Treating the Waggstaff Bears: Part Three - Mohair Bear

Mohair Bear, as well as being the oldest of the three Waggstaff Bears, has also really been the most interesting project.  He arrived with his head dropping off, his face looking as though he'd been in a street fight in which he'd definitely come off worst, and was definitely so tightly stuffed as to not be a cuddly armful at all.  Indeed, until I began to de-stuff him, I thought his innards were comprised entirely of wood chippings.  In the end, I found it was a mixture of varying coloured cotton-wool, packed very tightly together.  The hardness had occurred, I later discovered, because the attic in which he'd been stored for many years was located by the coast, so damp had probably been absorbed which added to the hardness.  Here is a shot of what he looked like upon arrival.

Overall, Mohair Bear is not in bad condition at all.  His paw pads were incredibly hard - perhaps being leather which had hardened in the damp conditions he'd been kept in, but they needed to be replaced as they looked chipped, as though they had indeed been walking a long way!  By removing them and putting in some soft, glove quality leather instead, I was able to remove all his existing stuffing from his limbs without the need to take out the cotter-pin discs with which he had been created originally.

While he needed to have his head re-attached to his body, and new eyes put in - he had two leather buttons in place when he arrived - it was his mouth area that fascinated me.  You can see that he obviously had a red tongue originally, and that he had a red roof to his mouth area as well.  When I took his head to pieces,

 this is what I discovered.  The jaws had literally covered a disc contraption which looks like this.  No wonder his head was so hard, because while it, too, had the compacted cotton-wool stuffing, it also accommodated this piece of engineering - as well as the cotter-pin disc for attaching the head to the body!

A close-up picture of the mouthpiece contraption, showing how it is damaged - and therefore not to be recommended for re-use - is provided below

As the head was detached, I'm not quite sure exactly how it worked in practice, but presume the cotter-pin was somehow attached through that big hole in the top of the contraption.  Though when in place, I still cannot figure out how it actually worked!

Anyway, NickiW  came in for a further consultation before going any further - and we both agreed that this would no longer feature inside Mohair Bear's head and that I would endeavour to remake his mouth and jaw (which had several holes in the fabric where the jaws had rubbed during use).  To do this, I took about a 1-1/2 inch wide piece of fabric from the neck area of the body which by then had lost any stuffing that may have been there originally.  Using this, I patched some of the biggest holes and darned those that were easily treated in that manner and managed to create a nice new face for Mohair Bear - which I hope will serve him well for many years to come.  He also had two nice new Bear Eyes fitted, which are a whole lot better than his former leather buttons.

The rest of Mohair Bear, given his age, required no further treatment - although there was a bad hole at the top of one of his arms.  Once I'd de-stuffed that limb, I was able to use the remaining piece of cut away fabric as a patch.  The paw pads were all cut away and, once each limb had got its replacement stuffing, the new leather pads were stitched in place.

The newly-made head was fitted in place with a modern replacement plastic disc (cotter pins are still used, but I find them difficult to handle with my arthritic fingers, so prefer the plastic variety - they are less cumbersome, too!) and Mohair Bear was then ready to take his place in the banana box with his two younger friends.  With head and all limbs re-stuffed, all that remained was for his body to get it's quota of polyester stuffing and for the remaining seam to be sewn up.  Before doing that, however, I was asked to replace a tiny sea shell which had appeared on the scene from out of the huge pile of the previous cotton wool stuffing.   NickiW felt it would be a nice reminder to Mohair Bear of his previous, long term home!  It was indeed replaced, but carefully in the middle of his tummy, well away from any of the mohair fabric!

Mohair Bear now looks like this and Cy Bear was pleased to approve his new appearance!  Here is a final picture of the Waggstaff Threesome, together with their newly made friend Cy Bear.  He could not be left out of it, could he?

Now that the Saga of the Treatment of the Waggstaff Bears is complete, I have just one more post to complete drafting.  This may get done before I leave for High Wycombe to celebrate Christmas, but it may well have to wait until my return.  I hope to be able to post these three while I am away, but access to a computer for the time required for me to do my usual activities associated with these posts may not be possible.  So, in case I do not get the chance, I'll end my posting activities for 2012, by sending all of you, our wonderful Followers (270 in all, and getting ever near 10,000 views since we began in March 2011) my very best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!  Isobel

Treating the Waggstaff Bears: Part Two - Ted Bear

This is Cy Bear taking over the description process this time, so here goes!

When he arrived, Ted looked like this. Because of his light colouring, he looked dustier than Bum Bear whose treatment was described in our last post, so we decided that once he had been de-stuffed, he would have an overnight soaking in cold water, and then have a luke-warm soapy bath and continue drying on the clothes airer in the work room.  He seemed to be made from similar fabric as that used for Bum Bear, and in the end,  he had not re-acted badly to being washed.  So Isobel was more confident about applying this treatment to Ted.

When he was inspected, we found he did not need to be taken apart at the head - he had this gaping wound in his side:

He also needed completely new facial features, although both his eyes were intact.  One of his ears needed to be rescued, as it had been badly treated - probably used as the means by which to carry him during his playtime days.  So, Isobel got to work by removing all his foam stuffing and putting him  to soak overnight in the bath.

The water was not that colour when he came out of the bath, I can tell you.  He had a hand wash, and then several rinses in cool water to remove the soap suds, and then, once dried, he was turned inside out and Isobel began to inspect his seams.  He was a very different colour on the inside -

However, his seams were showing signs of fraying, or were very thick - because his fur had not disappeared as much as Bum Bear's had.  So, the seams were thinned out and over-sewn, and those on his upper torso are what all the seams eventually looked like.

