Here's Penny

Penny is my newest little 5 incher! She was made from very dense hand dyed mohair!  I am not a crocheter that can follow a pattern but I love making an outfit for a bear without one! In other words... I wing it! Penny's shrug/jacket and tam hat were made using a variegated perle cotton thread.  I have posted her on BearPile.

We are heading out for a weekend on Pomme de Terre Lake ( yes, Potato Lake)  with bags of bear parts to sew in the evenings. The grandchildren are eager to go swimming in the lake and we ( DH and I) are too!

Some new ones....

Scooter's in a treasury!!!

Scooter is in a great etsy treasury !  Wonderful bears and bear friends!!

New little girl bear

This is turning out to be a REALLY REALLY hot and dry summer...! The grass is crispy brown. Lots of trees are loosing their leaves and my plants are dead!! We've given up on lots of things and are watering the big trees to help them through this...

But bearmaking is still going on!  This is the newest little one... hand-dyed mohair and a crocheted hat and scarf.

My son has been on vacation this week and has pushed me into canning. He wanted to try more things. We went to the Kansas City Market on Saturday and bought fruit for jams and canned peaches. Cucumbers and peppers and onions for pickles. Yesterday we went to a roadside stand and bought over 25 pounds of canning tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. I didn't realize how many tomatoes 25 lbs were  and how long it would take to peel them!!  The rest we roasted  a la Alton Brown  and froze. I'm headed back to his house on Thursday to finish up with more jam!  There are times ( like last night after making sauce all day) when I am glad to only have to drive to the grocery store when we want pasta!!

After a day's rest (LOL) we made two batches of jam!  One a peach, strawberry and jalapeno pepper combo ( Yummy) and the other a strawberry, peach, blackberry and blueberry combo which reminds me of my Grandmother's blackberry pie !
We decided to go on hiatus till this fall  (maybe)  .... and then make apple butter and applesauce.

Hucklebeary

This is Hucklebeary... my newest hand sewn/ handmade little bear. He is 4.75 inches tall.... admittedly I didn't make the vintage bark canoe  but someone did!  I made the stand , paddle and knapsack !  Hucklebeary is ready to paddle or float down the Little Blue River here in Blue Springs. The Little Blue flows into the Missouri River and then into the Mississippi ( at St. Louis) and then south to the Gulf of Mexico!
Hucklebeary has been posted on BearPile

Handmade.... what it means to me

"Mama and Baby Bear"  from Leeds, England  posted this on Facebook..... I spend a lot of time hand sewing bears and their friends so this hit home.  I copied it into "my documents", posted it here and will "pin it"  . All to spread the word!!