Martin

This is Martin, my next big bear.  His face is very traditional, with glass eyes and an embroidered nose, but I have hand-painted the feet again and - although they were meant to be cream - they have come out rose pink!

I am getting slightly worried about all these big bears.  My little traditional bears have almost all gone now, and the little rabbits are trickling out slowly.  We're coming up to the Clare Priory craft fair, and I barely have any small bears at all.  

But there are good reasons for making the big bears.  They catch the eye, they draw people in; they fill up shelf space.  And, every so often, I do find people who love big bears particularly.

Martin is number 5, I think, so five more to go (and some really weird fabric choices - I think I must have been desperate to use up scraps when I cut these ones out).  Then I have found the tenth medium-size bear that I lost, so I'll make him, and then onto the mammoths.

Then I would like to make some of the tiny long-legged bears for Clare Priory, and perhaps some more of the traditional little bears that I started off with.  Perhaps also a very small version of my realistic design.  

Then of course, there's my meerkat, which I'm not doing very well with at the moment.  I found some fabric online which would have been perfect, but when i rang, it was out of stock and discontinued.  I have ordered a few other pieces, but none of it is very meerkatty.  It's really difficult trying to gauge it online, but the only place you can buy mohair face-to-face is at a teddy bear fair, and we don't have any local bear fairs.  

Then I wanted to do a standing meerkat too.  All this is supposed to happen before Clare Priory :-(

Seems unlikely, but we'll see how it goes!