The Three Bears!

I thought you might like to see my latest mohair bears! I’ve been busy beevering away, continuing to ‘learn the ropes’ of making mohair bears; and making mistakes along the way! But that’s what it’s about at this stage. There’s a particular order to making the bears; and a few times I’ve realised too late I'd forgotten to do something! They are all made of genuine mohair fabric, fully jointed with steel shot inside their tummys, paws and legs; and with genuine glass eyes. They're all somewhere between 7 - 9 inches tall from top to toe!

Anyway, introducing Luca (I haven’t been very inspired by names, but was watching ‘Tea with Mussolini’ last night and liked the name Luca!)

Luca is from a pattern by Sylvie Touzard, bought from Noble Fabrics. I’m very pleased with him, because he has a really nice face. Luca’s woolly jumper is my own pattern, which involved quite a bit of guess work, but now I have the pattern for future use; and I love the burnt orange colour.

Next we have Finn, a little sailor boy teddy

Do you like his little top and matching hat? They were made from an old vintage tea towel I had picked up ages ago at one of those vintage/craft fairs; and to that I added a small antique style brass anchor charm. Finn is from the same pattern as Luca above, but made from a different colour mohair fabric: I’ve also given him a smiley mouth instead ……………. another cutey eh!! It’s amazing how the same pattern in a different fabric, with a different slant to a mouth or nose, can completely change the look of a bear.

And now thirdly (and my absolute favourite so far) is Lala. I just love the quirkyness of this bear. It’s a straight copy from a free pattern I found on ‘Pinterest’ (a great place for free patterns and inspiration generally).

Now I hope you will be just a little bit impressed, because the pattern is in Russian! It’s by a very talented lady called Irina Kunakh – she makes some really unusual bears. I just love her little fat tummy (Lala’s not Irina’s!!) I loved the bear so much the way Irina made it that I didn’t want to adapt it at all; I wanted the same thing and was fortunate enough to find the exact (I think anyway) mohair fabric at what has become my favourite bear making supplies shop. I luckily already had some lilac polka dot fabric for her necktie, ears and feet pads – Lala’s eyes are purple transparent glass. I’d like to be able to say I followed the pattern because I’m so proficient in Russian!!!, but of course I’m not, I don’t speak a word of it, so there’s no need to be too impressed LOL!! Thankfully bear patterns go together in much the same way, so it wasn’t so difficult. It was just things like the cotter joint sizes and eye sizes I couldn’t understand, but they were easy enough to work out. One of the above mentioned mistakes with Lala is that I should have used a thicker Perle cotton for her mouth and eyebrows – they are there, but they’re not too easy to see because I used a No. 12 thread, whereas I should have used a number 8 ……. next time though!!

This last photo here is Irina’s bear (called Lilo) so that you can see I’ve managed to be fairly true to the original.

I chose the name Lala for my version after one of my aunt’s who was nicknamed Lala (real name Sarah), but apparently she was always singing …… “la, la, la, la” all the time. She died young, so I sadly never knew her; and Lala is similar to Irina’s Lilo. You can see Irina’s blog here if you wish, but do you speak Russian??!!!

EDIT 19.10.15
What a lovely surprise - Lala has been adopted and will soon be on her way to her new home in South Wales!!

As I gradually improve in the making of these lovely, special bears, my own style will definitely lean very much towards the quirky style most of the time, although eventually I want to be able to make and offer a variety of styles and sizes for sale.

I hope you love looking at my bears as much as I am enjoying making them

Thanks for visiting.