Welcome to another Bear Hospital, I hope you are all enjoying reading about the bears that I feature. There are many others that I don’t write about—it is a difficult choice to make!

American Bear

In this issue there is a lovely early American bear and a cute Deans bear. I will begin with the American bear. He came to the U.K. all the way from Minnesota and looked to be quite pleased to be out of the box, none the worse for his long journey. He is a lovely little bear and is very much loved by his owner, as he is her mom’s teddy bear. He had been stored for a number of years, but the day came that she thought she would have him restored, so Teddy was packed very carefully and sent away on his long journey to my house.

Teddy had a number of problems as you can see by the first image, the main problem being that he was missing an arm; the poor old boy must have had a lot of adventures! I began work on him by giving him a very gentle surface clean and then left him to air off overnight. I don’t always clean the bears, it just depends on the fragility of the fabric and if the owner would like this to be carried out. In the case of replacing limbs or ears it is best to clean first if possible. Then you can get a much better match with the fabrics used to make the replacements limbs. Once he had aired out I opened the final sewn seam at the back of his body and removed the existing arm to use as a pattern guide. After I had made the pattern I selected the mohair fabric to make him a new arm and dyed it to match the original fabric color, then created a new right arm for him. I also recovered all his worn felt pads at the same time with beige wool felt. Both arms were then prepared for re-jointing, with new split pins and disks then re-jointed to his body.

Teddy had a few holes in the back of his body, so these were lined and repaired and the seam was closed. Both legs were topped up with excelsior stuffing, and the top of each leg was repaired where they had torn a little. Now that Teddy could sit up without falling over, I turned my attention to his features. His owner had requested that he was to have his sight restored, so the black wool stitches that were representing his eyes were removed and replaced by a pair of lovely amber glass ones. His ears were re-sewn in the original place, and he had a little more woodwool stuffing added to his muzzle to bring it back in to shape. Finally, I replaced his mouth with aged embroidery floss following the original holes as a guide for shape and expression.

As he sat for his photograph, I was pleased to see the twinkle in his eyes; he was obviously looking forward to returning home to the U.S.A. and perhaps having a few more adventures. And I am happy to say that his owner was very pleased to receive him home again, a special little guy who had retained his personality and memories!

Deans Teddy

This delightful little bear had certainly been having a lot of fun in his life, but somehow his limbs and head had become detached! His name is Edward and he has been with his owner all his life. He is a Deans teddy bear from the 1950s, and his owner thought it was about time he had his childhood friend restored as he had been in pieces for many years.

The first part of Edward’s restoration was to get him back together! I opened the back seam on his body and removed the stuffing, putting it to one side for later use. The joint disks were removed where necessary, and they were re-used in the limbs and head that had become detached. Once the limbs and head were ready I re-jointed them back to his body and re-inserted the original stuffing. His owner had forgotten that Edward had once had a growler but was very pleased to find out that I could replace the broken one, so this was inserted inside the stuffing and the seam was closed.

Now that Edward was back to being a bear that could sit safely without his head rolling away it was time for the next part of his restoration. His owner had requested that Edward should have a “bath,” so I gave his fur a brush first to loosen any dust, then I gave him a surface clean. Obviously baths for vintage teddy bears are not recommended, nor is putting them in the washing machine! His lovely mohair cleaned very well and I was pleased with the result – he seemed to be twice as fluffy when I had finished.

His loose ear was re-sewn to his head, and then I concentrated on his missing nose. Deans bears from this era have often lost their noses as a certain percentage of them were made with a rubber or soft-plastic nose that was only held in place with two or three stitches; the stitches often came away and the noses were lost. The plastic noses that you can buy these days are nothing like the old ones, so I don’t offer these as they aren’t suitable for restoring a vintage bear. However, there are other Deans bears from this era that had stitched noses, so I gave him one of those using the aged embroidery floss, which blended in nicely with his original mouth stitching.

Since Edward would be passed down to his owner’s grandchildren, it was decided that his worn paw and foot pads would be re-covered to help avoid future problems. I selected some fine cotton velvet and dyed it to match the original color of the pads. The pad shapes were cut out and pinned into place, then hand-sewn over the top of the original worn pads, following the size and shape exactly. And there he sat—a clean and fluffy Edward bear, ready to go home as soon as his owner could collect him.

I whispered to him that he must take it easy with the adventures in the future and not to go losing his head, or his limbs, again!

Originally published in the Winter 2011 issue.