Dear Friends
Long winter evenings are made for finding a warm spot and quietly doing a bit of crafting with a cup of hot chocolate within reach. One can do only so much before you need to venture out and forage for new inspiration though. I’m happy to see the first buds on trees in our garden, and notice that the birds are chirping a few minutes earlier in the morning. Here are a few craft happenings to get your creative juices flowing.
Please note that there will be no mini sale on Saturday 27 August. You will find us at the Parkhurst Miniatures Festival.
Dizzy Been meaning to make a bear? Have some UFOs (UnFinished Objects) that you would like to tick off your to- do list? Join us on Saturday 3 September from 9am till 4pm at our inspiring and relaxing all day bear making event. In addi- tion to the prepared kits that we keep ready for first time bear makers, I have cut a few Dizzy bears from an assort- ment of bright and colourful mohair fabric. If you need to add a bit of wow to your bear collection, go ahead and book yourself into a workshop! Details available in the Classroom on our website. At R 320 for a full day including kit and lunch, or R 160 for a full day including lunch if you are working on your own project, this workshop is a bargain! Workshops for the remainder of 2011 are filling up fast, book early to avoid disappointment.
What are ePatterns? With advances in technology, easy internet banking, and this challenged crafter learning to hit the right keys on the computer, it has become possible to send a pattern to you almost instantly by email, without needing to wait for the mailman. The process is simple. You select your patterns from our website and email your request, or if you have Paypal, buy them directly from our Etsy shop. Once I receive your payment, I email the pattern to you in handy PDF format, and you can print them out immedi- ately. In a jiffy you are ready to start your project. Not all our patterns are available as ePatterns yet, new ones defi- nitely are, and we are in the process of scanning the most popu- lar older patterns. I have put together a special bundle of patterns to get you going with ePatterns. From 29 August to 15 September you can order the Pink n Purple ePattern Package for only R 100, and receive Muffy, Erika, June and Fraudelin as ePatterns. Email to place your order. If anyone knows how to contact Mr Spock at Starship Enterprise, please let me know, I need to figure out how to email mohair!
I am happy to report that a total of 623 teddy bears were collected by Bearathon this year, well above our aim of 500 bears. The teddies were handed over to The Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children on 14 July. A heartfelt thank you to every- one who contributed. I am still receiving information requests about Bearathon and we are thinking of making this an ongoing project at Tin Soldiers. If you missed out on the event this year, for the time being I’m leaving the information on our website and will update it when we decide how to handle the project in future. If you would like to make a contribution of time or money to the Teddy Bear Clinic di- rectly, you will find contact information on their website.
Design Workshop
In July we had a workshop for a group of ladies who booked a day to learn to design their own patterns. I’m very proud of their efforts! Here are Hope and H2O, designed and made by mother and daughter team Susan and Antoinette. Both bears are made from Loubear mohair. One wonders why Hope is virtuous and spends time on her knees, while H2O keeps his drink in a bottle covered with brown paper? It is so much fun to be able to tell a story through your teddy bear craft. Once you know how to draw and alter your own patterns, there’s no limit to the things you can let your bears get up to. Kick a ball, dance in a ballet, recline in an easy chair while holding knitting, you only need to imagine the scene and design your bear to fit right in. Lately I have had lots of requests for a teddy bear de- sign workshop. If this is something that interests you, I will arrange a work- shop on a date that suits you if you have a group of a minimum of six persons to attend. The workshop usu- ally takes four to five hours to complete, and although we will cover all the basics of teddy bear design you are welcome to bring suggestions of your own characters to design. At the end of the workshop every person will take home a set of templates, tested and ready to cut from mohair. For those of you too far away to attend a workshop I also have good news. I have started compiling my years of working knowledge of teddy bear design into an online workshop. It should be ready by October, watch the Tin Soldiers website for details.
New Patterns
New from Nerina Roberts at Cloth Characters, Arabella is a 40 cm cloth rabbit made from calico and cotton. She has painted facial features. The pattern for her dress and handbag is also included. A great project for beginner and intermediate cloth crafters.
Printed Pattern R 35 Kit R 140
Also from Nerina , Wendy is a 35 cm cloth doll made from cotton lycra. Her clothes are made from cotton fabric and rib trim, patterns included. Wendy has fingers and toes! Glass eyes and sculpt- ing makes this an iteal project for doll makers with a bit of experience.
