Smiles for My Childhood Bears

When I was a child, I enjoyed playing with an elderly teddy bear, probably from the 1930s. He was a good companion and even played with me in the sandbox. He had lost a lot of his fur, and its color was faded from a dark reddish-brown to a caramel color. The other thing he had lost was his smile. I always thought the tear in the fabric under his nose was his mouth! But there were remnants of the black floss that his mouth was stitched with. I had never seen him smile. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I am not sure what got into me, but I decided that I wanted to see my elderly teddy bear smile. So I set to work with black pearl cotton floss, a long doll-making needle, and my magnifier. I stitched in the exact places where the remaining floss pieces were, and was delighted to see my bear smiling back at me for the first time.

I noticed during stitching that the bear's snout is stuffed with excelsior, also known as wood wool. And on close examination of his remaining darker fur, I found that his fur is actually mohair.

After seeing my elderly bear's smile, I had to give a smile to my little pink childhood bear. I don't remember what her original nose looked like. When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I stitched her black nose in place. I wonder where her original nose went! All this time, she has not had a mouth. But now, she and my elderly bear are both smiling. After all my stitching yesterday, I am feeling motivated to work on my New Avenue Crew bears! Stay tuned, dear reader!