After many months of not knitting a thing, I recently knitted my first bear. I found out a friend of mine was expecting and I knew I wanted to make something special for her. I had a great idea to knit an ethno-centric blanket, but couldn't decide on a design. Then I decided to knit her new baby a bear. Nothing about me is cookie-cutter, so there was no way I was going to make a cute brown bear wearing a pink or blue scarf. No way.
I ran across this awesome pattern for an easy-knit teddy bear and got to work figuring out how I'd make the design my own. I have always loved the look of South African Ndebele dolls, and thought I'd experiment with giving a teddy bear, Ndebele doll flair. The colors for his clothing had to be bright and true like the ones in an 8 box of Crayola crayons. Something resembling a cross between a scarf and gold ring necklace to adorn his neck and his face had to be equal parts Ndebele doll and teddy bear. Once the idea was clear, the execution was as easy as pie.
Isn't he lovely?! He certainly got my three year-old son's snuggle of approval. The day I made his face, my son came home from school and pretended to talk to him immediately. He asked him to join him on the ottoman to watch Speed Racer. That is when I knew my weird little bear was absolutely perfect.
Check out the photo album of his creation!
I have some scarves to finish up from last year, then it's full steam ahead on my adventures in giant, awesome, ethnocentric hat-making.
