Concerning Bearies

I have a confession to make: I have a serious obsession with miniatures. And with making miniatures. I´ve been making them for years. A big neverending work-in-progress 1/12 scale witch cottage (see picture) sits in my lounge where some "normal" decorative object could be, there´s bits of card and wood everywhere, embroidery threads organizer and little paint pots on my dining table. I have books on teddy bears, dolls´ houses and needlework by the bed. Every now and then, the cat is sporting bits of thread and mohair and fibrefill. I step on something tiny and/or sharp every other day. Only similarly crazy people know how much space miniature things take up.
 

Her Majesty the Cat and my sewing mess

I might have mentioned that I love fairy tales, mythology, fantasy books, which of course is nothing odd - love for stories seems to be pretty universal. I use my miniatures as a means of telling a story, and that´s how I came up with "bearies". At first, I just needed inhabitants for my fantasy settings. The tale of the three bears and their porridge and chairs and beds came to mind one day, and that´s how my "crazy" thing took a new turn. Making small bears to live in my cottages and roomboxes. It took a very long time - I started with bear making books and tried out some patterns, then some kits (the first one will most likely never get finished), but I wasn´t happy until many many months down the line, I started making my own patterns and designing my own bears.

Wee Witches favourite armchair by WeeLittleDelights

Now, what are bearies...?
We need to go back to stories and fairy tales. For some reason, the concept of other (or parallel) worlds is especially fascinating to us. And who´s to say they aren´t real? :) Just read this little bit:

"...There was the time when the fairy folk withdrew from our world, going further and further into the mists, so that only an occasional wanderer now can spend a night within the elf-mounds, and if they should do so, time drifts on without them, and they may come out after a single night and find that their kinsfolk are all dead and that a dozen years have gone by..."

Marion Zimmer Bradley - The Mists of Avalon, 1982

My daydreaming often ends up in fairy courts or fantasy lands. That´s where I "met" bearies, or bear fairies. They are small winged fey, very friendly to the Big Folk as they are quite curious about our ways. They are the true in-between dwellers: they build their little cottages and settle in tree hollows in the places where Faerie meets our world, and some choose to actually share our homes. I´m sure we could all use a little more magic in our lives.

TinyStar, a night bear fairy by Storybook Bears