Making Hand Stitched Teddy Bears 2

Things I do instead of working on my model railway?

Build teddy bears with my daughter!

When my daughter (5) asks me “Dad, can we make a teddy bear?” My answer most definitely is “YES!”.

Now, do I know exactly how to make a teddy bear? No.

But I have a rough idea. I figure I can harness the 80-20 rule and get a reasonable result if I just think things thru a bit before going gangbusters at the project.

My Grandma used to build them. Real fancy ones – Moving arms and legs, built in growlers, the perfect amount of stuffing and so on. So I had a bit of a head start over maybe the average bloke. I must admit the last time I saw her constructing a bear it was probably over 20 years ago when I was about 10 years old (or even younger, maybe!) .

Anyways, I figure I have a good brain when it comes to how stuff is built, how objects look on the inside even thought you cant see the inner workings. I’ve got a pretty good grasp of spatial awareness and how a 3d object can move in a given space.

So me and my daughter go down to Spotlight (not sure of a US equivalent) they sell fabrics and curtains and dress making patterns and crafty crap, and all sorts… You get the gist, pretty much its the ‘ladies’ equivalent to Bunnings (or I guess Home Depot.) haha.

So we trundle in there, I have no idea how much this venture costs, but really you cant put a price on firing up a kids imagination? and the sense of empowerment when they realise that a “normal” person can create stuff that you’d buy in the shops? I think not!

Personally I’d rather not buy my daughter an more soft toys… Or toys in general, they have heaps already, literally heaps of toys and we are running out of room to store next weeks “junk” toys. I’d rather get an activity for them or a book.. Heck 5 books instead of 1 toy even!

But I digress.

So we make a bee line to the fabric section. I let her run loose looking at all the possible fabric options. Her mind was blown.

But really it comes down to a choice of 2 racks for nice teddybear building fabrics. After all we aren’t creating tablecloths or summer dresses here!

So in the end it was a choice between fabrics on the “furry” material rack, and the soft fleece rack.

After MUCH too-ing and fro-ing .. And then even more flip flopping, we decided to think on it for a moment while we looked into finding a teddybear pattern (a note on the fabric choosing, I’ve literally bought trucks with less total consideration… Admittedly the wife was not impressed with those choices!)

So we’re flipping thru pattern books for ages, I’m getting solid “NO”‘s for every soft toy pattern I find in the catalogue. Eventually she finds “the” pattern. Boom. Success, I’m nailing this girly version of a hardware store. We head to the pattern drawers armed with the correct code/item number… Only to find there is no pattern in stock! Never fear, we go back to the drawing board (well, the catalougue table) and find a suitable second choice. DENIED, out of stock too! Miss 5 is not impressed. Anyways, as it turns out there was ONE pattern there in the drawer (The first one I found in the catalogue, would you believe it?)

I take the pattern to a self scanning price check point. $14.95. I look back at the table. There is a sign 5 patterns for $10. So we root around in the various drawers to find 4 more patterns. I tell her to just choose anything, I’m not fussed, after all it’s cheaper for 5 than it is for 1 !

But we get lucky. We found a Disney’s Frozen pattern for a barbie sized dolls costume – both Elsa and Anna I think. Bargain.

We picked up a pretty fairy dress pattern, kids size.

Also another Disney pattern, this time its the princess from Tangled. Its also kids size, I believe there’s also a little pattern for a big plait that you make and stuff (I assume) and wear from your head.

And we got a handbag pattern too. Good times, some functional stuff… If I ever get around to making them.

That alone will keep me busy for years. But it worked out so cheap, $2ea for the patterns, less 10% member discount. Absolute bargain!

I’m a bit tired at the moment, so this will do it for part one.you should be able to find part 2 here soon. thanks for reading!

Take it easy 🙂