Helene, part 2

 

Stuffing

Start stuffing from the bear’s head. To make your future nose embroidery neater, stuff the end of the nose with soft wooden chips or coconut fiber. Keep stuffing with no haste, carefully, using alternately big forceps and a wooden stuffer. While stuffing the head, form it. Put a disk with a washer and a cotter pin into the lower part of the head and route a tacking stitch with the strongest thread along the lower line on the head pattern. Pull off the thread, with the margin edges bent inside the head. Stuff the arms. Take the filler with forceps, or a clamp, and put it into the arm spreading it inside the arm with a wooden stick. Having stuffed it to the level of the hand, put a bag with granulate in each of the arms, whereupon proceed to stuffing with sawdust. Before stuffing the upper part of the arm, put a cotter pin joint therein. Once the arms are completed, sew the hole up with an invisible stitch.

I use mineral or glass granulate. In this case, I buy small aquarium stones, like those sold in IKEA stores, or in pet shops, trying to pick out smooth stones of about the same size. Here, no extra bags are required, either.

While stuffing the legs, try to make sure the bear can stand firmly on his hind feet. Therefore, the soles must be flat. So, when stuffing the legs, especially, in the beginning, hold the feet pressed to the desk. The procedure for stuffing the legs is exactly the same as for the arms. First line the toe with sawdust, proceed to the entire sole, using a wooden stick as an aid. As a result, you should have a layer of sawdust about 5 mm thick. Next, put a glass or mineral granules up to the ankle. In such a way we give some extra weight to the foot, and continue with stuffing. Once the legs are stuffed, sew the hole up with an invisible stitch.

For filling with polyester fiber, it’s all the same; line the toe and the sole with polyester fiber, put granulate. Then stuff it with polyester fiber again. A hint: take the fiber in smaller pieces to prevent it from clumping.

Assembling

First of all, I attach the head (which is not finished yet) to the body. I like “to animate” the already assembled bear. For the head, we need to spread the seam at the top of the body, where there is a dart, with an awl. Mohair is a very pliant material, so if you are patient enough, nothing will be torn, the mohair threads are just spread apart, and then returned to their places. Once the cotter pin protruded out of the head is inserted into the head, we need to put a disk and a washer from the body side and set the cotter pin ends apart to fix it. I hope you have pliers or a cotter key; these are the best suited for screwing cotter pins.
Attach the legs, then the arms. Here, once again, we need to spread the seam at the top of the body, where there is a dart, with an awl. You will now find very useful the marks for securing to the body that you made when transferring the pattern onto the fabric. Having assembled the bear in this way, stuff its body, place a granulate and sew the hole up with an invisible stitch.

Finishing the head

Well, here we have our bear, completely assembled. The only thing left to do is the most important and intriguing – to know what it will look like. Cut or pluck out the place for embroidering the nose. Remove excessive pile from the area around the eyes. Pull the nose bridge slightly in and tone the places of eye sockets and nose with appropriate shades. Then determine the size of the eyes to suit your bear. A special set of positioning eyes will be very useful here. Here you are: the best position for the eyes has been found, and the bear is looking at you with its beautiful eyes. Attach the eyes with a strong thread and get down to embroidering the nose. I make work pieces for noses of various sizes and shapes of a very thin felt, or suede, and try to see, which of them suits this particular bear best of all. I paste my work piece with fabric glue, and only next will I start embroidering the nose for my bear.

Don’t be in a hurry, as this process requires some patience. I embroider the nose in a single layer with iris thread, embroidery floss, or Spanish threads. These are very manageable, cover the fabric perfectly and are easily waxed.

To wax the nose you will need beeswax or a regular wax candle, a hair drier and a soft cloth. The bear is lying with his nose exposed; the face is hidden, it is protected with a cloth, so we can only see the nose through a hole (this is done to prevent the mohair around the nose from accidental splashes of wax), well, this is just in case the hair drier is very powerful, indeed. So, we are holding a common paraffin candle, or a piece of wax in one hand over the nose, with a hair-drier in the other hand; the wax is melting, dripping onto the nose. You may spread this wax around the nose with spare fingers, or just guide the wax moving the candle in the right direction, we heat it with the dryer, the wax is soaked in, and we repeat it all over again. At the edge, we check whether or not the entire nose is covered with wax. Having made three or four runs in this way, we make sure that the wax is soaked in. While the nose is still wet of wax, you may adjust its shape, if it is to be improved. Then we take any piece of fabric (denim, felt, wool, even cotton) and polish the nose with it. Next you may cover it with dull varnish. Yet, it is not quite necessary. This will only depend on the image of your particular bear.

Melt the wax, apply it onto the nose and heat it with the hair drier to let it soak in. Then polish it with cloth.

Embroider the mouth, then the claws. And finally, attach the ears. The position of the ears largely determines the entire image; so, be patient to try fitting the ears to the bear’s head in a variety of ways. Once again, you will find your marks helping you to attach the ears symmetrically.

Here is our bear. It is ready. You can now make clothes for it, create a little friend, and maybe – who knows? – a brother, or a sister. Making bears is such a wonderful thing, after all!