Baby Bobbi Bear

You know a project can't be too hard or too complicated when the mother of a 7 month old can accomplish it in less than a week and before she can post more than once about it!  Lately I've had this urge to create some toys for Ms. Z -- she has plenty of toys of the hard plastic variety, but as she actively learns to crawl (and takes a few more tumbles) I also wanted her to have some soft toys.

The first ideas that I encountered were patterns published by Blue Sky Alpacas for the Baby Bobbi Bear and One Fish, Two Fish.   As I looked at the yarn requirements (Blue Sky Hand Dyed Cotton or Organic Cotton) and the yardages, I realized that the left overs for the bear could be used as the fins for the small fish (probably the fins for the big fish, too), so I could probably get two projects out of three skeins of nice soft cotton yarn. I chose that lilac purple for the body of the bear because Ms. Z's room is a similar color and I've been doing a lot of things for her in the lavender and sage color range. (The fish, when I get started, will have an orange body and purple fins). The weekend before Valentine's Day, I just started jonesing for some knitting on larger needles that was not a baby sweater.  I pulled out the Baby Bobbi pattern, thought it looked do-able and by Sunday night I had everything constructed but the arms, the ears and the facial embroidery. You just gotta love US size 9 needles and knitting in the round.

This weekend I got all the rest finished up (work and family time ate up most of my evenings last week) and it was even warm enough on Sunday (over 50 degrees F!)  for me to get outside to get pictures of my Baby Bobbi.  I'm not sure mine is quite as cute as the ones on the pattern, and it appears that I could have been a little more generouts with the stuffing, but the ultimate arbiter of hand knit teddy bear acceptability let me know that this project was a success.





Nothing says lovin' like being gummed by a seven month old baby! If you can't chew on a friend, who can you chew on?  Clearly Z liked her 7-month-iversary present!

As a project goes, this one is simple and could easily be completed in a weekend if you were dedicated and needed a quick baby shower gift.  Stuffing the bear to achieve the right shape does take a little effort, but you certainly don't have to be an expert toy maker to accomplish it.  It's not even that expensive a gift.  This yarn is around USD $10 a skein, and requires 2 skeins, but you will have plenty left over to be part of another toy.  You could easily get two Baby Bobbi Bears out of three skeins of yarn.  I found the pattern to be easy to follow and there's really nothing involved in this pattern that a beginner couldn't take on without breaking a sweat -- and a nice errata section on the Blue Sky website helps explain the construction process if you need more help.  This bear is rather larger than the picture on the pattern might lead you to believe -- at 15" tall it makes a substantial sized friend for a young baby or child (the full sized Bobbi is 20" -- just about the size of a newborn!).