Saturday, March 3, 2018

Journey of a Toy Bear, II: The Eye

1. Choosing fabric for the unstuffed & washed bear:

2. Making a patch of found-embroidery to support the eye (the fabric is worn thin). This bear only had one of its original glass eyes on a wire loop, so this is a replacement childproof, plastic eye--that plastic ring is the washer that goes behind the eye:

3. I sewed a black background for the embroidered flowers:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a 60's summer of love bear!!! I love the embroidery repairs and think the bear looks so much more interesting.

Enjoying reading about how you are repairing the animals.

I've often wondered about washing dusty smell stuffed animals that I have picked up. It's not so scary thinking about it after seeing your successes with SNARP>

Kirsten

Fresca said...

Hi, Kristen!
A summer of love bear---I like that!

I'm glad you enjoy reading about SNARP :)

It feels scary at first but most stuffed animals are made to be tough and can take being washed and repaired---and their fur hides messy stitches usually too.
It's mostly worth it to try to wash them.

Fresca said...

P.S. Of course you can just surface wash toys too, with a sudsy washcloth---much easier than taking them apart.

Anonymous said...

The surface wash is an idea but I really really like the idea of removing the stuffing and replacing it after washing. Could even use wool stuffing or cotton stuffing.

Kirsten

Fresca said...

KIRSTEN: Yes, that's the thing---the old stuffing is sometimes pretty horrible!
I've looked into all sorts of new stuffing. There's some nice organic stuff, but it's expensive. You could make your own from old felted sweaters, etc.
It's not as fluffy as polyester, of course.

I have an unopened box of kapok (naturally light and puffy fluff from a tropical tree) I'm excited to try but don't want to open until I can do it outside---I hear it can be incredibly messy because it flies around.