Special project

-

 As I mentioned before, I ordered a dark brown fabric to mimic the bear one of my sisters had as a child. I worked on it yesterday and finished it this morning! My husband is out of town so it gives me something to do when he’s not here. Debating if I'll make another one today...

I barely had enough fabric to divide it in half in hopes of getting two bears out of it. The other challenge was being able to see the pattern lines on such dark fabric. My sewing wasn't perfect this time. I wonder if there is a special white marking pen for dark fabric. The black wasn't enough. I felt like I was sewing blindly. 

Sending a little update to my sister.


Finally put together with plastic joints this time. Still waiting on the good ones with cotter pins to come in. 


Mapping out the nose and eyes. I don't think I'll use red for the nose though.
  

Using the awl to make a small hole for the glass eyes. 



The completed bear! For some reason, he doesn't stand or sit very well. Not sure what happened in the process that caused that. In any case, he's very sweet and I hope my sister will enjoy him!













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This must be the place

-
Image
Lemon   My sewing journey began as a child when I would sit next to my grandmother as she would sew clothes and toys for me and my five sisters. Sometime in the eighties, she acquired a Bernina Record 930 . This machine followed her through many stages of our lives, even sewing my velvet wedding gown in 1997. When my first child was born, my grandmother got a new machine and she lovingly passed the Bernina on to me. My first projects were small baby quilts even though I required lots of help from her. I’m sure I tried baby clothes but soon gave up. The machine moved with me to a few homes before we landed on Church Street in downtown Charleston, SC. Something caught my eye in a magazine, and I decided to sew a toy. At first it was by hand, but I figured it would be much faster by machine. I made my first flat animal - a rabbit we named Lemon, even though she wasn’t yellow at all. I realized I didn’t have much control over the machine, and I went back to hand sewing although on a mu...
Read more

What do you think?

-
Image
This morning after I fed the pups, I got back to work on our new little friend. My favorite part of making the bears is arranging the eyes and nose. I will put pins in the face so I can get an idea of what it will look like.  Waiting for stuffing in the limbs I like to use wool for stuffing instead of poly-fil. It just seems more fitting for something that you want to treasure and keep for a long time. I found this bag of wool that belonged to my mom. She had made a Waldorf doll for one of my children when she was younger. Now she's 18. My mom passed away two years ago, and I like to think that she would have enjoyed the little creatures I am making. She was also a wonderful knitter so I wonder if she would have made some little clothes or scarves for the bears to wear.   My little buddy, Henry Once I had everything stuffed and stitched up, It was time to sew on the ears. Unfortunately, I made the same mistake as I did once before and forgot to whipstitch the ears closed. I ha...
Read more

The wedding gown

-
Image
I got engaged around the age of 25. We waited a full year and a half so that we could be married at Christmas time and near the date of my grandparents' 50th anniversary. We didn't have much money so many of the details were handmade. The most special one was my wedding gown. My mom and I did go to a few bridal stores to try on dresses, but I couldn't find one that I loved. I finally asked my grandmother if she would be able to make it for me. I had certain requirements for the dress. It had to have long sleeves and an empire waistline. And it had to be velvet. I don't know much about sewing, but I do know that working with such a fabric must be challenging. My grandmother never tried to sway me in another direction. We poured over the pattern books looking for the perfect style. I finally found a costume pattern for a medieval gown that had both long sleeves and an empire waistline. I don't know how we managed the train. Perhaps there was another pattern that she w...
Read more