This picture shows one of the legs, before Isobel got round to over-sewing the seams.  In the end, to preserve Ted's seams entirely, Isobel did all the seams with button-hole stitching, and he should now be a good long term prospect for his new surroundings.

 (As we understand it, all three bears have, for decades,  been in an attic belonging to NickiW's mother, who has recently down-sized and moved into a smaller home.  The daughters were helping their mother to move and discovered the three bears.  Isobel had treated AdamW's Teddy Bear, who needed more stuffing, earlier this year, so she brought the three Bears round to be assessed.)

Once all the seams were done, Isobel discovered a bad slit in his back which actually made it much easier for Ted to be re-stuffed.  As many Bears have a seam up their back, Ted's slit did not look out of place.  Accordingly,  the slit was treated as a big buttonhole and once Ted had been turned inside out, Isobel used the resulting opening to re-stuff Ted completely.  He then had a new nose and mouth created, (using Brown Double Knitting yarn, rather than the usual Black yarn we used for facial features) and his old ear sewn back into place.  Then he, too, was returned to the banana box in which all three Bears had arrived - but not before we had this picture taken of the two of us together.

Now, I'll close this post, so that we can prepare the final post of this series on the Waggstaff Bears - describing how Mohair Bear was transformed.  I think that Isobel will be taking over from here on in.

So, I'll end, by wishing everyone - again - a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!  (Not that I really understand what that all means - but then I'm just a Bear made from Beaver Lamb Fur! - but that's what I keep hearing Isobel being wished at the moment).

Starting the Wagstaff Bear Treatment Saga - Part One: Bum Bear

Here is what Bum Bear looked like upon his arrival in mid November 2012, accompanied by his friends Ted Bear and Mohair Bear.  Bum belongs to NickiW, Ted to her sister, and Mohair Bear is their mother's Bear, whom she inherited from her own mother, so Mohair Bear is the oldest of the trio, and has to be nearing the 100 year old threshold!  The other two are in their late 30's to mid-40's - mere whipper-snappers in comparison!

Treatment in the ColdhamCuddlies Stuffed Animal Restoration Clinic (Etsy Listing # 79124185) always begins with an assessment of each patient, and normally attracts a £25.00 Consultation Fee for each Patient (which is applied against the final cost of the treatment when the Patient returns home).  In the case of the three Wagstaff Bears, because two of them really did not require too much effort, and Mohair Bear was such an interesting case, the initial £25.00 Consultation Fee was applied to all three.  (One of the joys of being one's own boss is the ability to make such decisions I find!)

Bum from the rear - you can see how he got his name!

Looking at both photographs, there does not appear to be an immense amount of treatment required - and so it proved.  His right eye needed to be replaced - there was a huge hole where the original one had been and he needed to be given a bath (or undergo some other form of cleansing) to try and recover his original cream plush colour.  He also needed to received fresh stuffing, as his innards were chopped up sponge foam.  This was a familiar stuffing in the 1970's-1990's, before foam stuffing (for toys as well as soft furnishings was recognised for the inflammable material it is).

Thus I took my trusty Quic-un-Pic instrument of Bear torture in hand and attacked his seams, from the top of his head down to his neck on both sides of the body.  The stuffing was removed from head, arms, body and legs - in that order- and then discarded.

The foam rubber stuffing, ready for dispatch

With vivid memories of what happened to daughter Philippa's Bear of a similar vintage - when he was left overnight to soak in cold water and then have a bath in warm soapy water the next day, most of his fabric collapsed -  I decided to give him a dry clean in a bag of bicarbonate of soda.  This involved the soda being tipped into a bag, followed by Bum Bear, and both being shaken vigorously for several minutes.  I then left them together overnight, gave everything another vigorous shake next morning and then extracted Bum from the bag and gave him another, thorough shake in the bath (the soda is easily washed away and cleans the pipes as it goes down!).

The soda, minus Bum Bear - with flakes of dust etc.

Bum was then turned inside out and inspected to see the state of his seams. Before going any further, though, I could not help noticing that my hands were stinging a little - which I put down to the residual soda on his remaining plush and backing fabric.  So, I decided to risk a quick soak in cold water - lasting about 2 hours, rather than overnight.

This resulted in  Bum coming up even cleaner and the stinging sensation disappearing - without any of the disastrous break down of the fabric experienced with Philippa's Tommy Teddy (who was completely re-made using what I could of his original remaining pieces!).  (Bum's fabric was definitely more of a mohair quality originally, than was Tommy Teddy - who was pure plush only).

Bum Bear's seams were, in the main, reasonably free from fraying - although the black fabric was worse than the cream variety.  I thus over sewed those seams that were worse for wear and proceeded to see what we could do with his eyes.  There was a dilemma.  I had two matching eyes which were available for use.  Alas, the good eye already in place was sufficiently rusted as to make it's safe removal a no-goer - it could not be removed without causing a big hole, so I left well alone.  So, I darned the large hole, as well as putting in a patch of black furry material, where the missing eye had been, and attached one of the pair  in stock - it's a little larger than the original, almost a match, but when Bum was completed, the difference does not show, and at least he now has two eyes with which to view his current surroundings.

Cy Bear giving his approval of Bum's treatment

One ear needed to be removed (it was hanging by two or three threads!) and re-attached, and then Bum was re-stuffed and replaced in the banana box in which he had arrived accompanied by his companions.

We'll continue the Saga of the Wagstaff Bears in our next post - when we deal with Ted Bear's therapy.  Meanwhile, good night and good-bye from Cy Bear and myself, Isobel!