New Classic Bear Available

Patrick is a classic, centre seam head pattern, 5 joint teddy bear

Patrick is now SOLD ... more bears to come in the New Year

Ref 011//24 - The 11th and last bear for the year.

18 inches 45 cms  standing

13 inches 34 cms seated

Another bear from my 2024 classic bear pattern, this is the last bear for the year and the last of the bears from this pattern for the time being, so I decided to finish with an unusual colour.

More photos of Patrick further down after the description

Patrick is  made from a slightly wavy and distressed mohair in a soft but intense dusty vintage pink colour.

He has deep set vintage boot button eyes and wool felt paw pads which are cotton lined.  With the pink fur I decided to use a soft brown/beige colour for the nose and claw embroidery in place of the usual black.

Patrick is filled with excelsior wood wool, in places it is blended with soft natural wool fibre to give a finish which is softer and looser in some places, and slightly "crunchy" to give weight and feel reminiscent of a vintage bear.

Patrick has a traditional tilt growl mechanism.

Recent bears have all had a waistcoat and tie of some kind,  Patrick's tailored waistcoat has a shawl style half collar, metal enameled buttons and is made from English herringbone tweed.  The cravat is a plain loose knotted ascot made from cotton.

If you would to purchase Patrick please email me at:-

gregory@hugoshouse.com

Price is £545.00 plus shipping.  SOLD

Shipping will be added as follows:-

UK      -     £ 18.00 Insured Special Delivery

USA    -    £ 70.00 Insured based on recent shipping of similar

Europe-    £ 50.00

Stretch to fit ?

A recent conversation with a customer caused me to look back at the remainder of the sweaters which my Mum had knitted for the bears.  Over the years I have used the ones which fitted the bear patterns but I had reached the stage where the last sweaters were mostly very nice but didn't fit anybody.

Now that I have embarked on the process of adjusting bears to fit the sweaters, the proportions are little different but I have also made the bear much looser and softer, especially at the neck and shoulder .

Oliver is the first bear who has been on a custom diet to fit into his sweater, more will follow but the sweaters are all different so it is going to be quite a long process.

More details about Oliver will be on my website while he is for sale

www.hugoshouse.com

Threadbare Bears

I have made classic looking bears with various degrees of care wear, gentle fatigue or hand distress finishes over the years.  I like them to look a little lived in and I am also quite particular about the way they feel, I like them to be light, a little saggy and crunchy just as a real old bear might look and feel after many years of duty as a Ted.

Until now I have resisted the temptation to take the distressing and fatigue to the distinctly worn look.  The pattern has been revised and these new bears are just over 11 inches tall so one of my smallest bears.  The big move is to make them very threadbare, heavily worn and with repairs.

The pile is worn away in many places and the holes repaired with darning, I used examples from real old bears which showed rather crudely mended holes, and resisted the temptation to make anything too neat and regular.  The felt pads have some patches and some darned holes.

The stuffing is moderately firm but I have made it crushed and loose at the neck and on the tummy, so they are a little saggy but with the distinct crunch of wood wool filling.  It's quite time consuming because I do all the wear and repair after the bear is finished, each is very much an individual, and I have enjoyed making all the little repair areas and try to blend them in so they look as if they too are old repairs which have simply become part of the bear's character.

for more information about these and other new bears please email

gregory@hugoshouse.com

Benedict an Old Friend from 1992

Over the years I have often been asked if I have kept any of the bears I make.  The answer is yes but very few, much as it is sometimes tempting to hold on to one which I feel is a little special, I make bears for my living and they have to go out into the world to support me.

I have the very first bear I made and two or three other bears from the very first days, I had one other which was my mascot at bear shows but only one which I felt was a breakthrough when I had started to get the pattern to have the real look I wanted, I made a series of bears from this pattern but only one in a soft caramel dense straight English mohair.   The others formed two edition of 6 bears each so the one caramel one remained at home and almost by chance therefore became my own.

Benedict did have a little surgery on a number of occasions, he has ears sewn into the head seams so I have left them as they are even though they are not even but he has had quite a few noses, the latest was done about 5 years ago and I finally decided that it was about time he settled on his appearance.

So he is essentially the same bear I made way back in 1992, my very first year, of course my traditional bear pattern has evolved over the years and the proportions and construction are different now but in many ways my perception of the ideal face and look for these bears is much the same.

He had become a little dusty over the years so for his recent photographs I gently cleaned him but was careful to retain the natural patina of a bear now over 20 years old.

Interestingly I find that with the distance of time I see only his charms having long forgotten the struggles of working out how to do things in those early days, yes of course I can see that I struggled to sew neat paw pads for instance and his are a little uneven.  But now I no longer see him as a pattern to be improved, he has his own personality and those flaws ( or at least those things which I regarded as flaws when I made him ) no longer matter, he is just a Ted with his own presence.

