Making Memories

Do you know about Memory Bears? The idea is that you make a teddy bear from fabrics which all relate to a person, in order to make a special memory. 

The two most popular reasons for this are to mark a birth, or the death of a loved one. So you can take the first clothes worn by a baby, and make a bear as a keepsake for the child who is growing up [see blue bear top right, with name an ddate embroidered on the feet]
Or maybe, a family will make someone's passing by taking some of their suit or shirt fabrics [or for a woman, favourite dresses] and make a bear from that.
Jenny mentioned that her recently widowed friend Jill wanted to make a bear from some of her husband's shirts, and asked if I could help with this project when she came to visit. 

I already had the free bear pattern and tutorial from "How Joyful" printed out - but I realised that if three of us were going to do this, we needed to be super-organised. Also using multiple fabrics would mean cutting out the pieces very carefully.

I printed out the pattern pieces on four different pastel papers, so we could get it right - and carefully marked the right side - many pieces were mirror images, and I didn't want a bear with two left feet.

I arrived at Jenny's at 9 -Jill had brought about 7 pieces of shirt fabric- we selected the best four, and began to pin and cut out. Just in case the exercise was going to be repeated, we took lots of photos as we worked.

It took quite a while to pin and cut, then I did the machining - whilst J&J clipped curves, turned seams and pressed the fabrics.


I will not pretend it was easy! By midday we were doing well, but the attaching of the arms was proving difficult. There was much sewing and unpicking and resewing.
We worked from 9 till 1, then we stopped for ham rolls [made by Jenny's husband Peter] I dashed home because Bob and I had an afternoon appointment - but I returned at 3.
After much discussion, we decided to recut the arm pieces from spare fabric, this time making the front sections a little bigger.
This worked!

At around 5.15, the bear was all sewn and turned inside out ready for stuffing.
Armed with a big bag of polyester and a chopstick, we set to. Jenny passed me handfuls of stuffing, which  I packed firmly into the legs and arms and tum and bum and head...

It was very satisfying to realise we were 'on the home straight' after almost 7 hours of work.
All was done, Jill had already fixed eyes, and stitched the nose and mouth whilst I was working on the arms - so all that was left was closing the neck, and tying a bow.
Peter gave me - plus sewing machine and other gear] - a lift home.
All in all a lovely day together. Thanks Jenny and Peter for making it possible. It was good to help Jill create a keepsake in memory of her dearly loved and much missed husband.