Friday, October 21, 2011

The Teddy Bear - Strangest Quilt in My Collection



Teddy Bears have been ubiquitous in our culture since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. Here is a link to how Roosevelt became connected with the bear. We in this day and age would find appaling what his friends did. Thank goodness, Roosevelt did, too, and refused to shoot the poor bear, though he insisted that his friends put the poor bear out of its misery.

The incident became widely known as a result of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902.




Morris and Rose Michtom created the first Teddy Bear in 1903, and with Roosevelt's permission, named it Teddy. 

Like our Beanie Babies of a decade ago, the Teddy Bear was such an outrageous pop-culture item of its day, according to one source, that even grown women were known to carry them around in public. (I am certain no quilter ever carried a Beanie Bay around in her purse, right?)

Bear lore in human culture and myth long pre-dates the famous Teddy Bear phenomena of Roosevelt's day.  As always, humans and their myths are a fascinating study. You might enjoy exploring this site that writes on the bear lore of Europe or this one that writes of the bear lore of Native Americans.

So, yes, my "strangest" quilt is a Teddy Bear!



Why strange?

Because real teddy bears surely had to have been sacrificed to make this very three-demensional quilt!



Seems a bit macabre to me.  But this quilt has been well used, as the photos far below show, and possibly, therefore, well loved.











 So why did I add the quilt to my collection? Because it is so outrageously unusual I think Julie Silber would be willing to add it to her collection of Maverick Quilts!







8 comments:

  1. A little strange......a little silly.........oh, I bet some little tyke just loved having this to cuddle with! I can picture it being loved to death.

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  2. In an odd way, it is almost creepier than the squirrel pelt quilt and yet it is cute too.

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  3. Poor little half-bears! Rather cute tho.
    So...I'm wondering if there's another quilt somewhere out there of bears' behinds?

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  4. Never thought of that! What I have wondered, though, is how in the world they sawed them in half? I think that would have been a rather difficult task.

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  5. I love it!...perhaps I am just a bit off but I think it is just as cute as can be. It does win the award for most unusual in my book......but I might need to make one myself...perhaps assorted stuffed (unstuffed) animals?
    Tim

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  6. Be sure to share it if you ever make one, Tim! I checked today and this one actually had batting in it but it is now sadly shifted and in chunks. The quilting goes all the way thru only on the borders. If it had been quilted around the bears too it would have given it a lot more stability.

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  7. I think the (half) bear is a pattern....they are all the same body shape and ears....so no more worries of the backsides of poor sliced off bears roaming around...though wouldn't it be fun to have the back side of at least one bear on the back!
    :)
    jean

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  8. Oh, but how cute is that and I am sure it was truly loved.

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