Springspiration!

After a major show, I always feel the need to take a few days away from bear-making to recharge my batteries, so this week I have been working on the computer rather than in my sewing room.  It is starting to feel as though Spring is just around the corner here in the UK, so I've been inspired to give www.allbear.co.uk a fresh new lilac look.  While I was about it, I introduced three new bears for sale on the site, then one thing led to another and I decided to teach myself how to add Paypal buttons to make payment easier for customers - but as always with all things website based, what I thought would be a simple task, of course, proved otherwise.  Several frustrating hours later, I eventually managed to sort things out and thankfully now my website is working efficiently again!

8.5" Chip

Once I'd sorted out the website and a few other marketing bits 'n pieces, my thoughts turned to Spring bears.  As you know, I'm far better known for creating substantial, armful sized bears, than tiddlers, but the little chap in the pic above was such fun to make, I've decided to dabble further! Although I've always steered clear of making little bears because there are many other bear artists who already do the job exceedingly well, I've decided to be brave and try to include little bears in my 2012 range.  With that in mind, I spent several hours hunting on the internet for suitable fabrics earlier in the week and was thrilled when they were promptly delivered from Germany yesterday!

I would like to create some colourful little bears for the Spring, maybe in clown style, so these pretty shades will be perfect!

And this more realistic brown bear mohair should result in some very handsome tiddly teds!

I was exactly like the proverbial kid in a sweetie shop while I um'ed and ah'ed over which fabrics to work with and although I had chosen plenty to be going on with, just couldn't resist this gorgeous selection of alpacas too! I'm hoping they will make really cuddly little bears.

I still have a couple of larger bears in my work basket to finish before I can start on the tiddlers, but once they are finished I'm going to make time to play with my lovely new fabrics ... please watch this space for progress updates!