NEW pattern - just released for YOU!

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!

Kosta, Skittles, Ace, Avalon, Aristos, and 'Sneeze' meet the world!

We had another big week/fortnight here at Emma's Bears. It always amazes me when I pop on over to Blogger to do another post, and look back at all the new faces I need to show off - and see just how many have emerged since I last chatted to you guys.

This week we had a lot of bears.

And a rat. And a rat pattern.

And some more bears! lol

This little cherub was 'Kosta'. He was made in our Lyric pattern (the one that includes pieces to make three very different bears) using our black and tan faux fur fabrics. Because the backings on our faux fur lines have been chosen for their lack of stretch, they're very easy to work with and allow us to do face-inserts and tricks like that with the bears without warping of the shape. I actually really like the colour combo of the black/brown here too. But I choose Kosta's bright blue eyes late one night while I was working on his face, and found them a touch too pale in the light of the morning.

Kosta has left home to meet his new family, but we do have kits available for him. And you can choose whatever coloured eye you'd prefer from our eye listings. He would look completely different with gold eyes, or green eyes or even basic solid black eyes.

The other new, exciting product we've added to our bear supplies section of our Emma's Bears/Fur Addiction store is the addition of our 'Rat Pattern'. These were my initial sketches of Mr Rat back in 2012 when I first got the bright idea to see how one would turn out. The prototypes were made in rainbow dyed LouBear mohair, and worked out beautifully (see below).

But I hadn't tried the design in a more natural colour-way, so decided to use our shortpile/antiqued line of mohair to see how it would look. The result was 'Skittles':

Skittles is so sweet - as far as rodents go - and I love the big, droopy ears. His tail/rear legs are wired for posing, and his front legs are jointed. He's a really interesting, easy pattern for a beginner-to-intermediate bear maker to try out. Something a little different to bears.

The biggest challenge with him would be turning out his tail, but my advice to anyone embarking on the 'Rat Pattern' journey is to only sew one side of the tail, then turn it out and ladder stitch it over the wire frame rather than attempting to turn out out fully sewn (which is what I did - and 30mins later and lots of choice words, I finally managed to get that little bugger turned! Why do I always end up making things harder for myself due to laziness! In this situation, a little hand stitching will save a lot of pain!).

'Skittles' is available for adoption if you're looking at adding a rat to your collection ;)

We also had the 'A' triplets - 'Avalon', 'Aristos' and 'Ace'. These guys were made from our 'Willa/Attila Bear/Bunny' pattern (using the bear pieces, not the bunny pieces).

Avalon was made in some left over mohair pieces I had from my personal stash. She has found her new home.

Ace was made from our 'Latte' tipped, distressed mohair. He has also found his new home, but you can purchase his Kit if you'd like to try making one yourself.

And Aristos was made in our 'Milk Chocolate' Kid Mohair. He too has found a new home, but is available in Kit form.

Then we switched pace a bit and ended up with this crazy big guy. My initial plans for this bear were that he was going to be a sweet little lady-bear with maybe a pink hair bow... but when I'd finished with that face I knew this was no girl-bear!

And so 'Sneeze' was born - a gorgeous, unusual bear in luxury green faux fur and floral print pads. Sneeze has now found his own home as well.

And to leave you guys with a sneak peek - this is our latest work-in-progress. He will be a big, chunky boy and is made in our 'Island Sunset' faux fur. We'll upload his finalised pics as soon as he's done!