Repairing a stuffed fur teddy bear | My Perpetual Project

A former coworker of mine contacted me to ask if I could restore her childhood teddy bear. She said their dog had ‘played’ with it and there was damage. She sent a picture to me showing the damage to the bear’s face, his left cheek section was missing.

I thought I might be able to fix the cheek, so I agreed to give it a try. It wasn’t until I met her to pick up Teddy that I found out that he was made of real fur! Now, I wasn’t entirely sure I could fix Teddy but I took him home to see what I could do.

Table Of Contents

Reviewing the damage
Finding the right fabric
Beginning the cheek repair
Additional repairs
Repairs complete
Ready to head home
For your convenience

Reviewing the damage

As I looked closer and got a feel of the underside of the fur, I thought that it would be possible to sew through it. She said she didn’t need for the cheek to be fur and if I had a cute piece of material that I thought would look good, I could use that. She just wanted the hole fixed so the damage would not get worse.

She then said that the cheek was not the only body part that had damage. When she picked Teddy up from her mom’s house, she also noticed that his left leg had suffered too. It was loose and hanging by a few threads. If I was able to sew through the fur, that would be a quick fix. She released him into my care and I brought him home.

This is not the first childhood lovey that I have been entrusted with. Last year, I was sent one from my sister-in-law. It belonged to her sister and was made by one of my dearest friend’s mother. The picture shows the condition of this little guy when I received the package. You can read all about that repair here.

Getting a good look at my newest stuffed patient.

Finding the right fabric

My first step was to choose the material I would use for Teddy’s cheek. I looked through my material stash but didn’t see anything that stood out as the perfect piece for this repair. I pondered what might work and wondered if I would need to make a trip into town to look at JoAnn’s Fabrics.

The next morning as I woke up, I remembered that I had some trim that looked like fur. When I found it, I was surprised that it was called fur! Of course, it’s not real fur and I’m not certain why it’s labeled as 2″ fur since the width is 1″ and the length of the ‘fur’ is maybe 1 1/2″. But, that’s beside the point, I thought this was a great option to replace the missing fur on Teddy!

As you can see, the fur is white which would be too stark against Teddy’s cream, tan & brown fur. I would need to dye it. I thought tea would work but didn’t have any black tea bags, so I used one from the Sweet & Spicy tea that I had on hand. Below are the pictures of the new color – a nice cream.

Even though I thought the cream would be nice, I wanted to see if I could get a darker, maybe tan, color. I pulled out a packet of Starbuck’s Via in Italian Roast and soaked the original piece & 2 longer strips of fur overnight. The next day, I rinsed the pieces and dried them with a blow drier.

After drying the fur, I noticed that it had a bit of a burnt coffee smell. Hmmmm….so I soaked all the pieces in the Orange Spice tea. Once rinsed and dried, the fur now had a nice cinnamon coffee smell.

Beginning the cheek repair

The first body part I addressed was the cheek. With the right sides together, I hand-stitched the two long pieces together so the fur would be wide enough for the area. I then handstitched the piece, right-sides together to the nose. After that, I tucked the rest of the piece under Teddy’s fur by his eye, outer cheek area & neck. Once the piece was in place, it was handstitched to secure it to the original fur. When the stitching was done, using the sewing needle, I ‘fluffed’ along the edges to pull out both the new fur and existing fur from the stitched area.

Additional repairs

Now, it was time to move onto the damaged left leg. First, I stitched up the hole at the top of the leg and then secured the leg to the body. Next, I worked on the leg itself. The dog’s teeth must have punctured the backside of the fur because there were several holes with some of the fur missing altogether. I did my best to ‘fix’ it but since some of the fur was missing, it just looked splotchy. I decided to cover it with new fur. What that meant was that I needed to dye more fur. This time, I just added the tea bag to the brewed coffee. Using the same steps as the cheek repair, I handstitched a strip of fur along the outside of the leg and a smaller piece right above it along the hip line. With both pieces in place, the fur was fluffed.

The bottom of Teddy’s paw also had a hole where the stitching had separated. Instead of trying to squeeze it shut with stitches, I sewed a patch of fur over it too.

Repairs complete

After all the new fur was in place, using a large sewing needle, I fluffed all of Teddy’s fur. He is now ready to head back home!

As you can see, the original fur on the left side of Teddy’s head is short. I figure that happened when the dog got ahold of him. So, even though the new fur is shorter, it blends in well. I think it’s also a reminder of the trauma he went through and looks as though his fur is growing back.