I was between projects: I knit all the way there, the whole time I was there, and then, the morning of departure, nothing. My Nan, determined I should not endure 3.5 hours of car travel without anything to knit, gave me a teddy bear kit.

Said bear has been diligently hauled out at various intervals throughout my knitting life, and the other day I realised I had been working on bear for about, er, seven years. Which is a long time to be working on anything. Time to bring bear to life. Bear was further along the path to completion than I’d thought, even if that path may seem to lead to “wombat”:

Status: semi-complete

When I pulled all bear’s bits out of the working bag, I realised the stumbling block:

Dem ears

What the hell kind of ears are they for any kind of bear? Fer fuck’s sake, look at this:

NOT BEAR

Not bear ears! Not even a bit! Fortunately, bear has a clever and just creator (me) and said creator saw to it that bear ended up with ears it deserved.

A bit more like it.

But the key decider in any toy is the face: there’s a fine line between lovable toy and traumatic visitor. One wrong stitch and the bear has a judgemental expression and the child grows up with a goat herd of neuroses. But I nailed it.

Hooray not terrifying!

Match!

Geddy Bear is almost done! I’m not happy with the shoulders so I’m knitting a little jumper to cover them up. Geddy Bear must not be chilly!