The Griswold Bears Get Adopted

The Bellairs family had their Christmas get-together on Christmas Eve day.  Everyone gathered for fun, food, fellowship, and of course, what I have been anticipating:  the Griswold bears adoptions.  The bears were left under the tree, still tangled in garland, and then covered with a sheet.  We had shoe boxes wrapped for each grandchild with a couple other gifts and a card, introducing each one to their bear.  I uncovered them, and they were able to find their bear according to the description they were given, and then find the ornament each bear hung on the tree.  The grandchildren were all told that they needed to name their bear before taking it home with them, so I could get adoption certificates made in the next few days.

Five bears went to the Michelsen family.

Ian is our oldest grandson at age 19, and thankfully, was very happy getting a Viking bear.  T10's name was changed to Björn Griswöld.

Amber, age 15, named her bear Samwell.  He is perfect for Amber, because he is a little bookworm, just like she is.  His favorite place is curled up under the covers in bed with a book.  He was even caught a few times with a flashlight, reading after lights out.

Emily, age 12, received the prototype bear, T1.  She is the granddaughter that helped with the Teddy bears picnic and pumpkin carving.  She fell in love with her that day, but I couldn't tell her then, that she was going to be her bear.  She named her bear Cheeka Bear.

Davey, age 9, named his bear Othar.  I think it is another Viking type name.  That's good, because they both look up to their brothers.

Bobby, age 6, got the pretty red bear.  He named him Benjamin, but is just going to call him Ben.  Ben is going to look a lot like Bobby soon, because he has a loose tooth.  I bet he will lose it in a few days.

  

The next four bears went home to the Bellairs/Schlegel family.

Trisha, age 14, was glad her bear was made out of her first choice fabric.  Her new name is Sugar.  She is very soft, because her white yarn is a blend of wool and angora.  When I first showed the girls the fabric and told them to tell me a first and second choice, she couldn't pick a second choice, because she wanted her first choice so badly.

Payton, age 12, got the orange angora bear, dyed to her specifications.  She had a hard time choosing a name for her, but finally decided on Truffel Bear.  Truffel is wearing a rayon chenille scarf I also gave to Payton. 

Hailee, age 11, hates to smile for photos.  She was so happy with her bear, that she put on her most beautiful smile.  She named her bear Sweetheart, and she really is.  They both are.

Morgan, age 9, didn't think I gave her the right bear, but after holding her a few minutes, they fell in love.  Her bears name is Hunysuckel.  Morgan wanted an unconventional spelling for her bears name.  Hunysuckel is a fuzzy mohair, so Morgan will have fun brushing her fur.

 On Christmas morning, I got a text message and photo of our grandson Landen just after he opened his bear.  Landen wasn't able to come to our house because he was with his dad at another family gathering.

I think he looks pretty happy with his new bear.  He called me on the phone a little later to thank us and to tell us he named his bear Sweety. 














Sweety is a boy bear, and loves to golf.  He made a few practice shots at our house with his golf set that he got for Christmas.

Some of the bears went upstairs after presents to watch the Teddy Bears Picnic DVD that we gave each family.

Our daughter Rachel, from out in Washington state, was unable to join us for Christmas, so we included her and her boyfriend Nick and her bear, Nilla,on Skype.  Nilla was very excited to meet all of the baby bears.  Here is a screen shot of Nilla taking a look at the sewing machine we gave Rachel.







As evening arrived, the families started to pack up to head for their own homes.  Two of them had close to four hour drives.  We gathered everyone for one last picture of the grandkids and bears.

Front row: Emily and Cheeka, Morgan and Hunysuckel, Bobby and Ben, Hailee and Sweetheart, Davey and Othar.  Back row: Payton and Truffel, Trisha and Sugar, Amber and Samwell, Ian and Björn, and our daughter Carolyn holding Sweety.

The sad part of the day was saying good-bye.  One bear didn't get to be adopted yet and she was very sad.

Here she is with Great-grandpa bear at the window waving bye-bye to the first family to leave.

Thank goodness for grandpas.  They are very good at comforting a sad bear.  We are hoping she will be able to go to her new home with our granddaughter Elisabeth very soon.

Today, after some discussion, we decided that T11 shouldn't wait till she gets to her new home to get a real name.  Because she is pink, our daughter Carolyn, our son Edwin (Elisabeth's daddy), and I decided she should be called Rosie.  She is very lonely, so I found Dolly bear for her to play with.  Great-grandma bear is holding her so she wouldn't be so sad, and Patty Bear and Uncle are trying to cheer her up.  Great-grandma looks pretty good since major surgery earlier today.

My Grandma Gladys Hobbs made Great-grandma and Great-grandpa bear years ago.  Great-grandma had one of her arms fall off and a couple other limbs were also getting loose, so I took her apart and replaced some of the incorrect hardware.  She is recovering quickly, and was happy to give some comfort to Rosie.

Hopefully we will have a picture of Rosie with baby Elisabeth real soon.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Teddy Bears Help Decorate the Christmas Tree

There is so much to get ready for a big family Christmas celebration.  It was coming up soon, and Grandma Jenny still had a lot to do, so Grandpa Bob and Uncle Edwin went outside and cut a tree and got it put in the stand.  The little bears were very excited that they would have a tree to climb inside the house.

