Denim Teddy Bear - a clothes upcycle

Continuing my clothes upcycling challenge for 2015, I wanted to try something new.

I found this pattern and instructions for a teddy bear so thought I'd give that a go.  I haven't really made many soft toys before and I found this one a challenge.  It was larger than I'd expected (about 40cm (16") tall)- the photos on the pattern had nothing to compare the size too and I'd just assumed it was smaller since the author said she'd made 2 'little' bears! Oops!

Anyway - I printed and cut out the pattern pieces, hoping to get it all out of a denim skirt 

and the co-ordinating fabric from the scraps left over from this project. 

However, I had to grab another pair of denim shorts to cut all the denim pieces I needed. 

I also had to unpick the pockets from the skirt to get that extra fabric. This resulted in a small hole that needed a quick patch, which has ended up on the back of one of his arms - but it all adds to the character of the bear I think!

I chose to use a triple stitch setting on my machine for all the bear's seams for extra strength. I know how roughly kids can treat their bears and didn't want any stuffing coming out!

This stitch is really strong (but not great if you need to unpick any mistakes, of which I may have made a few....)

The pattern is a free download of several pages. The instructions are quite sparse. 

The author does note that the project is not for beginners. 

I thought that I'm not a beginner sewer so I'd be OK, but I am a beginner making soft toys, so I did find it challenging to piece the bear together - putting the odd piece on the wrong way round and then having to unpick and re-stitch! The instructions don't make it clear which parts match up sometimes and you need to have knowledge of soft toy pattern pieces and shapes to understand it. 

Having said that - all the pieces fit together beautifully, when I got them the right way round, and I'm super happy with the resulting bear.

There were squeals of delight from my girls when they came home from school and saw the bear and they both said they want to buy it from the school stall in October. The rate they're going, they want to buy the whole stall!

Anyway - my youngest was happy to pose for pictures with the bear, so here are some more.

If you liked this project - there are heaps more upcycles here on my blog - from my Upcycle Tutorials to over 600 clothes upcycling projects from hundreds of different blogs in my ongoing linky party and my big project from last year - an ebook of Eco-friendly shopping bag tutorials and patterns.

Please keep coming back as each week I'll be adding more clothes upcycles!

For now, Happy Upcycling!