The Renaissance of Rusty Bear - Final Appearance(s)

As promised in our last post, there are some pictures of Rusty, the Giant Bear, fully complete and showing himself off around the Hospital of St. John, Heytesbury were we all reside.

Here he is, sitting on one of the Garden benches in the Spring sunshine.

Now, he's moved to sit, propped up by a Flowering Cherry Tree in another part of the garden

Finally, when he visited one of our neighbours - who had seen him prior to his treatment and
 had specifically requested a return visit.  She was so impressed by his new look that she insisted on taking a picture of him on her sofa and then printing it off so that I could have a copy of it as well!  This lady is now in her late eighties, but loves using her computer and plays a lot of games on it.  She was delighted to be able to put her computer to a "better use" - her words, not mine!

That brings the saga of Rusty Bear to an end.  He is due to return home to High Wycombe at the end of this week - rather than the end of May, as earlier suggested.  I'll try to remember to take a picture of him sitting in his Best Friend, Philippa's new car prior to his departure.  Should be interesting to see what, if any, reaction occurs as they drive the 80-odd miles back home.  This time, there should be more traffic on the road - being a Friday afternoon, prior to a Bank Holiday!

The next post will be along shortly.  Am presently experimenting with one of the new animal patterns given me as a Mothers Day present by younger daughter, Clare.  While off-line I was able to complete Cy Bear's doppelganger, temporarily named Cy Bear II, who is waiting to travel to Normandy to join our recent Clinic patients, Mons. Reynard and Mme Lapin.   Also, the 10 Baby Koalas, destined to travel to Sequals, Italy to join The Italian Mob.  They are waiting for a departure date - but our friend, RFE is currently "on walkabout", and we await a signal from him as to when travel arrangements can be made.

Until the next post - all the best to everyone.  Isobel

Replacement Koalas - Part 2

I really must stop saying I'm going to blog and then give a definite day - it never, ever works out that way.  Maybe I can be forgiven, though, because we've got car trouble - AGAIN - and getting that sorted, and coping without a vehicle - has taken up a lot more time than anticipated!  Doesn't everyone find that?  One gets so dependent on the flipping things (I don't really mean that - but this is not the right forum in which to let off the amount of steam that I'd like to) doesn't one?

Anyway, back to the nub of this post - the completion of the Koala replacement project. (They can be found at www.coldhamcuddlies.etsy.com/Etsy Listing #55190188). When I left off last time, I was going to carry on the Koala production line while watching an evening of television.  This took place, and the programme(s) were as good as hoped, so I relaxed as well as sewing another couple of the little bears.  The fourth one was completed next day and I set about the next stage of construction.

This involves stuffing the two bits of each bear (head and bodies).  For once, I did not make my usual mistake (stuffing the heads, before putting in the eyes!).  It's so annoying to have to unstuff the heads, and then put in the eyes!  Sometimes, I think I'll never learn.  However, this time it was achieved satisfactorily, without having to take too much time making sure they were level.  Some of my animals have ended up with their eyes not quite matching!  Which then means one has to take them out and replace them, as the safety backing is so safe that it's almost impossible to correct matters with the original eye!  As I make more toys, though, I'm discovering I can sometimes move the backing and re-use the whole thing.  However, in order to guarantee the integrity of the toy, I feel it is normally best to go the whole way, and replace everything!

Anyway, this time around all four pairs went in first time around, and the stuffing duly went ahead.  The limbs of the Koalas are quite small, so the stuffing has to be put into them first, using small pinches of the polyester fibre at a time - otherwise I find they can develop kinks where the limbs join the torso and the resulting bear does not look comfortably stuffed!  It's a bit fiddly, but worth the effort.

They were all completed on Friday - the day the car episode occurred - and I was then unable to photograph the completed foursome, because I'd run out of batteries for my digital camera.  Mine just eats the things - I do wonder if it is just my camera, or whether it is a general thing with these gizmos?  Admittedly, mine is not as modern as all these things on the market at the moment, but on the whole I achieve reasonably good results and I'm normally quite happy with the final picture. 

Here are two of the foursome, sitting on the arm of a bench outside one of my neighbours' bungalows.  The other two are shown below:

The hydrangea bush they are hiding in is beginning to die on us, alas, but it has been a really beautiful pink this year.  There's sufficient left, fortunately, to show off the little guys, though, isn't there?  Looking at these photos, I do assure you, the eyes are level - it's just the way they've been photographed and they way they are sitting on the bench!

