Midnight Storm, named for her stern look, is one of the most difficult real fur bears I have ever made. At 6.5" tall, she is crafted from a full length Persian lamb coat that had been stored in heavy humidity in a warm climate. As a result the skin side of the fur had begun to deteriorate so badly that when I went to stitch the pattern pieces of this bear together, it just fell apart in my hands. I retreated the skin side of the fur with a special mix of oils made for especially for me. The mix kills bacteria, fungus and mildew, the most common causes of rot in pelts. Then I cut new pieces from different sections of the coat. Some would be good and others would fall apart again. Not to be deterred, I just kept trying until I had enough pieces to put this darling together. When I sculpted her face, I chose to give her the expression of consternation that I had on my face for most of the time I was working on her.

In addition to the condition of her fur, there was the problem of making her eyes, nose and mouth show up in her dark face. You can't put black eyes on a black bear and expect to see them. The same is true for the nose. After much thought, I chose to give her blue eyes set in blue gray leather patches to make them stand out better. I matched the embroidered nose and mouth to the leather patches behind her eyes. I used the same leather for her inner ears and paw pads.

Like most of my recycled real fur bears, Storm has wobble joints and is stuffed with polyester fiberfill and weighted with steel shot for a heavy-in-your-hand, life-like feel. She also has my trademark star in her paw pad. Her eyes and hand blown glass from Germany in a brilliant cobalt blue with a black center. In spite of all the trouble I had making her, I love the way she looks.

All of my real fur bears are one-of-a-kind designs that are extremely labor intensive. Each of these bears presents its own challenges, but the smaller they are, the more difficult they are to make. It is virtually impossible to get your fingers inside any bear smaller than four and a half inches. For bears that small, I work under magnification with surgical tools. I have been able to successfully make many real fur bears as small as 3.5"and even one as tiny as 2.5'. This particular bear took three weeks of my time to do all of the following:

disassemble the coat from which she was made
clean and treat the skins
trace the pattern on the skins and lining
cut out the bear and line it
stitch it together
turn it right side out
sculpt the face
embroider the nose
set the eyes, trademark star and attach the ears

Midnight Storm is a one-of-a-kind teddy bear designed and hand stitched by Shelley K. Bossert of Ursa Minor Miniatures. Like all of my teddy bears, this bear is not a toy and is not intended for small children. Small parts present a choking hazard. To see more of my work, please visit my web site, UrsaMinorMiniatures.com.

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