Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Hi Jessie,
Unless you are very very wealthy I don't think you could afford one, I mean a real old original one. An original Steiff Titanic Mourning Bear that was sold at Christie's in October 2010 was £13,750

But if you would like to get hold of a replica you could try and have a look    on  http://www.beaconsglow.com/steiff-bears … bears.html  where they seem to have at least one available.

There are also some (3) on offer on ebay (different sizes including the big 70cm one). For details look on:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/items/__steiff+b … 459_228459

Good luck!

http://www.housefabric.com/ProductDetai … ctID=17132   should have Magna Tac glue available.

And also at:  http://www.dollhousedreams.com/bigger.p … &page=glue   and

http://www.wardrobesupplies.com/store/adhesives.html  (better priced I think    )  and

http://stores.ebay.com/ZIPPERSTOP/Adhes … b=16572627

Enough shops that sell this product.

And I didn't know Modge Podge (apparently also known as Mod Podge), but this is what I found: 

Making it yourself (recipe)  :  http://westwood.fortunecity.com/ghost/8 … edecor.htm

or buying it a.o. at  :   http://www.amazon.com/Podge-CS11202-Ori … B00178QQJ8

or  :   http://www.nextag.com/mod-podge/shop-html

Hope this helps you on the way. Happy shopping (or cooking  ) !

Sorry to ask Christine, but is this Monroe in the picture or is Malone his twin brother? He is a gorgeous character by the way! 

I know Baerenstuebchen (in Germany) has quite a collection of bear luggage.
Here's the link to the page on their website with details on this business and contact details:  http://www.baerenstuebchen.de/index-Dateien/Page360.htm
and here's the link to the page in their online shop (regrettably only in German so I did the looking up for you) with rucksacks, suitcases and golf bag : http://s7988187.shoplite.de/2001/7988187/index.html  and with schoolbags: http://s7988187.shoplite.de/2001/7988187/index.html

Just for your info: 'Stoff' means 'fabric', 'Leder' is 'leather', 'Filz' is 'felt', 'Velourleder' is suede.
Hope this helps 

Don't you just love Snowflake, designed by Emen Chen and Nelleke van den Berg. This friendly polar bear on all fours is available as a pattern and as a kit from Berelijn. Here's the link to the page with details and picture:  http://www.berelijn.com/supplies%20pagina%201.htm

You can contact Berelijn / place orders via e-mail:  berelijn@planet.nl

PS: I've seen Snowflake in the shop and in the fur (a real dense alpace) he looks even prettier than in the picture!

This probably isn't exactly the same pattern but it is the same type of bear. Actually one of Gregory's bears called Jasper:

http://www.hb1.dk/bamsemoenstre/_privat … ccharm.pdf

At least he is in the same kind of pink 

Good luck!

Just love those Coone kittens!        Got my third one, well 10 years already since he adopted me, but Indy has grown several sizes  . He's still as fuzzy and fluffy as the kittens in the picture.

I thought Steiff made 600 of those bears (50 dozen = 600), but they are rare.

Here's a link referring to one of the black Steiff Titanic mourning bears:  http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_ … ID=5359760

And another one:  http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_ … ID=2044731
In this link you can read that 'This bear is only one of 50 dozen black Steiff bears ordered for England. The sad reason for his black mohair was the Titanic disaster on the 14th April, 1912. The whole country was in mourning, there was hardly a single well-situated family who had not lost a relative or friend. Every thing and everyone was in black, including this bear.

I think the pictures in these links show the red-rimmed eyes better than in the picture with the starry sky.

Hi all, I'm a 'gluer'  . I usually pre-glue a number of head joints in advance in several sizes. This way I always have a ready to use neck joint in store. If you worry about the fumes (and you're right about them), try either glueing outdoors or in a properly ventilated area e.g. in your kitchen where you can switch on the hood over your stove / range. It doesn't work for cooking smells only  .  And as some of you I am using longer nuts for the head joint.

Personally I wouldn't use pink on dark brown but I think an orangy brown, red brown or stone red nose would do great. If you really want to give your bear a pink nose, a salmon pink or peach pink would probably suit him/her better than a real pink pink 
You could just try and see how threads of different colours match your bear's fur before actually stitching it on. It works for me.

Hi Stitch,

E-course starting 31.May so you can still register  on EbearZ University:

http://www.kranbearys.com/Ebearz/Bears/Draping.htm

Sorry, I only just read about your problem with the timeframe for an e-course. You could ask them if something can be arranged for your situation?

Hi Susan,

Great panda's  :dance:
Just watched the pics on BearPile. Are you aware that the description starts with "Reese is a 14 inch ooak Snuggly boy Grizzly cub" ???

Well, that's not nice to say    He's such a cuty! 