For personal reasons I have decided to find new homes for some of the few bears I kept for myself and Benedict has been in the Special Sale section of my website, happily I think he now has a new home.

First Bear of the New Year

Jason the first Bear of the New Year

It seemed a good idea to begin the New Year with another bear made just according to my own personal preference and I felt very much in the mood to stick with the simple charms of a happy friendly classic Ted, gently aged just the way I like them.

I have made a few changes to a favourite classic bear pattern; Depending on the fabric he still stands around 16.5 to 17" tall.

Jason is made from a very traditional Yellow Gold Colour mohair.  When I decide how much to "age" a bear I am often inspired by bears I have owned or seen over the years in terms of just how age has affected them.  Jason is a reminder for me of a vintage bear I used to own.  He was made of the same rather bright yellow gold cloth, when I found him he was in pretty good condition, Lightly thinned and matted in places and rather dusty. I have just developed a new way of adding a "dust" effect which I have used on Jason. His stuffing had become looser so that he was slightly crunchy but not really sagging or floppy.  Time had softened the rather harsh colour.  So on this occasion Jason's fatiguing is to reflect the older bear which I sadly no longer own.

And.... just to show that he can... Jason standing up by himself, although I suspect he would find this for long periods unattended.

I have given Jason another of the sweaters knitted by my late mum.   I used to have quite a few of them but the supply of suitable ones in this size is running out, I guess I will have to make a new pattern to fit the smaller sweaters.

For more information about availability or to be added to my mailing list please visit my website at  www.hugoshouse.com  or e.mail me at gregory@hugoshouse.com

Bear in a Sweater

I have had a small piece of old mohair for some time, I am not sure exactly what it was but there seems to have been a slight pattern to it and by the time it came to me it had some considerable wear.   Of course it suited a traditional bear and I worked out a pattern to use just about all of it, by the time it grew into a bear the pattern faded into part of the overall effect which is quite worn with some bald areas and variations in pile and shade.

I need to make a lighter bear to ease the strain of some larger firmly constructed bears I have had to work on recently so he was made alongside other work to give my hands a little break from the firmest stuffing requirements but remain productive.

I have filled him with traditional excelsior wood wool which I have left a little loose so he has a crunchy feel so characteristic of a vintage bear.  I have left his joints quite loose to avoid stressing the old fabric too much.

Now a dressed bear is something I have rarely attempted and I must at this point confess I didn't make the sweater but I had better explain why he is wearing it.

Having made this very worn looking bear I decided that he should wear some sort of clothing to help protect him in the same way that vintage bears are often given a sweater or waistcoat to cover bald patches and help prevent further wear.

My mum knitted the sweater some years ago;  I asked her for a jumper for one bear and she got rather carried away and I ended with a bag full of them, some of the colours were rather surprising; Mum's eyesight was failing but she had learned to knit without looking at the work and  many of the little sweaters still displayed her skill with cables, fancy stitches etc. When Mum passed away the bear sweaters joined various other treasures and were in danger of being hidden away  but I think it is more sensible to occasionally give one to a deserving bear, assuming I can find one to fit...  I am very sentimental about such things so it has taken a while to pluck up the courage to break into the remaining supply of jumpers.

So that is a rather long winded explanation of how the worn vintage looking bear came to be wearing a sweater, he is very much a one-off since the genuinely old and worn mohair cannot be repeated and the supply of mum's little sweaters now very limited.

I have tried to give him a dignified but friendly expression and so finally here is a picture to show that, even though he is quite soft and loosely jointed, he will stand without extra support: However, I suspect he would find this tiring for long periods unattended so prefers to sit :-)

He is available for purchase and you may e.mail me at gregory@hugoshouse.com or check my website www.hugoshouse.com for more information.

Dare to be fragile

In my earliest bear collecting days I was drawn to the classic vintage bears. In my own work I periodically revisit my own classic bears patterns with the benefit of experience. I was always enchanted by the fragility of some the vintage bears, they bore the signs of many years of Teddy Bear duty as companion and comfort for their first owners and I try to simulate this gentle wear in many of my own classic bears.

I also like the feel of a very old bear, the firm but crunchy feeling aged wood-wool, the looser limbs and saggy parts are very much part of the appeal. I remember being very taken with a little Steiff bear at Christie's which was almost completely empty, it just asked to be treated very kindly and be taken care of.

So as well as in appearance I have also been braver in making some of my classic bears feel fragile and understuffed so that they invite care and gentle attention and have the right weight and feel.

This little bear is my latest pattern, around 14 inches tall and made as a Teddy Clown so I can have a bit of fun with some delicate colours, adorned with a simple cotton collar and shell buttons on the costume.

This one has been named Miranda, unusual for me to make a girl bear but I had just been watching Miranda Hart who always cheers me up so I thought this bear could adopt her name.