Basic Bear Making Tools

You don’t need a lot of fancy tools to make teddy bears.  In fact you don’t even need a sewing machine.  So I’d like to show you some of the very basic tools that you need to make teddy bears.

First, you do need some needles.  These were all straight when I bought them.  They became bent with use.

I use this needle – it’s a quilter’s basting needle for my hand sewing.  I chose this one because it is very skinny so it doesn’t make large holes in the fabric. The head on the needle (the eye of the needle) is also thin which helps prevent large holes in the fabric.  But it is still large enough so that I can still thread the needle easily.

This is a 3″ soft sculpture needle.  I use this for stitching my bears’ noses.

This is a 5″ doll needle.  I often use this for inserting the eyes.  Occasionally I’ll use it for sinking threads.  Sometimes I’ll use it for stitching the bears’ noses as well.  So those are the three basic needles I use to sew my bears.

You also need some pins to hold your fabric together as you are stitching.

A pair of needle nose pliers comes in very handy for grabbing the needle when you are having a hard time getting that needle through the fabric, or through the bear’s nose when you are trying to stitch that nose.  I also use them for closing up my joints inside my bears.  I us these all the time.

You do need a very sharp pair of scissors that you use ONLY for bear making or other fabric.  I personally like a shorter blade length because then I have more control over it so I don’t chop the mohair or other fur.

A black Sharpie.  I usually use this fine tip one, but sometimes I’ll use the regular size Sharpie.  I use this for tracing the pattern pieces onto my fabric.

A chopstick with a rounded end, or a new pencil eraser.  I use these as stuffing tools for my bears.

For making the holes for the joints and eyes of my bears I use an awl.  But if you don’t have an awl, you can use a barbecue skewer or you an sharpen the end of a chopstick.

And that’s it!  Those are all of the tools that you absolutely need to make beautiful teddy bears!