The Littlest Thistle – Making My Own Travel Buddy
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Katy from The Littlest Thistle is our guest today. When she replied that she was going to do a teddy bear for her post I was so excited! If you’ve never seen Katy’s adorable creations, you must take a peek here, they are so darling. Her finished bear is so cute and tiny, it is a great starter and hand project! Katy is also currently hosting an Everything And The Kitchen Sink Sew Along, with some adorable kitchen-themed paper pieced blocks.
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Hi, I’m Katy from The Littlest Thistle. I’m so happy that Jennie invited me to be part of A Season By Hand this summer, it was the perfect nudge I needed to dust off some sewing skills I’ve not been using much recently. Although these days my sewing time is mostly taken up with bags, quilts and the wee Zakka items sweeping the blogosphere, my blog started out to document my teddy bear making, and it was this that I turned to for my summer project.
When I first started making bears back in 2002, I sewed them entirely by hand, as I couldn’t fathom moving such teeny wee pieces through the big clunky sewing machine I had inherited from my gran. Making 10″-20″ bears by hand is rather time consuming, so I only made a couple a year, but eventually in 2009 circumstances forced me to investigate the sewing machine option (with a new machine!) These days about 90% of my big bears are sewn on the machine, although there are a few bits that I need to finish by hand due to the shapes and angles of the pieces. The mini bears though, are hand sewn all the way, so I decided to dust off a pattern I created a few years ago, and make myself my own mini travelling companion while I was away on holiday a couple of weeks ago.
For my mini bears, I use Sassy Fabrics, woven backed, non fray, very short pile fabrics so that my bears are fuzzy, but are secure when using the tiny seam allowances needed on these wee bears.
With both the brown and tan fabrics being 9″ squares, you can get the sense of scale of the pattern from the picture above. With pieces this small, it’s easy enough to create your own little travel buddy in a couple of days relaxing by the pool.
And to give you a sense of scale of his little 4″ self:
If you would like to give this a go yourself, Sassy Bears & Fabrics supplies fabrics, patterns and kits from their US store. Within the UK/Europe, Bear Basics can supply you with all the makings, and in Australia, check out Bear Essence. The good news is mini bears are nice and cheap to make compared to their mohair big brothers and sisters!
Thank you for inviting me along to play Jennie, and to the rest of you, don’t forget to check out all the other amazing posts and giveaways that are part of this series 🙂
Very cute!
Thank you so much :o)
Oh, that’s so cute! I think everyone needs one little bear to hug! x Teje
Thank you, and I agree, everyone needs a bear in their life!
Wow – so so cute!
Thank you 🙂
Can’t believe how detailed it is for something that tiny. He is just beautiful.
Thank you, I enjoy the challenge working in miniature 🙂
Oh your little bear is so sweet and I am amazed at how tiny he is! I loved this post, thank you!
Helen x
Thank you so much! I have actually made tinier bears, but they can push you over the edge when you try and turn the pieces through after sewing o.O
Oh my goodness! What a cute bear!!
Why thank you 🙂
I didnt know you can handsew a bear! You’re amazing!:D
Oh yes, and it certainly sharpens your skills when you tackle the big guys!
The bear is a darling, and a tiny hand made bear sounds possible too.
Thank you, and yes, absolutely possible, go on, you know you want to!
Adorable, and I love to see someone handsewing a softie, from start to finish, no machines allowed!
To be honest, even on the big guys I still feel irrationally nervous when it comes to the ears if I’m using the machine!
What a sweet little bear. I handsewed one for my hubby when we were dating……that was a LONG time ago!
Aww, what a cute memento
Where are the instructions for this? I’d love to make one! 🙂 So cute!
Hi Shauna, I don’t actually have a pattern that I’ve published for this, but the links I gave above will take you to sites that have everything from patterns to fabric 🙂
I love how thrifty you are with your fabric — the pattern bits are nicely crammed together! 😀
Oh yes, when you use mohair for the bigger guys, at over £100/metre, you can bet that your shape fitting skills get finely tuned so that you don’t bankrupt yourself 😉
Your bears are so adorable Katy!! My favorites are Peony, Sage, and Rudy. Does your cute new travel buddy have a name? Thank you!
Thank you so much 🙂 My dad reckons he should be Pierre as he was born on holiday in France, but I’m not convinced…
adorable! thanks for sharing.
Thank you, and thanks for stopping by 🙂
Such a cute little bear!! It’s hard to fathom how small he his.
I have done teenier, and vowed never again lol
I love him!
Thank you 🙂
He is adorable!!! I can’t believe just how tiny he is!
Thank you so much 🙂
What a lovely sweet little bear. It makes me want to make one!
Go on, you know you want to!
Your little bear is just so cute!
Thank you 🙂
Oh my….sooooooo precious!!
Thank you so much 🙂
Awww he is so cute! I want to make one, I can’t believe how tiny he is for the amount of detail he has!
Thank you, I love the challenge of doing those tiny details 🙂
Those are some really cute teddy bears!
Thank you so much 🙂
The bear is so cute and tiny…thank for sharing:)
Thank you for stopping by 🙂
Oh my gosh what a cute little bear!! He has so much personality! Thank you for posting~
My mother once told me all my bears have my personality. I’m not entirely sure what that means lol
Very cute. Is it very hard putting the needle through the fabric when hand sewing these though? I once tried hand sewing a softie made of polar fleece because I’m sewing machine challenged, and I had trouble doing the hand stitching.
Ah, well the fabric for this is specially designed for mini bears. It has a non fray woven backing, which allows for the teeny seam allowances, and because it’s woven it doesn’t stretch, With polar fleece, it’s extremely stretchy and unstable, so if I have something like that, I usually apply some fusible woven interfacing to make it stable enough to work with and stuff without going all out of shape.
He’s adorable! I love the conversations that I have with people when I’m doing handwork. I used to take the train to work and knit.
http://lisainporthope.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/imperfectly-zakka/
Oh yes, sewing these wee guys on trains is certainly a conversation starter 🙂
So much cuteness in this post! I love his tiny little face and paws :D. Thanks for the links to the supplies, I might have to try one someday!
Thank you, I do love doing all the little facial details 🙂
How adorable! That’s going to be on my want-to-do list. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, I hope you get the chance to make one 🙂
That is ridiculously adorable, I love it!
Wow! I’m so impressed with your mini bear. That’s an amazing hand-sewen project!!
Oh my! That is just too cute!
I sew completely by hand, because i dont have the money to actually buy a sewing machine. It does take quite a while to sew up, but even if I use the same pattern for multiple bears, the faces always look a bit different.
So cute!!
This is so adorable!!
Katy’s bears are just incredible. Although I’m sure I could technically sew one, I could never make it look that good or have such a personality.
When I first started making bears back in 2002, I sewed them entirely by hand, as I couldn’t fathom moving such teeny wee pieces through the big clunky sewing machine I had inherited from my gran. Making 10″-20″ bears by hand is rather time consuming, so I only made a couple a year, but eventually in 2009 circumstances forced me to investigate the sewing machine option (with a new machine!) These days about 90% of my big bears are sewn on the machine, although there are a few bits that I need to finish by hand due to the shapes and angles of the pieces. The mini bears though, are hand sewn all the way, so I decided to dust off a pattern I created a few years ago, and make myself my own mini travelling companion while I was away on holiday a couple of weeks ago.