bEarVOLUTION

I've been working on a bear design for awhile now...

The little Valentine bear (upper photo, far left) was one of my first, made from wool felt and 100% hand-stitched. I made a half-dozen or so of them for the museum store back in March. Totally cute, but boy were they time consuming!


I altered the pattern and tried moving to the sewing machine. My first attempt was "Samantha" (above). She was pretty cute, and ended up in a happy home, but was far more pig-like than bear (not that there's anything wrong with that ;))...

I tweaked the pattern a bit more and came up with the little blue-eyed bear (do you see the family resemblance?). The pattern is SUPER-basic, which is what I like about it. It totally reminds me of the rag dolls my great-grandmother made for me when I was little--just this blocky body and little stick-like arms and legs.

THEN.........

I'm not sure what came over me this weekend but I got my mind set on adding more tweaks to the bear pattern. I started with the last iteration (the blocky bear) and went from there....

and 'Fisk' was born!

I had just enough choco-brown lightweight canvas (leftover from a gardening apron I made for a friend) for his face, arms and feet.

I gave him a snazzy shirt and a pair of denim dungarees. I used woolfelt for the extras (muzzle, and shirt collar) and finished the ensemble with a pair of little pearly buttons. I have a few more tweaks to the pattern, but I love how Fisk turned out!

Hmmm... Now he needs a sister, don't ya think? :)...