Pin Loom Polar Bears

Bear Number 1

The perfect animals to celebrate the polar vortex, another recent visitor to Minnesota.  I have added a second bear below with better bear paws.


Ideas for animals continue to gallop ahead. Last night saw the birth of this polar bear. This is definitely a pattern that will need some modification. I really like that it has a bear-like head. I checked out some pictures of polar bears, which helped me know to set the ears back far enough. I really love the dark pads on the feet.

You may notice that the bear seems to be standing on its toes, which was not intentional. I believe that this is a function of using too much stuffing and weaving it in too stiff a yarn. The bear was woven in an acrylic, worsted weight off-white yarn. I will need to try weaving it in perhaps a combination of baby-weight yarn with a light chenille yarn. The chenille would offer softness and give to the fabric, the baby weight would make the fabric much lighter, therefor even more give.

Bear Number 2 with improved paws

 I have added a second bear, made out of the same yarn as the first because I wove enough material for both bears at the same time. The only change that I made was pinching in above the paw area at the front of each leg. There may need to be further modifications and I think that softer yarn will also help, but its not too bad.

Bear Number 2 on left, Bear Number 1 on right.

How the bear was made

The bear body is made from two 4" x 6" weavies that were fastened together (I use single crochet and slip stitch) to form an oval. Leave an opening at the neck to turn it inside out and stuff.  The face is a 2" x 2" that has had two small darts taken in it to make a cone. This is attached to a 2" x 6" weavie that has been curled around and stitched together to form the neck. The legs are each a 2" x 4" weavie on the outer side and a 2" x 2" weavie on the inner side. These are joined together using single crochet and slip stitch to make the paws, turned inside out and stuffed.  The dark toe pads, nose and eyes are added on. The ears are a loop of crochet, ch3, sc2, sc1 in loop.

I t is going to take quite a while for me to write down all the steps and put together good diagrams. At this point I figure that I should listen to the creative urge that is making all these neat animals and fill in the details later. 

Yarn used for Bears 1 and 2.