Frankie the Sweetheart Button Teddy

Here is a quick blog on my latest embellished button bear called the Sweetheart Denim Teddy.  My daughter named him Frankie as she tells me its a type of jean in Dorothy Perkins - who knew?

So this is the same pattern used for all the button bears and essentially the nursery bears in part also.  I saw the Sharon the nice lady from Stylecraft who comes around to show me all the latest yarns and she loved the Button Bears and asked if I would do one in their Jeanie Aran Denim yarn. So happy to oblige I crocheted him up.  As I used one colour he needed jazzing up a bit.  You may have noticed that I really like using felt on my latest designs. The reason being it lies flat against the design and enables you to add another texture and colour without to much effort, plus felt is super cheap and is available in an abundance of shades. Using running stitch gives the felt the vintage toy look when sewn on.  

So Frankie got kitted out with a felt big nose, paw and foot pads and I think the colour gives them a suede look about it. A trick I use when cutting out the felt for the nose is to fold the felt in half then cut half the shape, when you open it the other side will be symmetrical.  For the paw pads fold the felt in half but cut two complete shapes out, both pieces will be identical so each paw pad will match perfectly.    

I thought at this stage he would be complete but when I looked at him on the table he was missing something.  He looked cute but could be cuter.  I played with heart buttons but he needed an injection of more colour and I cut a red heart out.  Once pinned in place I left it and come back a few hours later to see if it had a awww moment.  I do this a lot with designs.  Pin them together then leave them and come back the next day and see if it has an impact when you look at it again, if it doesn't then I rearrange and repeat the process. Sometimes you have it perfectly planned in your head what it will look like but in reality it invariably isn't the complete image you had.  I have this perfect visionary before making a cake and I can guarantee it most definitely does not turn out as my imagined one.  So I would recommend never rushing the putting together process, take your time and play with ideas.  

All complete I added a couple of heart buttons to his foot and one to his bottom as when I turned him around he looked so plain compared to the front.  Finally happy he went off for his photoshoot and now he's ready for any one of you that would love to make him for yourself or if you can bear to give him away.