Teddy Bears For Mike

This is the story of some very special custom handmade teddy bears that I made for my friend, Lori. When Lori's brother passed away suddenly last year she asked if I could make some of my custom teddy bears out of his old t-shirts as memorial gifts to all of his siblings, nieces and nephews. I told her I would be honored. 

It took me about six months to make fourteen teddy bears. It's a big family. Fortunately, I had a few months to get them all done.

Lori lives in Alberta, Canada and I live in Maryland, so we had to do all this long distance. Lori picked out the first t-shirt I would use and mailed it to me. It had a big beautiful dragon on it and I saw lots of possibilites for the bears. We met via Skype so I could show her how my pattern pieces could be placed so that different parts of the design ended up on different parts of the bears. A few hours later I had a pile of tiny t-shirt scraps and nine stacks of teddy-bears-to-be and I got busy sewing.

I took photos of each teddy bear in progress and shared them on Instagram and Twitter so my friends could keep track of the story of this family of bears as I went along. 

Hint: If you're planning to do a lot of hand sewing, take care of your hands. Keep your favorite lotion nearby. And I highly recommend leather thimbles.

When I was close to finishing the first nine bears Lori sent me another shirt for the remaining five bears, a white shirt with an argyle pattern and an interesting texture. Again, I had fun choosing which parts of the design would end up on what parts of the bears. 

All fourteen teddy bears were completed and delivered in time for Lori to distribute them at the Brown Family Reunion last month. She lined them all up on a bed and brought everyone in to see them and choose the one they wanted to keep. Lori says, "Losing Mike was devastating to our family, and missing him is part of every day. Having a small piece of him to hold onto, with these beautiful bears, is a comfort.... The bears are another way to heal our broken hearts." 

You can go to my Flickr gallery of Mike's Teddy Bears and see a photo journal of this project with views of the teddy bears in progress and all four sides of each finished bear. 

Find more custom teddy bears in my Etsy shop 

and let me know if you have a special project you'd like me to make for you.

Christmas is Still Coming!!

Still working on that custom order for my Mini-Puzzle Ball Christmas Ornaments. I figured I'd post some pictures along the way so you can see the progress I'm making.

These pictures were also a fun way to try out my new camera...an updated version of my old one, which makes the learning curve manageable. I can tell I'm gonna have fun with this one! Click on this picture and the one in my previous post and you'll see the difference, too!

Christmas is Coming!

I got a big order for 15 of my Mini-Puzzle Ball Christmas Ornaments! That's the good news. Now the challenge will be finding the time to make them all!

So far...so good!

Pink and Pinker

When my daughter was just a preschooler she used to ask for her favorite yogurt... one of those colorful Trix yogurts with the blend of two flavors. I don't remember what the flavors were, but her favorite was something that was a mix of light and dark pink that she called "pink and pinker".

I thought of that as I put the finishing touches on this pink denim teddy bear. Usually, I'll add a ribbon of a contrasting color, but then I spotted this brighter pink ribbon and thought, "why not?"

So, I present to you my "Pink and Pinker" Teddy Bear...now available in my Etsy shop! I used to sew faces on all my bears, but some people like them left plain like this, and others have a preference about eye colors or whether their bear should be a girl (with eyelashes) or boy (without eyelashes), so I leave them face-less now and let the buyer tell me what they want.

Hot Pink Christmas

I'm thinking about some new color combinations for my Christmas Puzzle Balls, so I thought I'd try one out on a friend of mine. Here's what she (and her daughter) said about it:

Here is a few (not really great) pics of the kid with her favorite Christmas Ornament.
It's a mini puzzle ball made by Donna Pool.
She can take it off the tree and it comes apart in three peices and she has to figure out how to put it back together.

She really loves it!

She's so excited b/c of all the ornaments on the tree... she knows that that one... she can take it off and play with it!











So what do you think? Leave a comment and tell me if you think I should make more like this to post in my Etsy shop. I'd love to hear what you think!

Flying Teddy Bears

I only had a handful of Teddy Bears in my Etsy shop so when I sold two recently I resolved to make more. As soon as those two arrived, the buyer came back to my shop to buy two others I had in stock, too! Now I'm down to one. They're just flying out of my shop these days! Wish my fingers could fly, too, since I stitch these entirely by hand!

I think part of the interest is because of all the toy recalls. These are very baby safe, very soft, throw them in the washer kind of toys. I think a lot of moms are looking for something like that. So I guess I'd better step away from the computer and get back to stitching Teddy Bears!

Here are the most recent bears to go:

Do Overs

I started another Mini-Puzzle Ball a couple of days ago, this time cutting out pieces for two different ones at the same time. That way I've got another one ready to go when the first one is finished.

All those tiny stitches can actually be a sort of therapy for me. It's as though I'm channeling all my perfectionist tendencies into those stitches. My living room/crafting workshop is a disaster area...but, by golly, those stitches sure are neat, aren't they!?!

It used to be that I would sew all the little sections together before starting to trim the seams, turn them inside out and stuff them all, then assemble the ball. These days, though, particularly with the tiniest ones, I've decided to trim, turn & stuff the first section I finish. That gives me a better idea of what the finished product will look like.

This time, though, I trimmed it a little too close. When I used the pointed end of a pair of scissors to work the corners out, I had a blow-out. I had trimmed the seam too close and there just weren't enough threads left to hold it together there. Here's what I mean:



Determined to keep from making the same mistake again, I picked up the next pieces of fabric in my prepared stack and kept stitching. After I had successfully completed the second attempt at my first section of this puzzle ball, I cut out two more pieces of fabric to replace the ones I'd wasted on my first attempt. Of course, with a project this small...it's not much waste!



When it's finished, this Mini-Puzzle Ball will be available in my etsy shop.

Wholesale Order Delivered

I've heard that Blogger is a bit more flexible than some other options, so I thought I'd start this to talk about what I'm making and posting on my etsy site and see what happens.


I just heard from the buyer of my first wholesale order and she said my package arrived safely and she loves it! I sent her two puzzle balls and 30 of my button magnets. Here are the puzzle balls I sent to her.




She's gonna see what kind of interest they get in her shop, but since she really likes them, I think they'll sell. I'd better get busy making more. I'll take some pictures of the one I'm working on now and try to remember to post pictures of my projects in progress.

Another idea I've been working on is for ACEO's, but I'll save that for another post.