D-A-M-E - Bear Tutorial

Dame Bear Tutorial

These are the items I will be using for this bear tutorial.

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Merino wool, embroidery cotton, scissors, dental floss (for attaching limbs, you may use a plasticthread ).

Needles, I have used 36 gauge green & 40, blue , both triangular base, and a pair of eyes, I haveused glass amber colour.

LEGS

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This simple drawing can show you the basic shapes of the bear body parts.

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Take two wads of wool , roughly the same size , these are going to form the legs and feet, I do my legs with the paws all in one. I start with the 36 gauge green tipped needle.

(these pads shown here are approximately 1 1/2" wide by 3" long, giving us a finished leg of 1/2"wide by 1 3/4" long) .

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This photo shows the two legs very softly felted.

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This is where I start to mark the paw area with a repeated stabbing to form a dent in the leg.

Continue to felt the whole leg and paw turning often and checking for soft spots.

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The paw should be felted from all sides too.

I change to the blue tipped needle gauge 40 and then Continue to felt until you have it as firm as you want it to be , this is your own preference, I like mine quite firmly felted.

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This photo shows both legs, the right leg is finished after having the fuzzy stray wool cut off.

ARMS

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Take two wads of wool for the arms approximately 4" long and begin felting using the green tipped

36 gauge needle. Felt two cylinder shapes, slightly smaller than the legs, If they are too long, just snip a bit off the end , loosen fibres and felt the end in firmly , as the photo shows .

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Start to mark the indent for the bend in the arm, (if you are having one), as we did marking the paw on the leg. Change to your blue needle gauge 40 and felt till you have the required firmness.

Here you can see the arm size in relation to the leg size, this is your own preference as to how long you want limbs.

BODY

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Now we move on to the body, take a good sized wad of wool , I have used one roughly 5" long byapproximately 5" wide.

Start to felt using your 36 gauge needle.

We are going for a cone shaped body, but again this is your own choice, you may want a fatter or thinner body.

Remember to felt the ends in too. The third photo shows the body firmly felted and ready for the shaping I like to do, for the placement of the limbs.

To do this I repeatedly stab to firmly felt the areas where the arms and legs will go, giving you theshape we see in the photo.

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The photo above shows the tops of the limbs where I have hard felted to fix them to the body.

On this particular bear as she is our D.A.M.E bear , I have also applied felted initials, this can be done by taking a thin strip of wool and gently stab it in, in the shape of the letter required.

HEAD & SNOUT

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Take a wad of wool roughly 2 1/2" by 2 1/2" and start your stabbing using your 36 gauge, turning all the time to make the ball shape shown, felt firmly all over checking for any soft spots, change down to your 40 gauge needle when you feel ready.

As you can see in the third photo, the head has almost halved its size, and is firmly felted here.

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Take a small wad of wool for the snout here is it shown next to the head ball shape.

Start to felt the snout using your 36 gauge and felt till firm but remembering to leave some unfelted wool on one end for attaching to the head shape. As shown in the second photo.

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Add the snout to the head with the loose wool ends, and using your 36 gauge needle felt in all around the snout, remembering to felt all over the entire snout, you will feel this make look too bug, but keep with it, as you felt, change down to your 40 gauge and keep turning and checking for soft spots.

This is the shape roughly I try to aim for, at this point I like to make some indentations to show where the eyes are to go. Here you can also mark any shape you would like for the mouth.

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EARS

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Take two think pieces of wool for the ears, these will be flat felted on your pad and shaped to get the half moon shape, don't forget to leave unfelted wool for attaching to the head.

As you can see the ears here still seem too big, but when we felt them on, they will reduce in sizeagain. If you want to add coloured inner ears then do so now, it's much easier.If the loose wool is too long, then cut this down now too. Attach to your head making sure you check all angles , are they central, in line?

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When you are happy with the position, then start to felt in all the loose wool on to the head, until you are happy they are firmly felted on.

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EYES

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Using your dental floss come in through the back of the head out of the eye socket, place on your eye and pass through and exit the back of the head, repeat for the other eye and then tie off the floss with a knot pulling quite firm. Felt over with a small wad of wool.

ADDING PADS OF COLOURED WOOL ON PAWS

Before ataching the legs and arms you may want to add a contrasting colour to them, do this as the photo shows and trim any loose fibres when you have finished.

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You can also add embroidery cotton to the paws as shown, come in through the backs of the limb and finish by pulling the thread and snipping, it then should disappear into the limb.

If you do havesome showing , you can also felt a tad of wool over this.

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JOINING BODY PARTS

Come through the bottom of the bear with the dental floss to Join the legs to the body making sure you have the left and right leg in the correct position, finish off coming back through the bottom and tie off.

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Do the same with the arms, but coming from the back this time, making sure again you have the correct one for each side. Tie of and add a small amount of wool to cover the knot.

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To attach the head come from the bottom again and right up through the neck area, through the head back down through the head and body and tie off.

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Now you can add tiny wool pieces to the head where the indent is from the dental floss and felt over the bottom over the knot .

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The making of this D.A.M.E bear is my own style and you may change things as you feel
comfortable with them.
I hope you have found this helpful and easy to use............Lesley Hughes