I've now almost completed the replacement Baby Rabbits (those sold at the Produce Sale in Heytesbury Church the week-end before last).  The little Brown one (Etsy Listing #73079287) just needs a ribbon sewn on, and the White One (Etsy Listing #5503616) has just got to have his bob-tail and ears attached, as well as his ribbon, and the stock will be up to snuff once more.  Once this post is complete, I'll be doing these finishing off items.

Talking about the Little White Baby Rabbits, the two that set off to New South Wales a couple of weeks ago arrived safely at the end of last week - and beat their intended Best Friend recipients, who have still to make their appearance!  Am still waiting to hear about the safe arrival,  in Saudi Arabia, of Panda Bear (Etsy Listing #55036116) - but he left the UK a couple of days after the White Rabbits, and he's had to negotiate all the timings involved with Ramadan and so on, so I'm expecting a message sometime later this week. 

Right, that's it for this post.  I'll end with a picture I took this afternoon with Ed Ted, Cy Bear - who will be posting again, soon, I promise - as well as Big Koala, whose Best Friend is Ed Ted's, and who arrived a week or so ago for renovation therapy in the Soft Toy Clinic (Etsy Listing #79124185).  He is in not too bad shape, but his stuffing is incredibly hard.  I just cannot imagine what it is, but it certainly does not encourage cuddling. He also requires a new nose, ears and claws!

Until the next post - Goodnight and God Bless!  Isobel

Ed Ted's Therapy - Construction process Part 2

Good evening, everyone:  Cy Bear back again - with the latest news on Ed Ted's progress.

Here are some pictures of the tacking process, ready for the proper "building of Ed Ted" to begin:

Isobel used red cotton yarn to tack the pieces together, so it would be easy to remove once the bits were assembled together.

All pieces having been cut out and tacked onto their corresponding original bits of Ed Ted, Isobel decided to begin work on his head.  This she hand-sewed, as it's such a business getting out the machine, and she can make sure that everything gets sewn in better that way.  Some of Ed Ted's original body that we could save  was smaller than it's corresponding side, especially in the case of his head, so it was better for hand-sewing to be carried out.  To make sure that all the bits stayed tight, Isobel hand tacked the loose bits before stuffing began.

Isobel then spent quite a long time before getting on with the next bit - putting in his eyes.  Now, these are Ed Ted's original ones, and we felt it was important to try and get them as near as possible to the same location on the new head, as they were on the original one (which is, of course, under the new fur).  Its terribly easy, I imagine to get the eyes wrong, and then the whole facial features won't look right.  However, after tidying up boxes of toys joints - a job Isobel has been putting off ever since she was given them by an elderly lady next door who used to make Bears until her fingers gave out - she took a deep breath, switched on her digital camera so that she could look at Ed Ted's original photograph (the one with all the bandages on) and made the necessary holes in either side of his face.  (To see what I mean, please refer to  our earlier post at www.ColdhamCuddliescalling.blogspot.com/07/25/2011/First Bulletin on Ed Ted's treatment)

After a bit of a struggle - we're sewing through three layers of material on each piece now - a small hole was made and Isobel managed to "persuade" the wire loops on which the glass eyes are fixed, through.  She then made sure they were firmly fixed on the wrong side of the head.  She threaded strong cotton (strong enough for sewing jeans) through each wire loop, then once they penetrated the material layers, she individually wrapped threads round each loop and tied the two pieces of yarn together, very firmly.  Hopefully, Ed Ted will not undergo quite the same treatment in future as he has undergone heretofore!  Then the head was stuffed and it now resides on the ironing board (which is where most of the recent photography sessions have been based) ready for the ears to be sewn on and the facial features to be embroidered on.  We've used one of the bigger joints for the head, which hopefully will mean that it won't wobble when fixed to the body.

(When Isobel made me, she had not sorted the joints out - so she used some she had in for the smaller toys and bears.  So, my head initially was very wobbly - which is why she sewed it onto my body - rather than having a swivelling one!  Now I'm used to it, I think prefer it!)

However - the facial features are better left until the head is fixed onto the body - and that only happens once all the limbs are sewn up and stuffed.  That's the next stage, and as we are off to the seaside tomorrow for the day, it may be a couple of days before we're in a position to show you how things are progressing.

Meanwhile, listing on the Groove Press site is almost finished and then Isobel will be activating all the Cuddlies family.  It will be interesting to see what, if any, reaction there is to their appearance on the new shop site.

I'll end now ....  hope everyone reading this blog is enjoying the suspense of Ed Ted's emergence as much as I am watching it!  Cy Bear