For my sister's wedding last weekend I decided to make little bears wearing imitations of her wedding dress and the groom's suit. For the basic bears I went for my usual favourite bear pattern from Sandra Polley's fantastic 'The Knitted Teddy Bear' book. My sister and her new husband are both fairly tall and thin so these beautifully lanky-but-cuddly bears worked really well. I knitted them in Rowan Cashsoft 2ply in a light beige colour, with dark brown pads for their paws. I stuffed them both with normal toy stuffing (kapok) and gave the bride bear a little less stuffing so she looked more svelte than her groom.
I had planned to also knit the dress and suit, but after looking in vain for a suitable pattern on Ravelry and on some doll-clothing websites I realised it would take a lot of designing and more time than I had. So instead I made them clothes out of fabric. This was the lesser of two evils but, having blithely assumed that making miniature versions of a super-fancy wedding dress and three piece suit would be easy, it still took a lot of trial and error to get them looking acceptable. I also left myself only one weekend to get the clothes made - not clever.
I made the bride's wedding dress first:
I made a toile of the skirt first out of some muslin, so that I could practice the pintucks. I think it's a pretty good approximation of the real thing:
I couldn't get the top half exactly the same, and on Helen's dress there was lacing down the back, but owing to the bear's lack of shape it would have been fairly tricky to get it to look good.
Next the groom-bear. On the day Mike wore a morning suit with jacket, waistcoat, fancy shirt, the works, but I realised that I would have a breakdown if I tried to reproduce that in bear-dimensions. In the end I went for suit trousers and a waistcoat, with a purple cravat (and still ended up shouting at my sewing machine and having to take a 'time-out').
These bears are a really funny shape when you get down to brass tacks, and fashioning trousers for a small bear who has a long body, with a stout tummy, and very short legs, was not easy. After many toiles for both waistcoat and trouser, and the aforementioned time-out, I was happy with the way he looked. The tiny buttons came from Boswells in Oxford, which is truly a place of miracles - I expected to struggle to find buttons the right size. The cravat was made from some purple silky material which had ensconsed an Easter egg once. I cut a rectangle and hemmed the edges then tied around his neck and tucked the ends behind his waistcoat. Sadly I wasn't paying attention when I sewed his arms on and he looks like he's shrugging, but you can't have everything.
As it turned out Mike's suit was much darker grey, and he had a silver cravat (the ushers and dads had purple ones), but he was still really pleased with his bear. Here's Mike on the day with Helen and me:
Helen and Mike were really pleased with their mini-bears so all the stress was worthwhile, but I wouldn't make wedding bears again in a hurry, and if I did I would leave a lot more time to make toiles and properly plan the design. I just have one more bear to make, a commission from a friend, and then I'm having a definite bear-hiatus. In the meantime I plan to knit some new fingerless gloves to replace my favourite ones which I shrank in the wash last month!



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