So THIS is the
new pattern I've been banging on about for the last few blog posts. It's not really a 'new' pattern in the sense that I designed it a number of years ago and have used it to create MANY different bears. But it is new in that we've just gotten it back from our graphic designer - and it's now a very snazzy looking PDF pile for you to download, print and make your own 'Belarius' bears!
(
available as an instant download in our etsy store)
This is one of the most recent bears I have made using this pattern - we called him
'Belarius'. So I decided to use his name to christen the design. Up until this point the pattern was just 'that big bendy bear', recognised in my crappy pattern filing system by the recycled paper I used when I drew him out that first time!
I've used this design so many times over the last few years, in so many variations that I had intended to keep the pattern just for me (how selfish! lol). But we've had a few requests this year for some more larger patterns in our store... so I decided to play nice and share! I totally get it though - I much rather MAKE the larger bears to sell, but BUY the smaller bears for my own collection.
Big bears are so much fun. I feel like you can do SO much more with them too... as you'll see by my rather extensive list of example bears in this pattern....
With this guy, it was as simple as finding three contrasting mohair fabrics and cutting the limbs from one, the head/belly from another, the top of the body and the ears from yet another! (and adding lots of eye-shading!)
The pattern has such long limbs and body parts that it also works BEAUTIFULLY when rainbow-dyeing. You can get some really lovely variating tones by blending the colours down the limbs.
This girl was kept very simple with just some stunning pink feathered fur, pink paw pads and contrasting blue eyes.
The pattern is large enough to buy baby-clothes to dress the finished bear in as well! This baby-girl is wearing a size OOOO (newborn) jacket and a sweet little white ruffle nappy cover.
This one was a very unusual idea - we took a super long pile mongolian lambswool fur for the body and limbs and matched it up with a super short crew-cut mohair for the head and paw pads! Blue eyes tied the colours together and made for a very distinctive one of a kind bear.
The beauty of this patter is that it will work with both long and short pile fabrics. There's enough width in the pieces to still look in proportion when using a short-pile fabric, but enough length in the limbs that the shape isn't completely lost under longpile furs.
This was one of my favourites - just a classic bear in a luxury animal print faux fur.
For this guy we kept the cheeks fluffy and hand painted paw pads details on his feet.
Another one of our rainbow-dyed bears. To get this effect you need to cut the pattern pieces from the mohair first - then lay them out on the dyeing table and paint the colours where you want them to go. If you're careful and match up the colours from piece to piece you'll end up with a bear that just looks like she was born like this!
Tia is another of my favourite versions of this pattern. For this girl we just made some slight adjustments to the face (cut the side-head piece and gusset piece off at the muzzle and cut those bits from a plain white fur to contrast with the spotty fur).
Another feathered fur bear, this time with big handpainted paw pad detail.
And last but definitely not least - the full spotted bears. No face inserts or fully cheeks, just a classic bear with a trimmed face and a splash of gold on his nose and paws. You really can do ANYTHING with
this pattern! I'm so looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with now!
