Two More Patriotic Bears

 I enjoyed making the first patriotic bear so much I made two more!  

My husband and I rejoined a local car club that we had belonged to many years ago. It's nice to see all the old friends and familiar faces at the meetings. The club hosts a car show/car cruise on July 4th every year and needed donations for prizes. I thought I could stitch up a bear or two this week. I mixed up the coloring a little. It doesn't look that much different, but it was fun to play around with the fabrics to see which one I liked best. My favorite is the bear on the left.  

 I will definitely make more of these little guys. After all, I bought more little flags.

  

Patriotic Bear

 I truly enjoy making bears to donate. This bear is part of a fundraiser for my two great nephew's scout troop's spaghetti dinner. My sister and niece are leaders with the troop and needed items for people to bid on. My sister and I decided a patriotic bear would be good. 

I loved making him. Finding a small flag was a little bit of a challenge. But we found one! 

Here's my bear. 
 

Jesse's Bear

Sigh... 

 In my bear making career, I expected someday I would be asked to make a bear for a child who has passed.  I had hoped I it would never happen but here I am making one.  Sigh...

 Being a mom who has experienced child loss, this hit hard. As I worked on this sweet bear, I prayed for Jesse's Mom and family and shed a few tears too. My heart goes out to them so much. 

I don't know any of Jesse's story. I only know he was a small child who passed suddenly. 

The contact person said they had a 'blanket' to make Jesse's bear. What I picked up was a well-loved baby quilt with a cute turtle and frog pattern. I don't usually sleep well and sewing relaxes me. One night at 3am, I was preparing to cut out the pattern pieces for Jesse's bear. When to my surprise I found a treasure. At first, I thought I was seeing things because I was too tired.  But I wasn't tired, I was wide awake.

I hope you can see it. Quilted into this baby quilt are the words " From Great Grandma"

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it! Thankfully I hadn't cut anything out yet. I decided to make the bear bigger to accommodate the words from great Grandma. This was also my first bear to make out of a quilt. I had wanted to make a bear from a cutter quilt (an old worn quilt). I hadn't planned on using a beloved baby quilt. At times it was a challenge due to the thickness of the quilt. But I powered on. It worked out enlarging the pattern to accommodate the sweet message from Great Grandma. I hope you can see it on the back of the bear's head and back. 

The finished bear is below. I had a little bit of quilt left so I made little heart keychains too. I thought Jesse's family might want to keep a small part of the quilt with them.

Brian's Bears

 Brian's parents asked me to make two bears from his shirts. I don't know very much about him, but I do know that he was so very loved by his parents. 

The blue bear was a nice dress shirt, and the gray bear was a Timberland long sleeve T-shirt. I love when I can make bears coordinate with each other.  I am so happy how they turned out. 

    

                                    It always looks awkward when I take a picture from the back. 

                                    I love the little details of using the tags from the clothing. 

Pam and Dirk's Bear

 My dear friend Pam requested I make her a bear to wear a vintage wool little boy's coat with a matching newsboy style hat. Pam's husband Dirk may have worn it as a child. The hat/jacket set was in beautiful condition for its age.

 The bear needed to be bigger to fit into the coat. So, I increased the pattern to 140%.  The fabric Pam gave me was super soft flannels in muted tones. Perfect for a bear. It made him super soft. 

Here's how this cute boy turned out. 

The little coat was still a bit big for the bear. I couldn't bring myself to cut it to make it fit. So, I folded it under as best I could. I think it still looks adorable on him. 

Here he is without his coat. I am so happy how he turned out. 

Jack's Baby Quilt

My daughter became an aunt for the second time January 2024. Her sister and brother-in-law are big Disney fans.  For their first baby I made a Minnie Mouse quilt. (Scroll down to see Coraline's quilt below) I felt Jack needed a quilt of his own. I am not the quickest quilter. It took me a year to finish this quilt.  My hope was to finish it before Jack's first birthday in January. And I did. 

The original pattern makes a bigger quilt. I cut the pattern down to make it a baby quilt just as I did for Jack's big sister's quilt.

  Here is Jack's Mickey Mouse Quilt.

Coraline's baby quilt. Coraline will be four this month. They grow so quickly~

Chris' Dad's bears

  Most of the bears I make are for someone who has passed away.  Occasionally I am asked to make bears in honor of a loved one who has not passed. This is the case with Chris' bears.   

Chris had an idea to have bears made from his dad's clothing to give as Christmas presents with a picture of his dad in that shirt to give along with the bear. Chris asked his dad try on several shirts telling him he wanted to see if they still fit. Chris took a picture of his dad each shirt. The shirts I received were the ones that no longer 'fit.'  His dad had no idea what was going on.  I thought it was a genius way to surprise his family. It was fun being part of the surprise. 

 Here is how they turned out.

 It is funny that every time I take a group photo of bears I have made, one or two of them don't cooperate and look in a different direction.  It happens every time.