A Very Large Visitor in a Sorry State

I had a huge parcel delivered yesterday and absolutely loved the contents as soon as I saw him.

Meet Herbert, a 23" bear named after my Paternal Grandfather whom I never met.  Grandad French left the army with shrapnel war wounds from WW1. 
This old boy has many 'wounds' of his own and I will consider it an honour to restore him and hopefully give him many more years in a new home.

 

 

 
For a start there is this patched area around his leg joint.  It has been patched very badly with a piece of sheepskin!  I am not sure that it will need a patch once the leg has been re-attached correctly.

Then there is problems with his arms.  The joints are fine, but the wood wool filling has settled making it look as if he has a broken arm, and the joint is showing at the top seam.

 

His paw pads have been replaced/covered, quite neatly, but stitched on the outside with a very dark brown material.  I am planning to give him new pads in a slightly lighter ultrasuede.  I will wait to see how damaged his original foot pads are once I get the covering material off. 

 

His head has numerous darns, especially around his nose.  These will be staying as they are quite neatly sewn, and in my opinion it will do more harm than good if I unpick them.  They are part of his history and give him character.  His nose and mouth appear to be original.

For some reason he has holes in the back of his ears that will need closing. 

 

I may find other problems as I go through the restoration process, but as long as I can make him strong enough to last many more years, I will be happy.

Unfortunately he has had to have the obligatory few days in the freezer that all of the old timers get when they arrive.  This (hopefully) will get rid of any nasties that may be lurking in the wood wool or mohair.  

When he comes out of quarantine I will post on here as I go along, to show the work in progress.  In the meantime, my 12" Pud Bears Panda appears to like having a big brother to look up to.

I believe him to be a 1930's - 1940's Chiltern bear.

Horses, Chiltern, Prams and Steiff with a Sprinkling of Pincushions

I have not shown the most popular items from my Etsy shops for a while now.  Here are the most viewed items for the last 30 days.

 

First four are from my Bears and dolls shop - Polly's Vintage Bears www.etsy.com/shop/pollysvintagebears

 

Number one  is the miniature doll in her little blue pram.

At number two is this cute Hermann Fawn

Next, at number three is this very play worn Chiltern Bear..SOLD.

...and finally at number four, a very old late 1800's
papier mache horse on wheels.

 

 

As I have two Etsy shops now, here are the top four pincushions in my Polly's Pins and Needles shop.
www.etsy.com/shop/pollyspinsandneedles

Number one - a pretty pink floral high heeled shoe

Number two is this cute Sheep eggcup SOLD

At number three a simple seashell pincushion...

...and at number four is this vintage blue and white teapot with
tulip decoration

There are many more items available in my two shops.  More are being added daily, so keep popping back for a browse.  You may just find that special gift for someone special, or even a present for yourself.

Chiltern George is Completed and Looking Very Handsome

I promised that when I had finished the large Chiltern bear that I had named George I would show his transformation.  Well, here he is.  Isn't he just adorable?  George is now SOLD

He is available in my Etsy shop now - www.etsy.com/shop/PollysVintageBears





George before his makeover...




...and looking very handsome in the Sunshine



Poor blind George

What a difference a pair of eyes make!

Restoring Chiltern Bear George - Part 1 of 2

I finally plucked up courage yesterday to start the restoring process on old George, a beautiful large Chiltern bear.
He is quite off colour, partly with being a bit dusty, partly to fading with age.  A dry bath should improve that, and soften his lovely mohair. 

His paws were the worst of any of the bears I have restored, with one of his foot pads virtually non-existent and the other 3 all needing work.

This pad was missing



Left paw



Right foot Replacement pad

I have pinned the new material in place, underneath what is remaining of the old paw pads.  The right foot pad had to be replaced altogether.  That meant I had to take the leg off to take the stuffing out, and turn it inside out to stitch the new one in place.  The Kapok was horrible to remove,  as it was old and really dusty it seemed to fly everywhere.  I was concerned about breathing it in, so wrapped a scarf around my nose and mouth while I was doing it, much to the amusement of my husband and son, who said I looked like a gangster.

Left foot pad

Right paw

Whilst I had the bear unpicked to remove the leg I took the opportunity to have a look at his voice box.  It was not a growler as I had thought, but an oval, double squeaker.  It was not working so I gently used a blunt wool sewing needle and tweezers to get the bits of wood wool and Kapok from inside it.  It still didn't work so I resealed the sides of the squeaker part with glue.  Still no noise.  The only thing left was to re tape the whole sides of the box as the coating had disintegrated, and was letting the air through.  A bit of thin masking tape did the trick, and when I pressed it there was a lovely loud squeak came from it.  Sounded more like a duck, we thought, than a bear but still I had got it working. 


Harry (left) and Sidney having a bad hair day

I spent a few minutes teasing Harry with it, as even though he is very deaf he seemed to be able to hear the squeak and kept listening with his head on one side, and turning to look at me every time I pressed it.





 

So now George is at the stage where he has a voice, and his stuffing is no longer in danger of falling out through holes in his paws.

The next step will be to fasten the paw repairs with very fine stitching, removing the pins as I go along.  That will be the difficult part done, all that will be left to do is a good clean, brushing and inserting new eyes.  Then we will see a beautiful old Chiltern bear looking back at us.