11/18/09: The Phillip Bear Day One

I spent most of yesterday obsessed with the making of the Phillip Bear. I talked to everyone who would listen about how moved I was by the class and how much I wanted to be home working on the bear. I spent my free time making copies of the pattern pieces and organizing a notebook for my information and the pictures that will follow. 

After dinner I finally got to start on the Phillip Bear. I cut the shirt to make flat pieces of fabric, ironed the fusible interfacing the the inside of those pieces and began laying out the pattern pieces. All of this I did with a sense of honor and a bit of fear. This was Phillip's shirt and I only had one set of cuts! The shirt had just a large light colored flowers on it. I knew I wanted those to be the pads on the bear's feet, the inside of his ears and the center of his face. Those pieces went down first. Then the other pattern pieces went down, following the grain and all of that important stuff. This took much longer than I expected but experienced bear makers told me this is often the hardest part and even with careful planning the bear may not look like what you envisioned. Good to know.

I finished laying pattern pieces out and rough cutting the pieces. Tonight I will do the real cutting, being careful to be as precise as possible. My goal is to finish cutting and pinning pieces together tonight so I will be ready to sit down and sew on Thursday. I may wait until the weekend to sew ... but I may not! I am excited to get these pieces together and creating this bear. 

I have two weeks to complete this first little guy. When I turn him in I can get another bag with a garment in it or I can wait until I know I have the time to make one and pick one up them. I know I will wait because I have the fabric for another bear waiting for me. It's been waiting for several months. That's another story for another day. Right now it's all about Phillip.