Hi Sue,

No personal experience on this specific problem, but perhaps the ColoRit Color Formula Guide can guide you through this colourful dilemma?
I know a bit about colours but you too probably have the basic knowledge like yellow + blue = green, yellow + red = orange, yellow + pink = peach / apricot / pale orange, shades all depending on how 'strong' the colours are that you are mixing.

Anyway, here's the link to the color formula guide of Rit    http://www.ritdye.com/colorit_color_formula_guide

Hope this will get you going the right way in the re-dyeing process.

Good luck! And keep us posted on the progress?

Thank you Google! Try:

http://www.earthpalette.com/
http://emmarybears.com/id84.html

Good luck!

I found this:

http://www.lindaspiegel.com/

Cannot read it though, seems Japanese to me.

Linda Spiegel is the name of the artist of Bearly There.

Site looks pretty recent to me. There is a 'contact' button on her website.

Hi Crystal,

Not the cheapest    fabric but looks real sheepy to me!

http://www.edinburghimports.com/shoppin … p?FU1=1418

Whether or not it will suit your design depends on the size you plan to make it.
If I find similar mohair at European suppliers I'll post you on it.

PS: just found this   http://www.prefurs.com/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=LHASSA
(mongolian lamb / faux fur)

Hi Michelle,

Maybe you could try the technique reborn doll artists use to give their creations hair, the so-called rooting. It is done by means of a rooting needle which to me looks a bit like a felting needle (and I guess you could even use one on bears). I won't try to explain the technique for I think it's easier to look how it is done. I am attaching a link to a site with some video tutorials about reborn doll hair rooting. I think you could do the same with strands of wool or longer curly mohair and root the 'hair' into your bears' head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpfMji8J … r_embedded

I hope you can do something with this?

Hi, it's been some time since this topic was last replied to, but it was still on my mind and I already had planned to see if I could find pictures and text of the article I referred to earlier. I found them, and having seen my pictures better one can see the differences even better.

The Steiff bear I wrote about measures about 15cm (seated) and has brown glass pupil eyes, so 2 major differences. Like your bear he has no paw pads but he does have embroidered claws. His nose is horizontally stitched.

I thought maybe you would like to see the pictures for better comparison and if you would like to read the story that goes with it (written in 2004), here it is:

Some time ago we went to visit one of our “neighbours"  (a tugboat captain), Willem and his wife Rina. Whilst we were there, Rina urged her husband to show me “aunty’s teddy bear"  and when I had been handed over the little chap and expressed my admiration, she decided I should take him home. Having seen this teddy for no longer than a few minutes I had already seen that this was something special. It could not be anything else than an early Steiff, but how early I did not know at that time. Of course I could not accept this generous gift, because my first impression was that this bear might be quite valuable. So I decided to try and find out more about this little bear. First I asked Willem and Rina if they knew anything about this bear’s history, its origine, and they most certainly did.

To give you a proper image of things, you should know that Willem and Rina are both over 60 (at the time I wrote this because Rina died last October). As a child Willem regularly visited his aunts. One of them used to have a little (about 8 or 9 inch) doll in a sailor suit and sailor hat, which Willem (being the son of a tugboat captain) was always highly attracted to. Occasionally he was allowed to play with the doll. When Willem grew older the little sailor doll grew older too, but it still had its own place on the sideboard in his aunt's living room.
One or two years ago Willem’s favourite aunt died. He inherited the small sailor doll which reminded him so much of his childhood and the happy hours he had spent playing with the doll. But … he was not allowed to take the doll home unless he gave this little teddy bear a good home too, the little teddy bear that had been given to aunty when she was a child. And when Willem told me that his aunt was born in the year 1904, I realized this bear was not just old but that it had to be very old.

Now I had something to start searching. I picked up the most recent Steiff price-guide and soon I found what I had been looking for.
Aunty’s bear was called “Teddybär"  (well, isn’t that original? But then, at that time it was original or course!). According to the description little "Teddybär" and his other brothers and sisters from the No.12 series had been manufactured between 1906 and 1933. The article code of this bear was no. 5315. He has glass pupil eyes, that are painted brown on the back side, and he has a so-called “Druckstimme"  (squeeking voice - it still moves but unfortunately lost its voice).
This bear has a little hole in his left ear but must have lost his button long ago since he was visibly played with. He measures 22 cm (15 cm seated) and was the smallest in his family. There were two bears like him in the No. 12 series. They were larger sized, if I remember well 28 and 35 cm. These larger brothers were made of the same yellow mohair, but they had paw pads made of woolfelt. The benjamin of this trio has no woolfelt paw pads, actually it has no paw pads at all. Each arm and leg consists of an inner and an outer pattern part.
At the same time there was another series of these three bears, made of a lighter, blonde mohair. An important difference was that in these series all three sizes had woolfelt paw pads, and I have not discovered any other Steiff teddies without paw pads from this era in the guides, which makes "aunty’s bear" rather unique I think.

Considering aunty was born in the year 1904 and this bear was given to her when she was a child, and that the bear was produced as from 1906, this ted must have been bought somewhere between 1906 and 1910.
I therefore think this might be one of the older Steiff bears “alive" , and it has its own story. Isn’t that just wonderful?

Did you by the way get any closer to what 'family' your bear belongs to? Please let us know if so

Hi Gully,

Maybe you already know the UK Teddy Bear Guide, issued annually by Hugglets. It contains a special section on bear fairs and organisers. The guide is available as a hardcopy (GBP 7.50), you can watch it online or you can download it as a PDF file.
In case you didn't know here's the link to this site http://www.hugglets.co.uk/guideindex.php
When viewing the 2011 Guide go to page 62 and further to get details on fairs, fair dates, number of participants and names of organisers and their contact details. Usually fair dates mentioned go as far as the month of October.

Good luck! There should be one or two in your area.

Really, I loved my inlaws very much, they were lovely people. Unfortunately they passed away quite a number of years ago. But to be honest, the thought of invading into our home uninvited for an unknown period of time, disturbing our privacy, more or less claiming our lives without even thinking or asking if that suited us, never would have crossed their minds!!!
I must admit I was slightly amazed to read your story and no, I don't think you are unreasonable at all. I thought guests usually are people you would like to stay with you; the next step is that you invite your guest(s), but in your case it looks like your guests simply invited themselves without even making a proper reservation    Hi dear, here we are then! We'll take the large guest room, all right? Poor you!! To me this situation seems rather confronting, almost like living in a kind of war time scenario, your own home being taken from you without you being asked. For your own good, now and in future, it would be best I think to have an adult talk with your 'guests' and tell them that, although you love them very dearly this doesn't automatically implicate your home can be used by them as a comfortable and financially interesting hotel any time they feel like it. You don't owe them an explanation about the why if don't want to. If they are really strong people (and from your description I think they are) they could use your arguments as a starting point for a discussion in which counterarguments will soon be given to prove they have every right to stay in your home whenever they want. Remember, it is your home and you shouldn't have to defend yourself or present any arguments why you don't want them to stay with you unless you invite them yourself  . I hope you can find the strength and calmness to tell them, together and with the support of your husband of course. It should be clear to your inlaws that you and your husband share this opinion. That you are a team, that you are on one line, the same line. Without your hubby's support it will be a lot more difficult. Fight! Go for it. And take a few deep breaths before you start 

:hug:

Hi, it might also help taking the pictures of your kitten outdoor, so with natural light. The lights you are using may also effect the colour display and as SueAnn said, trying a darker (more contrasting) background could make a difference as well.

Hi Gully,

I don't know about a forum but I do know Steiff has a 'community' for official Steiff Club members. Don't know where exactly you are living but this is the page with details on the Steiff Club membership worldwide:  http://www.steiff.com/site/index.php?shopID=5000&L=4

This is for Steiff collectors living in any other country than Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, USA or France.
If you are living in one of those countries choose your country on http://www.steiff.com and then the button Steiff Club.

Hope this will help.

... educated guess: maybe even more than a real classic Steiff 

and the result ultimately depends on your own skills and performance, no matter how good the pattern you use.

:hug:

I had a look too. If this is the price for pattern only plus another $10 for handling and shipping I would try and have a go by enlarging an existing pattern or draw a pattern myself. I absolutely don't intend to insult the artist, but these are prices I consider acceptable for a pattern plus mohair, maybe for a somewhat smaller bear but certainly not for some sheets of paper, hopefully proper instructions and the exclusivity of being the owner of a copy of a pattern by TJW for the price of what, almost $100 ?

Perhaps there are people who think otherwise, but this is how I think about it.
There are some good books with classic-style bear patterns, although smaller size, but I think it would be a solid base to work with if you want, like you said, to make a bear for yourself. There is e.g. the American Teddy Bear Artists Pattern Book by Linda Mullins (ISBN 0-87588-519-5) that contains the pattern of a 46cm bear 'Ruthie' by Kathleen Wallace of Stier Bears that you could, with some effort, enlarge and make a lovely nostalgic Steiff-type with centre-seam head in the size you want. It's a real nice book with good patterns and proper instructions. I think the book will still be on sale somewhere. It contains patterns in different sizes by various US bear artists. It was published by Hobby House Press in Grantsville, Maryland. Price when published was $24.95  (but now much less e.g. on http://www.amazon.com/American-Teddy-Be … 875885195) so if you want you could save yourself some money, unless you insist on the real TJW pattern of course  :rolleyes:

Hope this helps. Good luck on your big bear project!