Mother’s Day Bear

Since I only use cotton scraps in quilting, I recently purchased some teddy bear patterns in an effort to find something to do with my linen scraps. When I asked Mother what she wanted for Mother’s Day, she said a stuffed bear to sit on her little blue decorator chair by the hearth.

It was fun to make the bear and only had one little problem. After the bear’s body was finished and the head was finished, I stuck the head inside the body to sew it in place. Wanting the head to sit properly, I very carefully lined up the body seams to the head seams and sewed it on. . .then I turned the bear right side out and pulled the head out. . .and its nose was sticking over its shoulder. Oh, dear. Apparently, I had carefully matched the front head seam to the side body seam! I did major surgery and took his head off and re-sewed it. The poor bear will probably have permanent neck injury from that procedure. I was happy to make something I had wanted to make anyway and it cost nothing except for the two button eyes. The bear was made from otherwise useless linen scraps left from civilian re-enactor’s coats. The vest was scrap from one of my re-enacting dresses and the bear was stuffed with all kinds of tiny scrap pieces which were too small even for quilt making.

The cloth gets a bit distorted in reducing the pictures.