Bearing All: Teddy Bear Pals, where it began..

Thursday 25 May 2023

Teddy Bear Pals, where it began..

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You may have spotted 'Jellybean' on my website yesterday, a bubblegum pink and yellow elephant-teddy I created earlier this week. I occasionally make a teddy bear pal and usually their design stems from somewhere deep in the mists of my childhood...

The original 'ellie' wasn't made by me, it was in fact given to me by an uncle in 1963, the year of my birth. Back in those distant days, my little pink ellie had floppy ears and felt eyes, but as is the way of much loved childhood toys, those were worn away with many hugs, over the passage of time.

Ellie was one of a select group of soft toys gifted to me as a baby... Big Ted, my first Chiltern Hugmee teddy bear, was given to me on my first birthday by my parents, Scotty was a handmade black dog made by my Nana's boarding house lodger, Sooty, a mohair glove puppet given to me by an auntie and my now earless ellie, managed to survive six long decades and are with me today... a little more careworn perhaps, but still much loved and importantly, still together.

Which brings me to the other pink ellie in the photograph created in 2007, an attempt to replicate my childhood elephant toy and my first ever elephant design. Since 2007, there have been other elephant designs along the way, Abe, Delilah, Starlight, Forget-me-not, Ma Cherie, Butterfly, Bluebell... and now, to celebrate Summer 2023, my latest ellie-bear, Jellybean.