Teddy Bear Art: How to Design & Make Great Teddy Bears [Paperback]

Jennifer Laing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

Expert Australian teddy bear maker Jennifer Laing shows you her techniques for sewing the world's most huggable bears. This is a book for those of you who have tried the commercial patterns, have caught the bear making 'bug' and are now wanting to take that next step -- the most exciting one of all. Designing and creating your own teddy bears can bring magic into our life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jennifer Laing

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Hobby House Press (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875885179
• ISBN-13: 978-0875885179
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,535,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, January 27, 2003

By 

Anna Klein - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teddy Bear Art: How to Design & Make Great Teddy Bears (Paperback)

As a professional teddy bear artist who has sold internationally, I must say I owe a lot of my education to this book. While I have read just about every teddy bear making book out there (once you get started, it's addictive), I never found another quite as good as Teddy Bear Art. In this guide, Jenniger Laing addresses the true spirit of making artist teddy bears -- designing your own patterns. You can never be a complete artist until you can do this, and Laing will give you a good push in the right direction. She discusses each aspect of each pattern piece individually, shows you how to make changes in your finished product by altering the pattern, and finally tells you how to put all the pieces you've created together to make sure they'll fit -- before cutting your valuable mohair. She also addresses series of bears and ideas of names, collections of materials, and more. Again, this is the best book I have read on creating your own patterns from scratch and truly becoming a teddy bear artist.

However, if you are simply seeking already made patterns for bears to make, this is not the book for you. There are only three patterns in this book and they are not the primary goal of this book.

For those who want to learn how a teddy bear is really created, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great step by step instructions on creating Teddy patterns, November 3, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teddy Bear Art: How to Design & Make Great Teddy Bears (Paperback)

Jennifer takes you step by step through the process from visualization to completion of your own teddy bears. Detailed instructions and tips on pattern-making, cutting, sewing, needle sculpture, and the always challenging job of stitching the nose. Jennifer also takes you through the world of being a teddy bear artist and the business aspects to consider. I found this book very enjoyable and extrememly helpful.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less than impressed, May 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Teddy Bear Art: How to Design & Make Great Teddy Bears (Paperback)

I found this book to be somewhat helpful, but less so than I had hoped. I was quite surprised to find the book poorly edited, (to say the least!) with several typos, the body pieces for one of the patterns mislabeled, and general inconsistencies in the way the diagrams are labeled. Still, the book did give a basic outline of the steps involved in designing a bear--although there are blaring gaps, such as giving SOME proportions, but not all: the body in general should be twice as high as the head, yet no mention of how wide the body should be (about 2/3 the height, by the way) . So I would say this is a book which will get you started, but may leave you with a few unanswered questions. And, as I said, the book is quite poorly written and edited-maybe a second edition will be forthcoming which will be improved.