A waistcoat for a bear

At the beginning of term we took the Brownies to Build-a-Bear as a special treat.  It was a great evening, lots of fun and the staff were fantastic at keeping the girls happy and entertained.  For anyone not familiar with the build a bear concept they have lots of different 'skins' of cuddly toys; bears, dogs, rabbits. cats etc. you pick a skin and take it to the the filling machine where it gets filled with stuffing, more or less stuffing depending on how soft or rigid you want the finished bear to be.  Then you pick a cloth heart from a jar, give it a kiss and make a wish and that goes inside your bear which is then sewn up and ready for brushing and to choose clothes for if you want too.  We each made a bear (or dog, or cat...) and some chose clothes and accessories as extras.

My 'bear' - Baden Pawell

We have then planned in lots of 'bear themed' activities for this term to make the most out of the build-a-bear experience, finishing up with a teddy bears picnic where some of the girls will take their promise.  The most recent of these bear activities was making waistcoats for our bears.  After our last experience of sewing with the Brownies (very difficult) we decided to make the waistcoats as simple as possible.  One piece of felt cut to shape and blanket stitched round the edge, it worked really well.  All of the girls managed the blanket stitch and some were really really good!

Baden Pawell in his new waistcoat

The build-a-bears are all a standard size which made making the waistcoats easy as we didn't have to worry about dogs being different to bears, being different to cats.  The template we made for the waistcoat is below (one half, cut on the fold), if you print it full size on A4 it will be the right size.  It's a nice simple craft to do with children for their bear.  Hope you enjoy!