Throwback

 

I do still sew, in case anyone is curious. Not as much as I used to, especially since in-person craft shows didn't happen in 2020, but I do still enjoy it.

What sewing I did last year was mostly custom work, and this was a job I was happy to get. A former co-worker reached out to me in February. Her mother-in-law had just died and her husband wanted to do something with four of her favorite nightgowns. (She had been house/bed bound for a long time and cycled through the same several gowns, and they were what everybody thought of her wearing). 

Remembering what I used to do on the days when I wasn't in the office, she suggested that I make bears out of them - and then ordered ELEVEN.

She drove out to visit and we had a lovely masked chat on the back porch when she handed over the gowns.

Sewing-wise, I flinched when I opened the bag, because they were all very stretchy polyester, and not even all the same. Some were two-way stretch, and some were four. Some were fuzzy and some smooth. All were going to be a nightmare to make small pieces with.

I decided that it would slow the process initially, but speed things along in the end, and I used fusible interfacing on all of it, then cut out the pieces. It kept them from stretching in every direction at once, and saved me from embedding too much profanity into what were supposed to be nice memorial bears.

A while back I had ordered safety joints for use in future bear projects, and I tried to use them here. First off, I think I ordered them slightly too small, but also, the fabric was just so limp that no matter how I tried, the arms and legs just dangled off the body. I removed them - no small feat with a locking joint - and went back to my original method of stringing them through the shoulders and hips with hemp cord.

The longest part of the process was trying to decide on the fabric arrangement. A red plaid, a pink and gray paisley, an ivory with navy blue toile, and a bright white with red cardinals. Other than the plaid/cardinals, none of it really worked. After some thought, I decided to tie them together by using the plaid in the same place on each one - head panel, inside arms, and foot pads. Then the rest of the pieces could be of the different fabrics, and each bear would be trimmed with lace from the neckline of the "head" nightgown. Each bear got a red ribbon to finish.

She picked them up the other weekend - another coffee/chat on the patio, this time rainy and chilly - and she carried them off to Delaware. They'll be distributed to her husband's various siblings and relatives once it's safer to gather as a family, but judging from the photo she sent, he seems pretty happy with them, and maybe his family should be worried about getting them from him at all.

Mickey, Minnie, Bear

One very large pair of mice

I know I've said this before, but this was probably the most difficult memory bear I've had to make.

Some fabrics are harder to deal with than others.  Old, nearly sheer t-shirt fabric would be one of those.  Also, prints/patterns/graphics can be weird.  Ditto, extra-large Mickey and Minnie.

But it had to be done.

My client contacted me and said that her best friend's mother was dying, and that the mother was very, very close to her friend's little boy.  They had gone to Disney together and this was a souvenir shirt that she had worn nearly to pieces.  She thought that turning it into a bear would be a comfort for him when his grandma passed.

Pre-cut denim bear being used as pattern
because pattern pieces have vanished

I could certainly see where it would, but when I received the shirt and saw those enormous mice, I wasn't sure what to do with them.  There wasn't a whole lot of time to wait for inspiration to strike - I knew from speaking to my client that grandma was unlikely to last the week, so there was already a serious likelihood that the bear wouldn't arrive on time for her to give it to her grandson.

The faces were just so large that there was no way to turn them into the bear's face, so after some puzzling (until my puzzler was sore, as Dr. Seuss would say), I laid out my pattern pieces very carefully to take advantage of the features of each.  You can see from the photo that everything fit on the front, but only just.  I did end up using denim for the insides of the arms and legs, and for the accents on the ears, just to break up the white t-shirt fabric.

I also interfaced the -shirt before cutting it apart, just so I wouldn't lose any of the image to stretch.

I haven't totally decided if the combined Mickey-Minnie smile is creepy or fun.  I think it's a little of each.  I was just pleased that I was able to get the faces onto the bear's face in some form, and it seemed more logical to try to do that than to have a half smile appearing under its ear.

The deadline wasn't met, though - I got the bear turned around and shipped back out in 2 days, but my client emailed me the same day that I shipped to tell me that her friend's mother had passed away.

She also emailed me a few days later to tell me that the little boy loved his bear.  If nothing else, it's very suited for all the tears it will have to absorb.

But that's what a bear's for, after all.

Bear Season

Custom bear season, that is.

Last year I did a set of 8 bears for a co-worker of a previous customer.  The bears were made from a denim shirt, t-shirt and plaid fleece lap blanket that had belonged to her dad.  At the time, she said she wished she'd kept something belonging to her mom, but everything had gone.

A few months ago, she contacted me and said that she'd found her mom's favorite sweater set put away (where she could find it, of course!) and would I make her 4 more bears?  Absolutely.

