One of the peculiarities of our postal system catches me out often when I am sending bears overseas. The cost is high these days, especially if you use a fully insured, trackable service; An 18 inch bear was quoted at £125 for such a service to Australia. However, if the bear can squeeze itself into a carton who's dimensions do not exceed 90cms in total ( w+h+d) and the pack weight is under 2 kilos then it can travel by a partially tracked signed for service at about a quarter of that.
I never thought I would consciously design a bear to fit a carton but I decided that I would modify and shrink a version of the 6 joint standing pattern.
I wanted to keep the proportions, keep it just big enough to look right with the fabrics available and also work with the boot buttons which I have the largest supply of. I wanted to keep it a reasonable height standing up and make the legs so that they would form the right dimensions when seated to fit into the cartons which are available at my local supplier.
Anyway it was a success and I have a new pattern which still looks reasonably large but can travel overseas at small pack rate. Now of course by the usual laws which govern such things the first three all sold to customers in the UK but the latest one went to USA and I am very pleased to say that instead of something like £75.00 his shipping and packing was only £25.
And all of this also produced a pattern which is a comfortable size for me to make and stuff, so born from creativity and shaped by postal costs I thought I would share some pictures of the new bears.
These first four are sold but more will be available over the coming months
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