A Bear in the Afternoon

It's been a rather frustrating last few weeks. I was called into work more days that I liked. but as I don't work at all once the weather turns really sour I guess I shouldn't complain. But its very disruptive to planning projects.
I went hunting for fabric again today for the Blue Jay . I did find some at an outrageous price, so I bought 2 yds instead of 1. I did like it and I will probably never see it again. I'm still waiting on the piece from Kentucky.
But I WANTED TO SEW. Found a friendly bear.
Mine is based on this little appliqued piece I found on the internet.

I'm not sure I'm going to put it in a stream so I concentrated only on the bear.
I had been so pleased with my thread painting effort on the light poly I thought I'd try this fellow. He is more solid, but very straight forward.

This is a bigger hoop.
Traced and coloured...

Choosing a heavy quilting thread, first pass with a dark brown...

.

A second and third brown......

And to finish, a lighter weight thread in a pale tan and a beige. The eyes and nose black of course.



I don't have a background in mind yet, but he went together very quickly. This is certainly a lot less ponderous that cutting the parts from fabric and fusing them onto a stabilizer.

The thread work is a little thin but my thoughts are I can beef it up where necessary and add more highlights when it's place on the background.