There were only 4 bears this time because (a) her mom wasn't a big woman, and (b) she'd passed away before any of the grandkids were born, so unlike the dad bears, which were distributed to three sisters and their children, the mom bears were only going to my customer and her sisters.

The source fabric was a Tommy Hilfiger light blue embroidered camisole and cardigan set, size medium.  The embroidery was on both sides of the cardigan, around one wrist and on the camisole.  Which was lovely, but really limited the amount of fabric I had to work with.  My customer was hoping that I could do all 4 bears in just the blue, but I called her almost immediately and told her it just wasn't going to happen - there wasn't enough sweater to go around.  We decided to mix in an ivory cashmere blend that I had on hand, and I used a pale gray sweater for the ears and foot pads, just to add a little more contrast.

The bears - and the sweater - are really about the embroidery, which is done in ribbon in shades of ivory, pale gray and lilac.  I cut those sections off the sweater first and put them aside, and after the bears were otherwise finished I pinned embroidered sections onto each bear and hand stitched them on.  Because of the stretch in the sweater knit, and the placement of the embroidered pieces, each bear is different.

I like every custom bear I do, but I honestly think these may be my favorites right now - the colors and the embroidery just make them really special.

Grandpa Bears, Again

You may remember that last year I made a set of bears for two little girls from their grandfather's suit jackets and ties (he even picked them out specially before he passed away).

I was contacted recently by that same man's daughter.  It was her niece last year who had the bears done, and now this woman wants a set of 4 for her grandchildren, and she showed up recently with 3 more jackets, a bag of ties, a monogrammed shirt and 2 caps for me to play with.

He was a seriously well-dressed man, I'll say that.  It's such a privilege to work with nice menswear fabrics, even if I do feel like a criminal taking these garments apart.

On the other hand, it's like a tailoring lesson in reverse, pulling apart a jacket and looking at the stitching, chest pad, shoulder pads and all the other intricate things that go into making a piece look effortless.

I know how much work is involved, but seeing it all torn apart on the dining room table is a little alarming.

In a good way.  Mostly.

So there are either going to be four or six bears out of this lot.  We started with a four bear order, but she said if there was enough fabric, we could take it to six.

I think there's enough fabric here to make a small bear army, but six seems like plenty.

I don't have a photo handy of the ties she included in the package, but safe to say one of those is going back in its original condition.  I felt like enough of a criminal cutting up the jackets; there's no way I can cut up a Hermes tie and be able to sleep at night.

Some things are just too good to destroy, even in the name of teddy bears.

It takes a village to make a bear

Thanks so much to everyone who left a comment on my prior post about this bear.  As you can see, I took a little bit from each of your suggestions, and in the end, I think I (we) came up with something that will make the customer very happy.

I did end up using all five fabrics in the end -- the light blue for the body and half the arms/legs, the My Little Pony fabric for the head and the other half of the arms/legs, and the yellow terry romper for the ears and foot pads (including the original tiny Izod alligator, just because).

The difficult fabrics were, obviously, the Dresden plate and the shamrock prints.  I decided instead of using ribbon that I would make a tie from the shamrock fabric, and then, as suggested by Glenda, I appliqued the Dresden plate on the belly.  Because nothing succeeds like excess, I cut out the center circle and filled it with a pony.

Somehow it's both trippy and fun, and kind of feels like a bear that a child might design -- all those bright colors and random prints ended up working out, after all.

Where do I go from here?

I got a custom bear order recently.  The buyer said that she'd originally contacted a large company somewhere in Vermont that made custom bears, but after receiving her fabrics, they contacted her and said they were no longer in the custom business and were just doing straight production work.

I think I understand why.

Do you see these 5 fabrics?  Do you see any relation between them, other than that all 5 obviously mean something to the woman who chose them?

There's some My Little Pony print cotton, which I think started out as a skirt; some shamrock print; a spongy pale blue that doesn't match the blue in the pony fabric; a quilt print cotton with lots of dark purple; and a bright yellow romper with red and blue accents (and a tiny Izod alligator).

I've been staring at these fabrics for the better part of a week, trying to make them come together in some kind of harmony.

So far, no harmony.  More like really, really dissonant jazz . . .  the kind that very few people understand, or can even listen to.

Taps

Haven't had a custom bear request in a while, and just got this one last week.

I always enjoy the custom requests, and the stories that go with them.

This one didn't come with much of a story, just a USAF camo jacket and a t-shirt, with a request to make a memorial bear.

So, putting two and two together, this is not a bear for a happy occasion and I really wanted to do my best with him.

The buyer did ask that I use the name tag from the jacket somewhere, so since I've done "bibs" before with names, I took the provided t-shirt and used that for the bib, along with the ears and feet.

The back of the bear has his senior airman rank, which looks enough like wings to seem appropriate on the back of a memorial bear.

