A Little Off Track

A Little Off Track

The bears have taken a bit of a back seat since Christmas. Alan bought me this brilliant little book... Inspired to Knit by Michele Rose Orne for Christmas, I can highly recommend it. It's a long time since I knitted anything for myself as the bears have been very demanding over the last few years as not only do they want sewing, they beg for knitted and crochet outfits to keep them warm despite their fur!
Anyway, I was very inspired to knit and bought some lovely yarn just after Christmas in a nice cotton mix, I decided to give myself about an hour a day (inbetween work on the bears) for some me time to perhaps finish this lovely cardigain in time for late spring/early summer. However it somehow turned into more me time than I planned, I haven't been able to stop and am already on the last sleeve. It has been such a pleasure. I would like to go through the whole book and make everything but I won't start anything else until later in the year, as I have bears to make for the Leeds fair in March and a new batch of bear outfits that I have planned.
I did however finish little miniature Buddy who is listed on Ebay for a week to find his new family, his little hat is made from beautiful fine shetland yarn and finished off with a little heart button as it's nearly Valentines Day.

Hugs

Pauline

Back To Work

Back to Work!

Well, a belated happy New Year to all. I have been a bit slow getting off the ground since Christmas, these two bears are the first ones I started and finished in the New Year, Sage and Onion are listed with Ebay at the moment looking for their new Mum or Dad.

I took a much needed break from the bears after Christmas as my Daughter came to stay for a week. She worked every day throughout Christmas, inbetween and the New Year entertaining holiday makers with her shows and was glad to come home to Mum for a well earned rest. So we had some nice together time with a few girly chats. The weather has been terrible and we were snowed in for most of the week so even more of an excuse to have a rest without feeling guilty.

Anyway, we are both back to our work now and I am busy with new bears for this year's shows, also fitting in some orders and bears for Ebay inbetween. I have an extra show in my diary for this year which is the Bear Artist Event in Stratford on the 6th June. It's a lovely area, we spent a lot of time there when my Daughter was at performing arts college near there and am looking forward to visiting again in June.

Well, the mohair is calling to be cut out, bye for now

Pauline

British Bear Artist Awards 2009

British Bear Artist Awards 2009 Prize

I was delighted that Summer the bear was successful gained 2nd prize at the British Bear Artist Awards in category 3. We were very lucky because I left her BEHIND AT HOME!!! We traveled from Yorkshire by coach leaving our car at home in the drive as it is an oldish car and also Alan does not like to drive such a long way. I had a small holdall on my knee with the competition bears in. We had traveled around 50 miles and I was thinking I had best not squash them and began to think about where they were placed in the holdall. I could not for the life of me picture where summer was placed in that bag and worriedly unzipped it to look. As I suspected, she was not there and I realised I had left her in the glass cabinet at home. I had a check list too and had marked "Nominated bears" as packed, I think I spent so long packing up the "Daisy Days" one in 3 separate boxes I must have thought I had finished.

Oh I was so upset, we were way past Leeds and usually the coach goes straight to London after Leeds, my lovely hubby offered to get me to Brighton in the hotel and go all the way back home for her. I would not allow this and tearily accepted the fact that I would only have the two nominations. But low and behold, 20 minutes later, the Coach was pulling up at Wakefield coach station, not sure why, but Alan quickly jumped up and pulled me with him, we got off and asked the driver if we could have our big case from underneath as we had to go back home for something vital. The driver was really nice and gave us the case and left us stranded in the bus station.

We then decided to get the public transport bus back home as it was too far for a taxi. I had the idea to ring up my Mum who very kindly went to our house, got the bear from the cabinet and met us at the interchange, it took us over an hour to get there but better than having to go all the way home. We thankfully collected the bear from Mum and went to enquire about the next Coach. They said it would be around an hour and we would have to pay again, so we decided we might as well go by train as it would be faster. So this is what we did and as we we had not planned to travel by train didn't realise what a struggle it is to find space on them for a lot of luggage, the train was megga busy and also we had to battle with the tube station in London with all the luggage, the competion bears, all that we needed for a stand at the show (bears, bags, boxes etc) and our clothes for the weekend. We finally got to Hove at tea time and colapsed in the Hotel until next morning, the day of the awards.