Printed Pattern R 35 Kit R 140
And here’s a new pattern from Megan at last! Muffy is a 12cm jointed mohair bear wearing a pretty little dress. The pattern for her pin cushion is also included. Each kit is supplied with white mohair, lace and cotton fabrics, as well as the beads and accesso- ries you see in the picture. Instructions for natural dyeing with tea or food colouring is included. (The bear in the photograph was made by tea dyeing the fabrics and lace). Printed Pattern R 35 EPattern R 30 Kit R 155
Make it with Megan
Our next round of ‘Make it with Megan’ workshops are from 29 August to 1 September. Here are the days and times:
Monday 29 August 6pm till 10 pm Tuesday 30 August 9am till 1pm Tuesday 30 August 6pm till 10 pm Wednesday 31 August 9am till 1pm Thursday 1 September 6pm till 10 pm
In these workshops teddy bear and doll makers work on their own projects, with Megan available when you need guidance. Everyone from beginner to advanced level are welcome. R 60 per session. Kit Bashing Challenge What is kit bashing? The term kit bashing comes from the dolls house miniatures world. It means to use a kit that was meant to make something specific, and adapt, or ‘bash’ it if you prefer, into a different shape. In our case, we will be using the kit for Tiny Tim, and bashing it into a different kind of bear by altering the pat- tern. Who can participate? Everyone, beginners to professional are invited to send a photo of their bear. Closing date for entries is 17 February 2012. The winner will be determined by voting and will receive a R 500 voucher for mohair at the Loubear online shop. Two additional winners will be ran- domly chosen. These will each receive a set of bear making tools. What are the rules? In order to enter, you must buy a kit for Tiny Tim. You can enter as many bears as you like, but you must buy a kit for each entry. The kit will be supplied with white mohair. You can dye, distress or in any other way alter the mohair, add some of your own fabric, do whatever you like. You must use a piece of the kit mohair somewhere in your altered design though. If you want to alter the eye/joint size of the bear, you may do that. You must use the pattern sheet that came in the kit. You can make as many changes to the pattern as you like, but you are not to enlarge or reduce the size of the bear by photocopying or scanning the pattern. The end result must still be a teddy bear (not an elephant, dragon or some other creature). In brief, that’s it. You need to send us a photo of your bear by 17 Feb next year, and we will add it to the website. The full kit bashing challenge details are on our website. There are also some pictures of a previous competition to get your creative juices flowing.
A Bit of Bear History Here’s an excerpt from a great article about early teddy bears by Frances Cronin. You can read the full article in the BBC Online News Magazine. In 1903, 3,000 teddy bears were sent by ship from Germany to America only for them to disappear. Some claim the bears were the first ever made and would now be the most valuable in the world. So what happened to them? In the Steiff museum, in the German town of Giengen, the mystery of the missing bears is explained to the visiting children with a tale that they were lost at sea. The idea of shipwrecked teddy bears captures the imagination, but is it true? The company was established by seamstress Margarete Steiff in the 19th Century. In 1880, needing a present for a nephew, she found a pattern for a toy elephant and made it from soft felt. Drawn to how soft and cuddly they were, children in the neighbourhood were soon asking for elephants too. She started to make the elephants alongside her dressmaking business but it was her nephew Richard Steiff who came up with the idea of a toy bear. As a student at art college in Stuttgart he used to visit the zoo and sketch the bears. Steiff's first bear was called 55 PB. The 55 stood for its height, P stood for plush and B for beweglich, German for moveable. 55 PB was introduced to the German public at the Leipzig Toy Fair in spring 1903. But there was not much interest, says Maniera. "There's a wonderful story how he's [Richard Steiff] just so fed up he's putting all the bears back in the boxes and he's sealing everything up when Hermann Berg comes, a buyer for Borgfeldt in New York. "Berg is desperately miserable as he's been trudging around the trade fair all week and he hasn't found anything to take back to New York and he's under instruction to bring something new back. "He spies on Richard Steiff's stand as he's nailing down almost the last box and he asks Richard what's in there? He pulls out 55 PB and Hermann Berg is captivated by him. Apparently on the spot he orders 3,000 bears - a massive order at that time." The premises of the Steiff business could not cope and they had to build a new fac- tory in which to make the bears. Templates and patterns of the bears exist but none have ever turned up. "The order was definitely made," says Maniera, "We have samples of the boxes so we know they were boxed up and shipped. So how about that theory about the bears being lost at sea? Gunther Pfieffer, author of four books about Steiff bears, does not believe it. "The mystery first appeared in 1953 with the 50th anniversary of the teddy bear. A clever employee of the marketing department was writing a little festival book and that's the first time this story came up. "So I guess it was just a good marketing idea, nothing else." But if they were shipped, why have none ever appeared in attics or auction houses? Manuela Fustig, from the Steiff museum, has a theory. "I think this is due to the con- struction of the bear. His arms and head and legs were jointed to his body with strings so this was very breakable and I think the bears have not survived." "When I have guests I say to them 'look at your home to see if there is a strange looking bear in a dark colour and send me a photo' and I'm waiting everyday, hoping, that somebody has found a 55 PB," says Fustig. "He is very dark in colour - he hasn't the cute charming look of a typical Steiff teddy bear, he has no button in his ear - he was made in 1903 and the buttons were added in 1904. Teddy bear enthusiasts are able to buy a replica of the bear online for £399, but if you found one in your attic it would be a collector's dream. "If a PB 55 is discovered, he would completely crash and break all existing world records without ques- tion," says Maniera. "There isn't anything more important than PB 55. The current world record is over £180,000 but he would easily break that."
And finally, let me quickly introduce you to one of my favourite artists of all time. Jennifer Carson is a designer, author and pro- lific poster on the internet. Visit her website to find out more about her fantasy creatures, and look out for her generously shared free patterns and tips!