Sherpa Bear

This is a project I've been wanting to do and avoided doing for a long time. Now I couldn't be more pleased! The below bear is my mom's childhood bear. He is made of lambskin with curly hair. I wanted to make a bear like him but had a hard time finding the curly lambskin. I finally did find it on Ebay. What I found seems much softer than the lambskin that was used on my mom's bear.

For anyone wanting to try their hand at sewing suede, there are ways to sew it on a machine. That's not what I did, I hand sewed the pieces with a whip stitch. Normally you would use a back stitch but leather doesn't fray!

I used a simple pattern from this shop: 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/HelikaToys?ref=l2-shopheader-name

Very Fluffy Hedgehog

This little guy gave me lots of good hand sewing practice. I'm keepin this one and I'll name him Tristan.

Just Checking

I've never worried about my seams before but I should especially since I sew so close to the edge. Joanne recommended using a fray check which you see there in the clear bottle. One problem I see is it bleeds my black sharpie line purple. Just sayin and just checkin. You may also notice that I've had a bit of a hedgehog diversion. 

Back to Business

No, I didn't change the color of the sweater I've just knitted up a demonstration for you. I'm about to sew the shoulder seams of the teddy bear sweater. I like to do this now because I can lay the sweater over the bear and more accurately measure for the sleeves. Now for that revelation I alluded to in the last sweater post. You remember the good old ladder stitch we used when sewing the bear seams, well that's what we're going to use here. I've always hated how two bound off edges sewed up. They never seemed right to me. I discovered that by using our trusty ladder stitch, this seam, like the bear seams, would become invisible. Happy Day!

Instead of putting the fronts of your pieces together, lay them side by side just like those teddy bear seams.

You'll notice that it's easy to make uniform stitches by picking up your knit stitches right under the cast offs.

Were you come up on one side go directly over and into the other.

Make several ladder stitches...

and pull,

a few more,

pull.

Sew to the end and pull, beautiful.

Let me quickly demonstrate what you don't want to do. I'm using an easy overhand stitch.

I'm sewing under the bound off stitches.

The back,

the front, yuck.

This stitch will be fine for the side seams so don't count it out. We're just talking about those seams that were bound off.

Here's the sweater waiting on sleeves. Unless something comes up we'll do them tomorrow.

Friday

Once and a while I sneak off to my friends house to have some crafting companionship. Our project this time was bunnies for her boys. She sews everything by hand so she can always be paying attention to what the boys are doing. They are always approaching her with a new project to sew. Mom, can you sew me a pair of socks so I don't have to get a pair upstairs? But they should watch, after I told her how much I had to spend on my son's sophomore dance she told me she was going to sew her son's suit out of felt.

She got this bunny sewed up in no time.

She handed sewed this wonderful turtle (terrapin) for my birthday.

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)

Focus On The Fur Not The Bunny

It's easy to make a bunny, it's the fur we're having trouble with. It's the fur material that you can buy locally at the craft/fabric store that has the nylon knit backing on it. I'm still recommending plush felt, but if you've found the softest, most wonderful fur, with this nylon knit backing, that you just have to make a bear or bunny with, here's a few things I've learned so far.

Pin, pin, pin.

Move along and pin some more.

Here I'm centering the gusset to the sewn side pieces.

The first side I sew, I always sew straight to the back. Notice how close the pins are.

The first side's done, so far so good.

The second side I leave an opening for stuffing and joining about an inch up from the back.

You wouldn't even know if it were machine sewed or hand sewed with that back stitch!

I'll show you how I make his ears tomorrow.

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.