I am so glad we went back, as this is the bear that picked up the 2nd prize!!!! We are laughing about it all now and we had such a lovely day at the Bear Fair it was all very much worth it in the end!

Pauline
xx

Great News!!

Great News!!

I had some brilliant news a few days ago, I have 3 nominations in the British Bear Artist Awards 2009!!!! Summer is shortlisted in the medium dressed bear category, the little panda is Candy and is in the single miniature category and Daisy Days is in the miniature group category. I am now in the process of booking accommodation and travel for the awards ceremony on the 13th December at the British Bear Fair in Hove. I was really happy to receive nominations on all three of my entries, Summer and Candy were not planned but as (I thought) they turned out cute I thought they would make good entries. Daisy days was an idea I had in the summer and was planned for the event. The piece was a bit of a challenge as I had my first try at woodworking for the swing (which I won't be repeating in a hurry!) . The chains were part of a piece of old jewelery. The flowers on the grass and the ones which the bears are making daisy chains etc are made by myself from cold porcelean using my sugar craft skills. The ones around the swing are bought as they seemed to mold around the swing better, difficult to see the detail in the picture which makes me realise that I really need to get better at taking pictures as I am not good at all.

It seems a long way for me to get to Hove but I had such a lovely time last year and I didn't seem to see enough of Brighton and Hove, so we are going to make a nice weekend of it and try and see a little more this time, that's if the weather permits as you never can tell at that time of year!

Pauline
xx

Blog Award

Thank you to Ruth of Flutter-By Bears for awarding me this little award. The game is to answer all the questions with one word, not easy but will see how it goes.

Rules :-
1. Use only 1 word answers.
2. Pass along to 6 of you favourite bloggers.
3. Tell them you've given them the award.
4. Have Fun !!


1. Where is your cell phone? Bag
2. Your hair? Long

3. Your mother? Kind
4. Your father? Amazing
5. Your favorite food? Puddings
6. Your dream last night? None
7. Your favorite drink? Juice
8. Your dream/goal? Move
9. What room are you in? Dining
10. Your hobby ? Bears

11. Your fear? Wasps
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Country
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something that you aren’t? Lazy
15. Muffins? Gorgeous
16. Wish list item? Boots
17. Where did you grow up? Yorkshire

18. Last thing you did? Breakfast
19. What are you wearing? Jeans
20. Your TV? Entertaining
21. Your pets? None

22. Friends? Sweet
23. Your life? Busy
24. Your mood? Happy
25. Missing someone? Daughter
26. Vehicle? Car
27. Something you’re not wearing? Coat
28. Your favorite store? M&S
29. Your favorite color? Black
30. When was the last time you laughed? Yesterday
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday
32. Your best friend? Husband
33. One place that I go to over and over? Work
34. One person who emails me regularly? Mum
35. Favorite place to eat? Home

The friends I would like to pass the award on to are: (please pop along to see their blogs)

Country Bears

Bumblebearies

Sophie Z'Ours Bears

Laurie Lou Bears


Pauline

A Nice Surprise

A Nice Surprise

It's quite a while since I was in blog land, been so busy juggling.... bears, afternoon job, jobs on the house, catching up a bit now though and will blog a bit more now hopefully.

Leeds bear fair wasn't brilliant for me in the way of bear sales, only 3 bears found new homes but some managed to find homes after the fair so it wasn't too bad overall and I did enjoy the day meeting and chatting to people, stocking up on supplies for new bears, it's a lovely friendly fair and very interesting as it is half dolls too, so something for everyone.

I did have a very nice surprise last week, I was delighted to notice the bears and I had an article (portrait) in the Teddy Bear News which is a German on line magazine ... click here to see Valewood Bears Portrait
All but one of the bears on there have new homes now but it is nice to see them all again.

Anyway here are a couple of the bears that didn't find homes at Leeds, Laurence is 12 inches and is a lovely shade of creamy curly mohair, sporting a pure wool ribbed waistcoat in chocolate brown and Amber who is 9 inches and made from a lovely rich tan coloured mohair, I thought I would give her a little wool knitted dress in cream lace, which just seemed to suit her well. I have bobbed them onto the website for now whilst they find their new mums or dads.

Pauline

New Bears!!

New Bears!!

