Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Oooohh this makes me so angry - they're clearly not all there are they???????

Here's a link to Anilmals Asia which does a tremendous amount of work rescuing Moon Bears.

http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=2&lg=en

Oh Jane - a belated happy birthday :cake:  :bday:  :cake: .  What a wonderful gift - Orangs are may favourite apes.  Believe it or not I feel like I know you new baby - Monkey Business on Animal Planet is one of the girls (mine too) favourite programmes.  They do wonderful work at Monkey World don't they?  I just wish there were more people like them.  How wonderful that you are going to visit!

Hi Jane

Did you make the outer arm longer than the inner one?  Jared posted a thread in the week about making the outer pattern slightly longer than the inner pattern to stop the arms pointing outwards.  If you'd accentuated that the bears arms would turn in to rest on his legs.

Hugs :hug:

PS thank you for the Hugglets picture thread - I didn't make it in the end

Hi Catherine

Have you tried using Fruit Herbal Teas?  You need quite alot of tea bags, but they dye ivory pretty soft shades of pink, and the tea bit takes of the "baby pink" look.  I've tried lots of little pieces in a small bowl with very strong tea - they took really well.  I've only made one bear from the herbal tea dyed mohair -  I didn't make the tea strong enough at first so I ended up throwing the lot in and in the end she came out with just a hint of colour which was what I wanted.  It was a big bear though, so I needed quite a lot of water to cover the fabric.  I think it takes a bit of trial and error.    It seems to take better to the backing, and just tints the mohair.  I think it gives the fur a rather nice faded look.  Twinnings do a good range and they smell fantastic.

Hopefully I'll get there - I'm with Clare on the carnation thing.   

What Jane hasn't told you is that you won't be able to see her anyway because she'll be hidden under about 100 bags of mohair - that lady knows how to shop! 

Jenny, I'm sorry to hear you haven't been well ....... I do hope you can make it ..... get cracking!

It would certainly be fun if we all got to meet .......

Lovely bears Marion - the colour is wonderful .  I'm hoping to get there on Sunday, I'd love to meet them in person.

Oh,what terribly sad news ........ my deepest sympathy to her family.

Thank you Paula  - your poor daughter - at such a young age ,that must have been terribly hard for both of you.  The doctors seem to be terribly slow when it comes to diagnosing these conditions - but I suppose there do seem to be an awful lot of variations.  I'm glad the medication has worked so well for her and I do hope her better health continues.  I'll pass your message on to my friend.  When I told her I'd posted on TT she was so pleased and grateful for the responses - she has asked me to print copies and thank everyone for their advice.  She has a folder where she's keeping all the information she finds.

Thank you again. :hug:

Dilu

You're an angel - I'll print of your advice and links and let her have them all tomorrow.

I'm going to say it again .........

THANK YOU!

Thank you again Dilu.

I think that's one of the things worrying her - Prednisone - that's the cortisone?  It's really kind of you, if that's what she's prescribed, I will come and knock on your door.  I think she's quite warey of any medication so if I can give her any reassurance from some one with first hand experience that would be wonderful.

She has put her name down for a local support group but it's not up an running yet so I think she feels a little bit in limbo.

Again, thank you so much :hug:

Thank you Dilu :hug:

I'd never heard of this complaint before -  I can't believe how it has affected her. I'll go an have a look at those sites now.

Thanks again.

Hiya

I thought I'd come and ask you wise ladies for some advice ...........

I was wondering if anybody has or knows anyone who suffers from Polymyalgia rheumatica.  A lady in my family seems to have developed all of the syptoms (very rapidly over a couple of months). She was visiting an osteopath for severe hip and shoulder pain when he suggested that she consulted her GP for blood tests.  The tests have shown low levels (apparently they don't always show even when syptoms are full blown) but the decline in her health since then has been shocking - I can't believe she is the same person and she is in so much pain.  Until she sees the consultant there is very little she can do except take painkillers and even then they aren't much help.  I was wondering if anyone knows of anything she can do in the meantime (alternative therapies,which type of painkillers are most effective or just common sense?) that will help make her more comfortable and perhaps ease the symptons.

I'd be really grateful if anyone has any advice.

Thanks :hug:

Hi Shelli

I wax most of my noses and so far I don't think there have been any problems.  My girls have a few of my bears that were not quite as "blessed"  as some of the others and as you can imagine they have been through the mill a bit.  I don't think it should chip because the wax is really soaked into the fibres so it's not a solid mass of wax, it's more a blend of the two.

Also I recently had one of my bears returned to me for repair after an unfortunate run in with the house sitters puppy - guess who came off worse?  I think he'd had a go at the nose and then opted for the softer woolfelt of his paw pad.  His nose was all mis-shapen and well ....chewed.  All I had to do was reheat it and push everything back in place, add a little more wax and polish.  Because the nose had been waxed he wasn't able to get at the individual threads.

What a lovely website Eileen  :clap: - very easy to get around.  I absolutely love Pendleton, what a wonderful bunny.

CONGRATULATIONS JUDI!

CONGRATULATIONS JENNY!! 

She's a beautiful bunny!

:clap:  :clap:

Congratulations Jane!!!

:clap:  :clap:   Well done - I'm not surprised he's amazing!