Introducing the Gucci Bear

My latest custom bear is one of my favorites in a long time.  My customer said this sweater belonged to her father, who bought it in Italy on a family vacation 35 years ago.

It still had the original Gucci label inside the neck.  She asked for that back separately, but told me that I could do whatever I wanted with the rest of the sweater.

As you can see, the sweater had these dark green and red bands at the shoulders and around the sleeves.  I needed to use some of that for the ears and foot pads, to break up all the ivory knit (which looks and feels almost like thermal underwear, so it wasn't too bad to work with).

I cut a wide edge on the rest of it and place it like a pageant sash across his chest, so that the woven Gucci name would show.

Because I didn't have any ribbon that even came close to matching the red or dark green, I used ivory -- turns out that I had an exact match there.  Go figure, the Crayola Queen had a neutral in stash.

That's my last custom piece for the moment, but I'm always looking forward to the next order -- these are so much fun to do.

A good and patient man

There have been a lot of bear posts lately, I realize that.  It's the most popular item for the holiday season, and each one is so different -- and each story is so different -- that I like sharing them.

This set also comes with a story, which I will tell, but first I have to give credit where credit is due -- to Mario, who learned this weekend that he could tie a 16" necktie on a stuffed bear.  Thankfully said stuffed bear did not have its arms and legs in place when this occurred, because it would have just made it more difficult.

The woman who ordered these bears had a special request. Could I make a set of 2 bears in a week?  They're for her 2 daughters, and the clothing provided is from her grandfather, who is expected to pass away within the next few weeks.  The bears were his idea, and they picked out the clothes together, but then he surprised her by saying he wanted to be the one to give the bears to her girls.  She thought she'd just take the clothing and put it aside until after the holidays, but he had other ideas.

So she contacted me to see if we could play beat the clock together and make a special gift from her grandfather to her daughters.

All I can say is that grandpa had some serious style.  I've gotten every kind of fabric imaginable for these bears, and they're all special because of what the garments mean to people, but this was one of the first times I really regretted cutting up a  piece of clothing.  The ivory-and-black herringbone jacket was silk/camel hair, and the black-and-gray houndstooth check was silk/wool.  Both are luscious to feel and the insides of the jackets, when exposed, made for a nice lesson in men's tailoring.

(Actually the guts of the jackets are up on a shelf in my workroom for me to study at leisure after the holidays, when I might actually have time to sew for me -- or Mario -- again).

Her other request for these bears, aside from speed, was that they have neckties.  Her grandfather is known for his tie collection and he handed over a lilac silk and a maroon paisley for this project, and in addition to the ears/foot pads, she asked if I could make tiny neckties for them.

Turns out I can.

This is definitely not something I'll do too often -- it was a little bit of a pain working with tie silk on such a small scale, and an adventure for Mario tying a tie that small -- but it really finished them off in a style appropriate to the donor of the garments.  (I know I could have made a faux tie, but I decided to try for the real thing -- and in case you wondered, a bear's necktie is 16" long).

P.S. I ended up getting a third order from her, a combined-fabric bear for her mom.  I kind of like that one (in the center) best of all.

Sweater Bears

I have to say these are two of my favorite bears thus far.

Certainly not because of the fabric -- while that sweater knit looks really cute and I love the variations in color that gave me so much to work with, it was a loosely woven acrylic and even with interfacing on the back, it wiggled and frayed and caused lots of profanity in the workroom.

But it was worth it in the end, don't you think?

I didn't end up using every bit she gave me; the patches got packed up the box with the bears to return because the larger one just didn't work on the back of the bear, and I didn't want to ruin the sweater front with it.  Instead, I worked the cufflinks through the sweater knit on the front, to look like badges, and I cut down the two monogrammed hankies so the bears could wear them like scarves around their necks.

Just as cool, the buyer said she has a few friends waiting to see these guys because they're considering similar projects.  So the sweater twins might help bring in a little more income, which is always welcome at the heating season time of year.

Custom requests have become the biggest part of my Etsy business.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised; the way Etsy has changed recently with shops being permitted to hire outside manufacturing and yet still call themselves "handmade," the only way to guarantee your item actually is "handmade" is to contract for its making yourself.

Memory bears: one down

This is the first of the series of five memory bears I'm creating for a client, using some of her mom's poly charmeuse "loungers," what I would call caftans.

Now poly charmeuse is a slippery thing to work with, and keeping it under control made it easier for me not to look at all the warring colors as I put this together.

Now that it's done and stuffed, and his face applied, I actually kind of like him.

Like the plaid palaka bear, it's the kind of frightening that grows on you.

I hope she feels the same way.  I just sent her a status update with a photo.

One down, four more to go.  Except I just emptied my ten pound box of Walmart fiberfill, so guess where I have to go this week?