Happy Dance: Bear Square [1]

[click for larger image]

I finally got around to starting some stitching for my favorite charity group. One of the themes for this year is teddy bears. I pulled this chart from my stash.

I found the freebie bear many, many moons ago on an internet site. I think the pattern is in Dutch or German ... I'm really not sure.

He's just a little guy, about 36 x 34 stitches. So I had to
s-t-r-e-t-c-h him a bit to help him fill up a 9x9 quilt square.

The bear originally wore ice skates — as though he'd just taken a tumble in the rink. But I took the skates off his feet and added a blue rug for him to sit on.


Then I found a border that I used to frame him. The border is from the book Better Homes & Gardens 2001 cross stitch designs. It's a great book for small motif and border charts.

Originally, the border pattern called for three colors of blocks and three colors of hearts. I changed that up a bit using five colors for blocks, but making all the hearts pink.

I'm rather pleased with the overall effect. So I started another teddy bear block last night and will give it a similar treatment. I made some good progress on the bear's head this morning.