40 of 52 - GIVEAWAY! He's the bear with no name....

Poor chap.  He has no name at all

See, he's all sad

Now, he's not going in my shop at all.  There was a fault in the sock that I didn't notice until I'd nearly finished him so after fixing that which left him with a rather fetching scar across his head, I decided he wasn't going in the shop.  But, I have plans for him.  He's going to have some adventures along with us and I'm sure he will get acquainted with Baby Bears in the coming weeks but he doesn't have a name!  And our naming efforts are exhausted by trying to come up with names for Baby Bears.

So, drop your comments here before Wednesday 3rd November at 5pm and tell me what you think I should call him.  And if your name is chosen, you can choose a mini sock bear from my Etsy shop to be all yours!

18 of 52 - The pattern is ready to go!

My lovely pattern testers got back to me on Friday with their suggestions and I spent a little while updating the pattern.  Now it's ready to go.  So you can get my pattern over here in my Etsy store.

To celebrate my very first pattern you can win one of the cover girls (or boys - it's your choice)!

There are four ways to enter.

1. Tweet this message:  I am entering @clarebears coverbear giveaway at http://claresbears.blogspot.com/

2. Comment on this post

3. Become a fan on Facebook here

4. Buy a copy of the pattern!

Any of these will get you an entry, do all four, you get four entries!  There will be three winners chosen at random from all entrants and the prize will be drawn on Sunday 30th May at 7pm (UK time).

Good Luck!

15 of 52 - New Items for patterns are turning out nice

So last time I blogged I mentioned that a new pattern was coming. My first efforts at the items have turned out well (apart from one of them being a Koala and NOT a bear at all). There will be a bear version of this pattern but he is this afternoons mission after i've messed around on Dawanda a bit. And played Scrabble on Facebook. And procrastinated a little bit more......

So here are the first pictures of the toys!



More photos of these and the bear when I get to it can be found over at my Flickr photostream

Enjoy your Bank Holiday!

14 of 52 - All the days merge into one

It's official, I've been out of work so long that I don't know what day of the week it is. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Anyway, that doesn't mean I haven't been busy but I haven't been getting as much done as I would like. So I took myself out yesterday for some fresh air and had a wander in town. I had to get some presents as apparently everyone I know has a birthday this weekend so after I did that I sat and had a cuppa and a bit of a brain storm. 2 pages of scribbles later and I came to conclusion that it's about time I made a pattern for a toy. A proper pattern that people can follow and make their own version of a new bear design.

This particular pattern will be a 4 in 1 so you'll be able to make variations on this item depending on your fabrics. It will also be more than one animal, but i'm not going to spoil the surprise yet.

So, if you would like to be a pattern tester please let me know. I'll be putting out a further call for testers closer to when it's finished but anyone who's interested, please let me know!

And for those of you who like a picture, here's a recent addition to my shop: