Meet the bears... Benny

There has been a strange shortage of bears on here recently, so this month I'd like to introduce you to Benny...

Benny is, I think, my favourite bear creation to date...

  ... not least because he caused me so many problems! He started life as a plain bear because I really couldn't figure out what to do with him. 

I have found some photos of the pre-Benny bear and I hope this one illustrates the problem....

Pre-Benny bear looked grumpy! You can't deny that, can you? The down-turned arms, the dark fur, the slightly-too-big nose, the down-turned mouth all shout 'grumpy'. I tried a bow: still grumpy. I tried flowers which just made things worse. So I was stumped. I was a bit concerned that I'd hit a wall: that he'd just be "the little grumpy bear" forever. So for a while he sat in his box and bothered me... 

And then one day, for some reason, I was thinking about costumes for bears. And it hit me. I knew exactly which costume this bear would like. But where does one start, when the decision has been made to make a bee costume for a 5cm bear?

I started with the jumper. With cross stitch needles for knitting needles and two strands of embroidery cotton, I set about knitting him a tiny, stripey jumper. 

The little jumper came out well and, once joined at the back, is a nice, snug fit.

Next the costume needed some wings. At this time I didn't know that you can actually buy miniature fairy wings, so I set about improvising. I didn't have any jewellery wire or anything fine enough for the task but I did have some of those plastic ties that come free with food bags... Once these had been stripped of their plastic coatings, they were perfect! They were pliable enough to bend into shape, yet robust enough to hold that shape while being wrapped with gold metallic thread!

 

The "lacy" effect was created by carefully knotting the thread. I think I was aiming at a sort of loose crochet effect (but since I hadn't taught myself to crochet at this point, this is the closest I could get!).

 

Of course, no bee costume would be complete without a headband with a couple of googly hearts attached! Consequently, another food tie was de-wired to create the springs and, after shaping them around a coctail stick, tiny felt hearts were added to the ends.

The bee costume is complete and Benny is born. Was it fiddly? Yes, soooo fiddly I almost gave up several times. Am I mad? Sometimes I suspect that I am. Would I ever do it again? No, not if I can help it!

Benny is certainly one-of-a-kind and he is no longer a grumpy little bear. He is perfectly content with his outfit and wouldn't change it for the world.

I think he was worth the extra work, don't you?

Benny will be staying in my collection as I would be very upset to part with him. If you would like to see more of my bears visit my website, my Folksy or WowThankYou shop.