Little Bear

Meet little bear. She's a sweet little girl that was just born this week. She's excited to meet her new friend tomorrow to keep her company while she goes through her radiation and chemo treatments. Who says grown-ups are too old for teddy bears?!

I had an idea to make this little bear and a picture in my mind but she looks very different than what was in my head. I had wanted her to be smaller but that's pretty hard with a felting needle...and it can get a bit dangerous too. Those things are very sharp. And, I really wanted to give her shiney bead eyes but the smallest round black beads I can find are still too big (I'm going to search online and see if I have more luck finding smaller ones than at the local bead shops. It seems like there would be smaller ones than what I have I just haven't found them yet.). So, I gave her soft little wool eyes. It's not the same but I wanted her to be small to fit into a purse or pocket if her new friend does want to carry her around. She turned out to be about 3" tall when standing.



I had imagined a pink ribbon around her neck tied into a bow...like the color of breast cancer cure ribbons. But, one morning it popped into my head to make her a little shawl instead. Well, this is sooooo cute but it's not what I had in my imagination either. Believe it or not I started, tore out, and restarted various ideas of this so many times that I lost count. This was the result of another attempt last night that somehow worked out great. I had decided to just make a little rectangle and drape it around her shoulders and tuck it into her arms but after I bound off and tried it on it turned out to be the perfect size and shape for a little capelet. I made a little loop, sewed on a pretty little pearl for a button, and here it is. I love it. I think it turned out so cute. It looks like it has a little collar and a pretty little edge on the bottom. It's not quite the same pink as cancer ribbons but I love it. It's so cute.



I also hadn't planned to make her jointed but after I made her legs she looked best sitting down so I thought I'd just connect the legs in a sitting position but my husband encouraged me to make them jointed...even though I thought it might be weird to have the legs jointed when the arms aren't. I'm happy I did it this way. Overall I'm pretty happy with it (once I touch her up a bit more), I just really would have loved to have given her sparkly/shiney eyes. I hope her new friend loves her. :-)

It's interesting how something can turn out so different than originally planned. Is it because this is how this one is suppose to be? I wonder. Maybe I'll try to make another one and see if it comes out more like what was in my mind or if it'll be another little bear that just needs to be born and I'm just here to make it happen and it will be who it is meant to be. Hmmmmm?