Hiya

With regard to sending parcels to the US, I thought the following might be useful.  I'd been sending my bears to the US with FedEx.  Everything had gone fine, then on the most recent one I had a call from the courier office to say that my parcel had been delayed this end because the pouch didn't have the Textile Declaration required by US customs .  Well I'd never used one before - never even heard of it , but he man insisted that I needed one.  I think it might help your parcel clear customs if they pick up anything on the Xray.  I've cut and pasted the information from the form they emailed me, I don't think it's an official form, but if you were to include a piece of paper with roughly the same information it might divert the customs officials from mutilating the teddies .  I just put the filling information on the detailed description part.  Hope this helps

USA (IMPORT) TEXTILE CHECKLIST
                     (use one checklist per commodity on invoice)

DETAILED DESCRIPTION  ____________________________________________
(what is it?)

GENDER(if wearing apparel)  ____________________________________________   

KNIT  or WOVEN (for wearing apparel)  ___________________________________

    KNOT DETAILS (stitches per cm) __________________________________

KNOTTED /TUFTED/WOVEN (for carpets/rugs) ____________________________

MEASUREMENTS in CM or M2 (for fabrics/carpets/rugs) _____________________

QUANTITY                              _____________________

Manufacturer Information 
Name                  _____________________________________________

Street Address   _____________________________________________

City/County      _____________________________________________

Country             _____________________________________________

Purpose of shipment   (check one)
_________  Commercial Goods
_________   Sample not for resale
_________  Marked Sample  not for resale
_________  Mutilated Sample not for resale
_________  Unsolicited Gift, not for resale
_________  Personal use, not for resale
_________  Personal Effects

Thank you so much for sharing that Renae.  That's dreadful that your health has been affected so badly.

About 2 years ago, my 38 year old friend was taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack.  The hospital could find nothing in their tests that suggested a heart attack.  She later told me she was going to stop drinking diet drinks and having artificial sweetner in her coffee.  Her Canadian partner thought it might be something to do with the sweetners.  To be honest at the time I thought she'd gone a bit mad.  Anyway, after reading your post tonight (I've never heard anything about aspartame until now) I've done a few internet searches and sure enough symptons mimicking heart attacks can be caused by aspartame. 

My main reason for searching was because I drink a huge amount of tea and coffee with sweetners, I also suffer terribly with headaches.  There's a lot of information about headaches and aspartame out there.  Interestingly I stopped using sugar and started having sweetners about 15 years ago when I started to run into trouble with my teeth.  Thinking about it now the headaches started around the same time.  I've been to the doctor and been given anti-inflammatories, they didn't work.  I visit an osteopath regularly to strighten out my spine and remove the tension.   The only pain killers that work for me are codeine based and thinking about it the only time that I'm permanently headache free is when I'm on holiday and have forgotten my sweetners!

I can also tick the boxes for irritability, mood swings (husband will testify to that ) and restless, twitchy legs.

I'm going to follow Sarah Janes lead and dump the sweetners and see what happens - and my girls will definitely not be drinking any more diet drinks.

Thank you so much.

Hi Jayne

Thank your for sharing that article ....... 

Oddly enough when I was visiting my Mum today she gave me a newsletter to read.  It was from a friend of a friend who co-ordinates our local chapter of Teddies for Tragedies.  I often pass bags of toys and outgrown childrens clothes on to Mum for her friend and they are shipped off to the orphanages in Eastern Europe, where the poor little loves have next to nothing - some of the stories I've heard are absolutely heartbreaking. 

I wasn't really aware of the enormity of what the organisation does until today.  They are linked with a number of other charitable and humanitarian organisations.  Volunteers knit teddies - lots of teddies.  In fact in the last year I think she said they had shipped over 8,000 teddies to places like Africa, India, Kosova and Romania.   The newsletter featured photograhs of groups of children from all over the world with their new teddies.  All of these children have suffered enormous tragedy in their short lives, whether it be from war or civil conflict, disease, poverty or famine.  The following text is taken from the Canadian site:

The project was started by Women’s Royal Voluntary Services
workers (W.R.V.S.). They started to knit teddy bears and
their first batch went to Sudan in 1985, where the
Emergency Care for Children (ECC) nurses were setting up
a temporary orphanage in a refugee camp for 2,000
children with tuberculosis. 

The teddies were such as success that more were requested.
Soon teddies were sent to Peru, Uganda, Zambia, Jamaica, Armenia,
Calcutta, Thailand, Romania, Croatia, Albania and to Nepal. 

Doctors who treat children in the third world found that the
teddies were sometimes as important to healing, as the
medicines, and of course each child gets to keep the teddy,
so a continual supply is needed.

Here is the link the the UK site.

http://www.teddiesfortragedies.org.uk/

and another which gives a little more informtion:

http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/f … gedies.htm

:hug:  :hug:

Hi Jane

I bought some medals from http://www.egframes.co.uk/medalhome1.htm.  They do quite a good selection of half size medals.  I had a Victoria Cross and something else, I can't quite remember off the top of my head.  They have the pins and mounting ribbons too.

Hi Clare

I'm hoping to be able to get there as a visitor too - providing no one throws a spanner in the works last minute that is!  Hopefully we can all meet up.

Hang on in there Jenny - I know you'll get there in the end.  Your creations are always so wonderful - you give yourself alot to live up to.  My father in law has always told me to walk away from something for a little while, and when you go back to it you'll see it with new eyes, be feeling calmer and see where you have gone wrong ............. or that it's actually working out better than you thought.

But then again I suppose that's easy for me to say - my bears only have three pieces in their heads!!!!

Can't wait to see the finished result - it's bound to be fantastic!

Hi Tammy

Welcome to Teddy Talk!

Hi Kim

I was going to suggest rusty bells, keys, medals and sailor collars - but I see I've been beaten to it!