At last some new bears finished!! I have been a bit busy with orders in the last month but have now managed to get these 4 bears onto the website. Lorna the little girl in the brown top has just been adopted. Spice is the one in the cream top and is 9 inches high, then the two pandas are Willow and Yan, they are both 12 inches high, there are more pictures on the website of them.

My first fair of the Autumn is coming up on the 10th October so I am busy making new faces to take there. Also busy knitting some new bear wear that will be for sale there as my stocks are low. I find knitting very theraputic and love to knit for an hour or so just before bedtime, its surprising I can get quite a lot done in that time, poor hubby has to listen to the click click of the needles and it usually puts him to sleep in the chair which is a shame as I can knit and talk and watch television at the same time, wouldn't be surprised if he pretends to be asleep to save his voice! Well, back to the bears for now.

Pauline

A Busy Time

A Busy Time

I don't know where the time goes, we are almost into the Autumn already, I had my fingerless gloves on at work yesterday, doesn't seem to be any heating on there, it is a huge old building and we only moved there at the beginning of summer as we had outgrown the old place and with it being summer I didn't realise how cold it is is going to be in there Autumn/Winter. Hope they warm it up for us soon.

I have been so busy in the last couple of months, had a lot of bear orders to complete so haven't had a website up-date for a long time but at last I have some to put on by the weekend or early next week, just have to put accessories on them and photograph them.

Also, the website has been down, it has taken me a long time to get to the bottom of it, but it seems my host have had problems with customers who use front page extensions (which I do) as they have moved to new platforms (don't know what they mean) so now it is back BUT because I was out of action twice, Google search engine have got rid of my website and as most people use Google they can't find me so I had to get to the bottom of that too and it seems I now have to apply to Google to be reinstated and put some new tags on my site (getting into deep water now, for me anyway!!) So hope to be back on the search engine soon.

I do have this little bear called Sky to show, he was completed as a summer challenge on a forum, he is miniature at 3.5 inches. I am giving him away in a prize draw to one of my mailing list customers, will be drawing a name on the 1st October.

Take care
Pauline

A Break in Suffolk!

A Break In Suffolk!

We just got back from a really nice break in Corton which is 3 miles from Lowestoft, 5 miles from Great Yarmouth. We stayed at the Warner's Leisure Hotel where my daughter, Charlotte works as a dancer/singer so we got to see some of the lovely shows that they entertain us with each evening. I was a very proud Mum!!

We arrived a day late though because when we set off in the car, we only travelled a few miles and the car started to make a strange knocking noise! We made a detour to the nearest quick fit who jacked the car up and told us it was a front wheel bearing that had gone and they couldn't fix it. We had to find a garage that could do it quickly so went back home and rang around until we found one that said yes he could do it immediately. Alan took the car and they said it would be an hour. However, when he returned to the garage, they explained to him that they hadn't got the part in and sent somebody out to get one. They couldn't get it until mid-week. So we had to leave the car in the garage and quickly hire a car for the next morning. I did look at trains but there were rail strikes around Norwich and we would have had to break the journey overnight so it would have taken longer.

Anyway we finally arrived a day late and enjoyed the rest of the holiday. The weather was fantastic, we didn't go sight seeing even though we planned to, we didn't realise just how exhausted we were and as the weather was so hot we just crashed out through the day in the gardens where they have nice areas for sitting out at the hotel. I did take my bear making to do whilst sitting but there was a wasp infestation in that area and so I had to keep watching for them with a piece of stiff card in my hand to waft them away so I needed my hands for that! Also there was a ladybird infestation and we were covered in them on our clothes. So no work was done that week. In the evenings we were not so lazy, there was quite a lot of dancing to the live band which we loved, the band was fantastic and played quite a variety of ballroom, latin, sequence, rock and roll, in fact something for everyone, we loved it and inbetween the dancing we watched the shows each night.

We are feeling nice and refreshed now, but will have to go back again soon as I did want to go into Norwich this time to have a look around and a few more little places around we missed. On my return I finished the little bear that I planned to sew on holiday and here she is, Grace is just 3.5 inches high, made from some of the lovely miniature bear fabric I had delivered a few weeks ago. She is listed with Ebay until Sunday, I really enjoyed making her.

Warm wishes

Pauline