Mending an Antique Teddy Bear 3

The final part of this very special project was the most difficult. It was the customers wish, that especially the facial expression of her teddy should be kept the same. But how could this be done? The muzzle was badly damaged and had lost a lot of stuffing, the embroidered nose had traces of older layers of yarns, so I supposed it had been mended over and over again. Of course it's one of the most exposed parts of a teddy.

First I made a "new" muzzle, starting with paper patterns I made after the old muzzle. As with the other damaged parts of the teddy, I used some Schulte mohair, left side up. This time I left the pile, I thought it would kind of "wrap" better around the original part, thus being also better bolster the muzzle and give it a nice shape.



The two lateral pieces were sewn together. Only after that step I basted the middle part of the nose in place, just to make sure the new muzzle has exactly the same shape as the old one, not too loose, not too tight. This had to be done with extra caution - I didn't want to do more damage to the teddy, and the original fabric and stuffing was very brittle and fragile.
Then I pinned the new muzzle right over the old one in place, and fixed it with ladder stitch.

Finally, I embroidered a new nose with black cotton yarn. The teddy, according to his owner, never seemed to have a mouth, so I just left it that way.
Further I fixed the eyes again, as they were quite loose. The ears needed mending as well, and since there was quite a big hole on the back neck, the head dangled too much and made the hole even bigger. After re-stuffing and closing the hole, the teddy could keep his head upright again - he looked a lot better.

As the whole fabric of this fellow was already very thin, I decided to make some clothes for the teddy. As he obviously was a boy, he got a shirt, checkered trousers and shoes.
I was quite pleased with the result. The teddy looked less tatty, and still he showed the traces of time and the authentic look of an antique and very loved teddy.

Mending an Antique Teddy Bear 2

After I managed to fix the damages caused by the joint discs that rubbed trough the fabric under the armpits, I moved on to the next "problem zones". As you can see on the photographs, there were some pretty nasty damages on the feet of the teddy.

There were several bigger holes on the body and the feet of the teddy. Some of them had to be re-stuffed as well first, in order to maintain the shape especially of the feet.

Between the upper legs you see the remains of the original fur.

I applied the same techniques as before: minor damages and thin fabric parts were mended by re-constructing the woven material of the original fabric. The huge holes through which the teddy already had lost some stuffing were covered with patches of Schulte mohair fabric. I used only the back of the fabric wrong side up, after having shaven off the mohair pile to make the patches less bulky.

How to fix a patch with pins and baste it to the body

Maybe you noticed the printed cotton fabric paws of the teddy. Originally, the teddy had probably felt paws. The cotton fabric patches were sewn over the original paws many years ago by the owners mother. In the meantime, also these mendings needed mending, as some cats used to chew the teddy's feet. To keep the memory of of a loving mother's cares for her daughter's teddy, I decided to make new cotton fabric patches in a very similar chocolate brown colour, but without printed pattern. I forgot to take some pictures of this step, but you can see them on the final pictures.

Mending an Antique Teddy Bear 1

It is one thing to make a teddy bear of your own, but another, completely different one to try to save an antique teddy that is already falling apart...

Teddy (1940) before mending

Some time ago an elderly lady who was born during WWII in Berlin showed me her teddy she got for her birth. As you can see on the pictures, the poor creature had almost no fur left - as a baby the owner tore out the teddy's hair during a bombing, and the years to follow had worked him over as well. She asked me if I could mend it. I wasn't sure about it at all, as I had never done anything similar before, and to be honest, I was afraid of this task. She didn't want me to undo everything and put it together again after cleaning and re-stuffing, but only to restore more or less the face and other damaged parts without changing the whole expression. The project seemed to be even more challenging as have been done already several mendings with patches of different fabrics.

I spent many hours looking at the teddy, thinking about what could be done, I went through all my supplies to find the right material, and finally made a start. I was sooo nervous!
Looking at the pictures still surprises me that I agreed to take this challenge, as I'm a completely self-taught bear maker, and my research about antique teddies didn't give me any ideas how to do it. So I had to find out myself, and by posting it I hope it will help someone else in a similar situation. (I made this work "some" time ago, before I became a mother, as back then I had long nails - it seems like ages ago... *lol)

Damaged armpit with joint

There were huge holes under the armpits from where the stuffing had already vanished, caused by the rubbing of the joints. Another big hole was on the belly.

First I had to find wood wool to re-stuff the arms. To mend the bigger damages I took a piece of Schulte mohair. The back of the fabric had more or less the right colour, the same as the teddy, even though the original fur was that typical brass-yellow many teddies used to have back then. But as I only needed the shaved fabric, wrong side up, the pile was not important. Of course it was not exactly the same colour, as the teddy also had a kind of patina.

With patches of this fabric I covered the major holes. First I basted the patches, the same way as an applique, on the hole before fixing them with an invisible ladder stitch. As it was very difficult to work under the armpit, especially working around the joints, I had to find another solution for the minor damages. With very thin yarn I somehow managed to reconstruct the woven original fabric by "weaving" to and fro many times with yarn and needle until it looked well. I did the same technique on other parts of the teddy.

The two different mending-techniques