Baby Madeline Mae

I am totally chuffed to be able to introduce you all to 'Baby Madeline Mae' - our very latest, just born 'Baby Bear'. 

These were some of the progree photos I had posted to our facebook page yesterday afternoon as her face slowly came to life. Above is her 'raw' head - all that we've done here is stuffed it, closed the neck joint, trimmed her face roughly and pulled in the eye-sockets.

The photo above shows the first layer of nose embroidery stitches. I don't use templates or draw on nose shapes simply because I'm lazy, and I just never have. This can backfire some times and I'll end up with really crappy, uneven noses. But if I'm in a good frame of mind (and have good light to work in) I'll generally end up with a nose I'm proud of.

My way of working is just to start with a very firm/tightly pulled layer of stitches that kind of mark out the rough shape/size I think will suit the bear's face. I then work over this foundation layer with multiple layers pulling tightly and evenly as I go with each stitch. Eventually I find that I have a bear looking back at me with a cute little 3-dimensional embroidered nose.

And this is the finished bear in all of her entirety...

Name: Madeline Mae 
Born: 23/4/14
Time: 10:29am 
Weight: 5 lb 10oz
Length: 45cm

Madeline is currently available for adoption. She has been made in one of the last pieces of our 'Milk Chocolate' imported German kid-mohair that I squirreled away for myself before it sold out on our supplies website. I'm so glad I did too as the combo between the chocolatey curls and the soft lilac of her pinafore is just divine!