Book Review (From Hide to Hugs: A Manual on Making Fur Teddy Bears, by Berneyle Pittman)

by Pam North

Teddy bears are extremely popular with collectors these days. While an endless variety of colors and styles are offered in countless venues, it is inevitable that some of those collectors would be inspired and challenged to create their own versions of teddies, either for their own enjoyment, or to offer for sale. The market, therefore, periodically offers books and pattern collections for that purpose, but Berneyle Pittman’s recent book, From Hide to Hugs: A Manual on Making Fur Teddy Bears, offers a unique viewpoint on the subject.
Bernyle is one of those artistic souls who has been making her own bears, choosing to re-purpose discarded vintage fur garments as her primary source of materials. Real fur differs from fake fur, with real fur having its own unique properties. Berneyle found that the patterns and directions for making bears from fake fur did not adequately address how real fur needed to be handled. Her solution was to write a book that would outline the inherent demands associated with working with real fur, and to offer effective solutions to those problematic areas. Her book is meant to be a comprehensive manual on achieving maximum results when fashioning real fur into bears and other animals.
She begins by outlining all materials and tools required for bear-making (and there are many), explaining why and how they are needed, and then progressing to the unique properties of various types of animal furs. Many issues are addressed in great detail: cleaning old fur garments; identifying problem areas; taking the garments apart to use them; cutting pattern pieces; stitching; hiding seams; working with the nap. Although the book is directed toward the use of real fur, fake fur most certainly can be substituted in fashioning the animals, so it works well for either medium.
The author’s intent, as was stated previously, is the re-purposing of the pelts used in vintage garments, and she lists various sources for obtaining such garments (thrift shops, eBay, the internet), but her inclusion of the firm of Alaska Raw Fur Company as a supplier for newly-tanned hides raises the question of whether her creation of teddy bears revolves totally around reusing only those cast-off fur garments. The author grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and through the decades of her life there, she became well-acquainted with the area’s widespread use of furs in everyday life for clothing. Her love for furs is understandable from that aspect, but the world has evolved since that time period, becoming wiser and more compassionate toward animals, and it would be a shame if readers of this book embraced the use of, and created more of a demand for, newly-killed animals for their pelts. A teddy bear is an icon of a magnificent and beautiful animal that should be revered and respected, and any fur used in the process of recreating an image of it ideally should not be coming from any fur source other than an existing vintage item of clothing that simply is being recycled. Bernyle seemingly does concur with that philosophy. With that note of caution for the book’s readers, the book will be informative and useful.
Berneyle concentrates primarily on making two creations, a “real” bear and a koala, and she includes hand-drawn patterns and detailed instructions for each. The manual provides much valuable information about the creation of the two animals highlighted, covering all of the many elements of construction: pattern making and cutting; joints; leather-covered noses; head and body construction; stuffing; mouth and ears; teeth, eyes and eyelids; paws, toes, and claws. She delivers in text a very comprehensive process for their construction, which compensates for the sometimes confusing aspects of her hand-drawn illustrations. To that aspect, and for best results, the reader should take the time to carefully correlate the drawings and the text instructions for clarification before proceeding. It also would have been useful for the author to have included a finished example of each animal at the beginning of the instructions to make it. Their photographs may be among the gallery of 29 animals at the book’s end, but if so, none are identified as such. Perhaps, in any future editions of the book, that issue might be addressed for a clearer perspective as to final result. Overall, her book has much to offer in presenting an in-depth instructional layout to becoming a bear-maker.
Real fur animals can be beautifully executed, and reusing an antiquated or no longer needed fur clothing item is a worthwhile and fun goal, one which Berneyle Pittman’s book will aid the artist/crafter in achieving while spending pleasurable hours custom-creating a very special teddy bear.