The Bartholomew Family:

This design was an accident.  I was working on a new bear pattern and put my first draft on the scanner to size it.  In the middle of the scan, my darling dogs insisted that they needed to go out so I left my work and dutifully took them for a walk.  When I returned, I had a senior moment and forgot where I was in the process.  The end result was that the head got enlarged and the body did not.  While I was making up the pattern pieces for the prototype, Marigold, I thought the proportions looked funny.  Sure enough, when I finished and realized what I had done, my husband liked the oversized head so much, I decided to keep it just as it is.

What we have now is a whole family of Bartholomew bears.  There is a group shot of the the wee folk Barts above.  All these little guys are 3.5" including Benjamin, the mink in the foreground.  Below the little guys are individual pictures of Molasses and Marigold, both 6.5” made from tipped German plush.  To their right you can see Barley, 4.5” and Rose, 3.5”, both made from Schulte mohair.

All the Bartholomews have wobble joints, are stuffed with polyester fiberfill and heavily weighted with steel shot and glass pellets giving them a delightfully life-like feel in your hand.  I chose small German glass eyes for them all and placed them close together for what I hope is whimsically vacant expression.  The inside of the their ears and their paw pads are real leather, suede side out, in either complimenting or contrasting colors.

Both my husband, Norman, and my son, Seth, worked on names for this design.  Seth took one look at the prototype and chose Bartholomew as the family name.  That was easy but from there it got harder.  The two largest members of the family are made from German plush that is silky soft to the touch and has a deep, rich color on the surface with equally rich golden tones when you part the fur and look at the undercoat.  Because of her color, Marigold was not too hard to name but it took my son over a week to come up with Molasses for the other one.  The tiny pink bear just looked like a rose bud so that too was easy but her tan colored older brother looked long and hard before he found his name.  For a while, it was a toss up between Oatmeal and Barley, but Seth, being the true son of an English teacher, liked the alliteration of Barley better.

Once it was clear that this design was going to be a big hit with collectors, I made an extended family for the original Barts.  They are pictured below.  This first group of bears are all 3.5"and crafted from short pile Schulte mohair.  They are, left to right, Beary Cheese Cake, Hao Pung Yo (good friend in Chinese), Maple Syrup and Butter. 

In the next group we have Snow Ball, re-cycled shaved rabbit fur; Lu Suede,  made from ultra soft and flexible suede with hand painted eye patches and, last but certainly not least,  Mercan.  Made from vintage upholstery fabric, Mercan (coral in Turkish) is one of a very few bears I have given Turkish names.  I am an Air Force brat who grew up like a gypsy following my father to exotic places all over the world.  I spent my high school years in Izmir, Turkey, where I attended a Turkish Lisé, learned to speak the language, traveled the land and fell head over heels in love with the country, its people and its culture.  Every once in a while I make a bear that seems to have a Turkish soul so I give him or her a Turkish name and a tiny blue bead, an evil eye on a blue ribbon.  In Turkey, new babies wear one to let the world know that the child is guarded by the combined forces of a loving G-d and a fiercely protective family.

The third group below includes Auric, 4.5" of sparse Schulte mohair; Andre, 6.5" of tipped Schulte mohair; Penny, 6.5" of hand dyed and hand woven mohair and finally, the Royal person of Charleroi (Charles, the King, in French).  This gaudy mink and suede bear's name sake is Charlemagne, or at least the medieval city in Belgium named after this well known and flamboyant monarch.  Very near where I lived with my husband and sons for 15 years, this fascinating town made a magical transformation every Sunday.  The whole city center, block after block of it, turned into a street market where you could buy anything from livestock to fresh flowers and antique plumbing supplies.  We used to prowl the stalls for hours coming home with arms laden with fresh fruit and vegetables for the week and usually a roasted chicken or two, hot off the spit, to eat for our evening meal.  Always an adventure, it was one of my favorite places to visit.