Meet Star Night the Teddy Bear. She is such a fun teddy bear to knit. I haven’t knit very many toys and found the instructions for the teddy bear easy to follow. The finished bear is approximately 40 cm tall.
This is the Schachenmayr Regia Design 6369 Teddy free pattern. I used 2 balls of Regia Design Line by Arne & Carlos in Star Night Colour 3653 and a little leftover hand-dyed sock yarn in Violet for knitting the snout.
The bear would look equally beautiful knit using any of the fabulous self-patterning sock yarns.
For a child-friendly toy, the eyes and nose should be embroidered using satin stitch. As this bear is not for a child, I used two dark blue buttons for the eyes. I embroidered the nose using satin stitch and used long straight stitches for the mouth.
The only change I made to the pattern was to use SSK for the first k2 together, in the decreasing rounds of the pattern. For example Upper Body, Round 3 instead of knitting it as written “Rnd 3: *k1, k2tog, k28 sts, k2tog, k1, repeat from * 3 more times = 128 sts” I knit the round as Rnd 3: *k1, ssk, k28 sts, k2tog, k1, repeat from * 3 more times = 128 sts. I preferred the look of the shaping by doing this.
The original teddy had a much more autumnal look knit in the lovely Fall Night Colour 3655. But I wanted a more girlie-looking teddy bear. I knit a very simple garter stitch and cable scarf for the bear. In the same dark blue 4-ply sock yarn that I used for embroidering her nose and mouth.
One thing to note is that it took one 50 g ball of sock yarn to knit the legs, arms, body and half of the head. Then I joined the second ball of sock yarn to finish the head and knit the two ears. This, of course, left me with a conundrum. I still had most of a ball of Star Night left over. So I used another ball of Star Night and cast on a pair of socks.
I’m not going to try to make a matching pair of socks as the pattern repeat on this yarn is very long, so rather than being wasteful and possibly not having enough yarn for the socks, I have cast on at the start of the ball and am knitting a fraternal pair of socks. They are looking really beautiful and it won’t be long until they are finished and ready to wear.
Tuesday was a lovely sunny day, the first that has actually felt warm this spring, so I took the opportunity of taking photos outside. Of course, direct sun is a bit draining of the colours in a photo, so I set up the table in the dappled shade from our wild fuchsia in the corner of the garden near the gate. It was great spending time outside without wet rain and cold winds.
I’m sure you’ll love knitting your beautiful bears as well.
I’m really stuck on the ears! I got the rest done with minor difficulty, not the greatest pattern follower.. Then the ears came along, and i can’t seem to visualize the finished product. Why knit in the round? How do they then fit on the head? And starting with 3 stitches on 4 days was really hard for me.
Hi Jane, I’ve taken a few photos of my bears ears and will send you an email. Hopefully, they will help. Nicolette
Hello! I am knitting this bear for my nephew (who is due in July! My first!), and I’m having trouble figuring out how to start the body. I have both of the legs, and I’ve centered them. It says to start knitting on the right side of the body, but of course the end of the yarn is coming from the cast off part of the legs which is located where the middle of the body will be… Can you help me figure it out?
Sorry not to have replied to you before now, I am sure that you’ve probably worked out the issue by now. But if just in case you haven’t, once you’ve pinned the two legs together at the cast off sections, you will cut the end of the yarn leaving enough yarn to sew up the gap. Then use the yarn to the start knitting the body at what will be the right hand side. I placed a marker a couple of stitches from the start of the round so that I knew where my start of round was. I hope that helps. Congratulations on the near arrival of your nephew! I’m sure you are all very excited!
Cute Teddy Bear….I love the way you guide and your pictures. It’s really beautiful. Looking your pictures make me feel admirable. You are really handy. I want to knit a Teddy Bear like you. I think I will learn to knit tomorrow.
Thank you.
I love your Teddy. Your knitting is not only exceptional but inspirational for a novice knitter.
So far, I have just now finished the first leg.
Any chance you have pictures of the construction of each body part? I am having a difficult
time visualizing the construction.
Hi, I’m sorry I didn’t take photographs when I was knitting the Teddy. I didn’t attempt to match patterns stripes or anything like that. The Arne and Carlos sock yarn has a very long pattern repeat so that wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of wasted yarn. Basically, I knit the first and then the second leg. Then I combined the stitches from the legs to knit the body. When the body had reached the underarms, I knit both of the arms. These were combined with the front and back body stitches and the upper body was then shaped with raglan decreases to the start of the head. I found it trickiest when I reached the shaping for the snout. Finally, the ears were knit and sewn on. The arms are knit in a similar way to the legs. I hope that helps a little. Would love to see your finished teddy. If you have any other problems do contact me. Good Luck with your teddy, Nicolette
Hi Your response to me ended up in my SPAM folder. Any chance you could resend it to me. Many thanks your knitting projects are so inspirational. Socks are next on my list.
best knitting regards ~ Monica
Hi, I’m sorry I didn’t take photographs when I was knitting the Teddy. I didn’t attempt to match patterns stripes or anything like that. The Arne and Carlos sock yarn has a very long pattern repeat so that wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of wasted yarn. Basically, I knit the first and then the second leg. Then I combined the stitches from the legs to knit the body. When the body had reached the underarms, I knit both of the arms. These were combined with the front and back body stitches and the upper body was then shaped with raglan decreases to the start of the head. I found it trickiest when I reached the shaping for the snout. Finally, the ears were knit and sewn on. The arms are knit in a similar way to the legs. I hope that helps a little. Would love to see your finished teddy. If you have any other problems do contact me. Good Luck with your teddy, Nicolette
Wow, that’s incredible. I love how the flowers match the bear by color. I REALLY want one. I think that may be my 2016 project though because I am frankly not even close to as good as you! But that’s something I can certainly aspire to.
ooh.. she’s finished! And lovely 🙂 px
She was fun to knit.
Awesome Teddy Bear…you are so talented…
Blushing. I really enjoyed knitting the bear.