For those of you who like to see before they do, here’s a quick tutorial for putting together the Yellow Bear of Being Active Outside

If you have not already downloaded you free pattern for the March Yellow Bear block of the Beary Colourful BOM you can get it from this post here. This link also leads you to the list of fabric and other requirements…. so I won’t repeat myself here. This new post today is all about how to put your yellow bears together, including the new tummy motifs.

Prepare all your appliqué pieces by:

• tracing the templates onto onto paper-backed fusible adhesive
• fusing the adhesive shapes onto your fabrics
• cutting your appliqué shapes out, and
• removing the paper backings.

Now you are ready to assemble your yellow bear. If you’ve got this far, congratulations! You’ve actually already done the time consuming part!

How to assemble the Yellow Bear of Being Active Outdoors

Step 1

Assemble the layout guide sheet from the last three pages of the pattern. Cover the layout guide with a teflon ironing sheet or with parchment (baking) paper. Secure your layers so that nothing moves and frustrates you while you are working.

Step 2

Fuse the left foot and right leg into place.

Step 3

Next add the left leg and the right foot.

Now you can add the arms and the foot pad on the right foot.

And the outer ears, skipping rope handles and the outer tummy ring. Looking good!

Step 4

Next, place the hand shapes over the skipping rope handles.

At this stage you can also add the white inner tummy piece and the inner ear overlays. 

Next add the head and then the muzzle. That is your basic bear completed. Now it’s just about the details.

Step 5

Add the skipping rope, eyes, nose and mouth. If you want to explore alternatives for the eyes you can visit this post about constructing the original Beary Colourful Red Bear. In addition, some participants have used machine or hand embroidery to replace the fabric eyes.

Step 6a

Option 1: Adding the Sunflower

The petals that have the smaller cutout hole in the centre are designed to be the bottom layer of petals. I prefer to make these out of the darker of the two fabrics chosen for the sunflower. 

The second layer of petals interleaves with the first. The centre holes should be offset from each other by a few threads to cause  a less noticeable bump under the top layer. (Note I didn’t actually get my pieces lined up perfectly, but my bear turned out ok anyway).

The flower centre is then fused over the top of the two layers of petals.

Step 6b

Option 2: Adding the Basketball

If you would rather make the basketball motif, take your yellow circle and mark the basketball lines on it in pencil or disappearing fabric marker. You will machine or hand embroider these lines later. If you wish to simply draw the lines on with a permanent fabric marker, you can do that now instead.

Step 7

Now your bear should be completely constructed. Give him a good pressing to adhere all the pieces together and allow to cool. Then carefully peel him off the parchment paper and position over the centre of your background fabric rectangle. Fuse down thoroughly according to the instructions for your brand of adhesive.

Next pin the fused bear over some polyester wadding (optional) and appliqué around all the raw edges using your favourite method. I prefer free motion appliqué with 4-5 turns around each piece. I use 40wt rayon machine embroidery thread.

I started with the white shapes. Then the facial features. Then the tummy motif.  Then the rest of the bear.

How to appliqué the Sunflower

I have had a couple of questions about appliquéing the sunflower, so I thought I would go into a little detail here.

If you would like to fuse down the bottom petals, appliqué them on, and then add the second layer of petals, there is nothing wrong with that. If you are using blanket stitch or zig zag stitch  to secure your appliqué you may even need to do it this way. But I am the sort of person who dislikes task switching and I like to fuse everything first and then sew everything down after. As much as possible, anyway.

So,  I fused down my entire sunflower. Then I started with thread matching the lower petals. I sewed the showing edge of the first petal 5 times, then I travelled around the edge of the adjacent upper petal with a single line of stitching. Then I sewed the next lower petal 5 times. Then I travelled around the adjacent top petal, and so on.

Once I had done all the lower petals in this way, I changes thread to match the upper petals and went around the entire top petals piece, sewing over the travel stitches.

Finally I went around the flower’s centre in a brown rayon thread.

How to appliqué the Basketball

In a dark thread colour, I stitched over the pencil lines several times until they were as visible as I wanted them. Then I appliquéd around the raw edge to secure the remainder of the ball to the bear.

Finishing touches

Add details to your bear’s face with free motion machine stitching, hand embroidery or permanent markers. 

I am preparing my bears as trapunto shapes. Which means that I am adding the polyester wadding underneath my work before I sew down the appliqués, as mentioned in step  7.

Once I have finished sewing the appliqué, I turn my bear over and clip the wadding away with curved embroidery snips until it only covers the shape of the bear. Once I finish my quilt top and layer it over my batting, the bears will be double batted and slightly raised. Here’s the back of one of my red bears so you can see what a clipped bear looks like.

I think that’s all you need to know to make your own yellow bear.

If you have any further questions, leave them in a comment and I will endeavour to answer them. I hope to see your yellow bears on facebook and instagram (@CleverChameleon) soon and in the end of the month link up for prizes. Can’t wait!

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