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.




Pedigree Patsy - The Restoration Process

I have tried to take a few photos as I was restoring this next bear.
She came to me in a sorry state.  I think she had been living in an attic for quite a few years and had got very dirty and dusty.  Her nose was gone completely, although there were stitches where it would have been.

What a sorry state to be in - poor girl!
(this is the photo I bought her from)



You can clearly see where the
original nose was

I have seen one or two of these 1950's Pedigree bears now, enough to recognise one, even in her poor condition.  It confirmed to me that she was indeed a Pedigree when I saw the stitches where her original felt nose would have been stitched.

She spent the first 48 hours in a carrier bag in my spare freezer, to kill of any bugs or beetles larvae that may be in her stuffing.  My grandsons are quite amused that Nanny keeps bears and such in her freezer.


The next job was to clean her, I could see that she was originally a pretty cinnamon colour as it was still bright in her ear seams.  She stayed in her dry bath for 24 hours to allow any smells to be drawn away into it.  I do not usually leave the bears in the 'bath' this long, but she was exceptionally grubby.

I then sat on the swing seat outside with a fine tooth comb and my trusty bristle hairbrush (it is quite old and I'm not sure where it came from, but it does the job well).  An hour or so later and the dry oats had been brushed and combed out of her mohair and she looked much cleaner and fluffier.

She had some sort of sound box inside her, and I investigated to see if it could be mended.  It was a huge growler and had just come apart.  A bit of cleaning and sticking back together and it worked again.  Not as good as it would have done, but hey, she gives a little growl when tipped!

Stitching up after a major operation, look away if you are squeamish

The next job was to mend her poorly arm and leg.  A few stitches did the trick on the leg, but the arm took a bit longer to fix.

Her arm was nearly off

This had been roughly stitched with black cotton

 

An ultrasuede black nose, a bit classier than her original felt one, but she deserved it after her ordeal. Then her mouth stitches back in place and she was ready to face the world in her pretty new dress.

Pedigree Patsy, available at www.etsy.com/shop/pollysvintagebears