4 While sewing on the machine you can push the fur in the seam with a seam ripper as you go.

#5 When your parts are stuffed and jointed you can pull the fur out of the seams with a pin or seam ripper.

#6 If using slippery nylon backed fur, hand sew and use a ton of pins!!! (I'll get back to you about the interfacing)

I Was Asked About Bunnies

This is the pile I sent off the other day. My friend asked if the bears could be converted to bunnies. The strangest thing happened though, when I pulled back the ears on a couple of my bears and put a bunny ear on their head instead they screamed, I'm a bear. When I took an extra bear head, without ears, out of my drawer and stuck the bunny ears on it, it said bunny. Once a bear always a bear. You'll notice I'm sending her that difficult material I told you about. Boy did it give me no end of problems. Normally I wouldn't give a first time animal maker the hard stuff, but she's quite skilled.

Included is a pattern with bunny ear.

This is where I am on the prototype now but don't ohhh and awww yet!

I'm not gonna take you through the whole process but I will give you any tips that I can. I'm still learning myself!

I made the decision to hand sew the entire bunny because this stuff would not stay in one place or behave itself. I'm thinking about using fusible interfacing next time. Has anyone tried it before???

Tomorrow I'll show you how I sewed the head. It'll give you a better idea of how you can work with this kind of fabric.