Grandpa Bob set them straight about that right away, and told them they BETTER NOT!  It's bad enough having kittens climb it, and bears are a lot bigger.  He told them it was inside because he was going to decorate it.  Of course, they wanted to know all about that and started pawing through all the breakable ornaments as soon as he opened the first box.

Grandma came in to the living room and told the bears that she had very special ornaments for them to hang on the tree.  Each bear got it's own ornament with name (letter and number, actually) and the year 2011 painted on it.  She told them that when they got adopted, they would get to take their ornament with them as a reminder of their first Christmas and the year they got adopted.

The bears were so cute, stretching to try and reach the branches.  There were a few incidents of the domino effect, when one would lose it's balance, and the whole row of bears would topple over!
Starting from the left with the red bear, this photo is of T5, T7, T6, T3, T4, T11, and T9 in the back on the stool.

The photo on the left is of T10 on the top step of the ladder, T2 on the bottom step, T8, T1 (mostly hidden behind T8), and T5 again.
T1 is in the photo at right.

Just as a warning to anyone thinking about letting bears help decorate, Grandma Jenny says they do all right with the ornaments, as long as they are plastic.  Keep them away from the fragile glass ones, though, and don't let them help with the garland!  As you can see in the picture below, these little bears managed to get completely tangled with it!

T10

T8

T1

T7

T2

T3

T11

T4

T9

T5

T6

It was fun doing this shoot with the bears.  They all looked so adorable under the tree, and each one of them has such a different personality, that really came out in the photos.  I think they are all perfect matches for each grandchild.

In my next post, they get adopted and named.

Two Sets of Towels Done

The towel set that I wrote about weaving several days ago is now wet finished, pressed and hemmed.  I got three towels and a dishrag out of the warp.

This is the second set of towels, just completed a couple of hours ago.  It is a thick and thin cotton yarn that I dyed about a year ago.  The dark towel was woven with an 8/2 burgundy cotton, and the bottom towel was woven with left-over 6/2 hand dyed cotton.

Boy Bears Play Dress-up

The little boy bears got out the dress-up box today and were really having a lot of fun.  T7 is so much like Auntie Rach and Auntie Care-Care, because he likes to play Pirates of Penzance.
"Arrrrghhhh!  I am a pirate king!".

T10 likes to play Viking.  He made his own sword and shield.

T5 likes to play ball, and looks so cute in his uniform.  He needs a Detroit Tigers cap to go along with it.  Unfortunately, T10 and T7 don't like playing ball.  They would rather do sword fighting.  I think T5 is going to have to ask one of the other bears to play catch and practice hitting.

T7 and T10 started getting kind of rough with their fighting.  I warned them that someone was going to get hurt (just like a mom).  Of course they didn't listen, and T10 got hurt.

Off came the costume and I took him to get an x-ray to see if anything was broken.

All of his joints look ok.  I hope they listen, next time I tell them to settle down!

Towels Continued

I continued weaving on the towel warp and finished the second towel (twill) that I started yesterday, and am almost done with the third one.  Here is a close-up.

I wove each towel with one of the three colors that I used in the stripes, and each is a different treadling.  I get bored easily, so I rarely do more than one of something on a warp.  I will probably make an exception with this warp.  I will probably have enough warp left after the third towel to make a dish cloth.  I really liked the plain weave woven with the red, so I will finish up with that again.

This is my pattern for the third towel.  The first towel was tabby on treadles 1 and 2.  The second was a twill woven on 6-5-4-3 and then repeated.  For the twill towels, I used treadle 6 and 4 for the hems, rather than tabby, because it doesn't spread out as much.  Tabby makes the towels flare out at the ends, and then the hems have to be eased in to be the same width as the body of the towel.

I didn't really use the treadles indicated on the pattern.  5 & 6 stayed the same, but I moved the tabby 1 & 2 to the middle on treadles 3 & 4, and treadles 3 & 4 on the pattern were put on treadles 1 & 2.  It's better for my back, having everything balanced.  The only time I like the tabby grouped together at one side is if I'm weaving a two shuttle weave, such as overshot.

Hopefully, these will be off the loom tomorrow evening if I get them finished after work.  Then on to winding my next warp. 

New Set of Towels

A few days ago, I wound a new warp for more towels.  It had a lot of color change, so I decided to wind each color separately and warp front to back.  Doing it that way, I decided, wasn't the best, since I had to be very careful not to get everything tangled. 

Well, I was successful, finally.  Tight ties on the warp, and tension was the key to keeping everything orderly. Here it is, all set to test for errors.  There were a few denting errors that were fairly easy to fix.

I finished one tabby weave towel tonight.  I did find one more error, with a crossed thread.  The burgundy color is more like the above photo, but the yellow is pretty bright, like the photo at left.

Here is the start of the second towel.  I'm weaving with navy blue weft, so it is making the burgundy look slightly purple.  I think I like the plain weave better for the color.

Griswold Bears Family Portrait

I finally got around to stacking all the bears for a family photo.  It was quite a feat!  They would make an awesome cheerleading squad.

In front, doing the splits, is T4.
The bottom row of four, from left to right, is T2, T11, T7, and T5. 
The row with three is T10, T8, and T1.
Two in a row is T6 and T9.
On top is T3.
I haven't been doing much the last few days because I haven't been feeling well.  I'm feeling a lot better today.  Now, I just need to get going on some more weaving.