Ping a musical Panda who made his debut in The Teddy Bear Times & Friends Issue No.271
Height: 12 inches (30cm)
Joints: Unjointed sitting bear
Plush: Black and white rayon art silk plush
Stuffing:
Eyes: Original amber and black plastic safety
Nose: Newly added black wool felt
Mouth: Newly added red wool felt
Paws: black/white rayon type art silk plush
All original except for added wool felt nose and tongue.
As seen in my articles Panda-mania in the Teddy Bear Times & Friends, Issue 271, the relevant part of the article is below telling of his story on how he became adoption ready
Any questions, please ask.
It is funny how sometimes in the world of rescuing teddy orphans and nursing teddy patients back to good health you can get a cluster of similarities. This month it is Pandas, firstly I couldn’t resist an unusual sitting Panda with a waistcoat-like tummy panel with red piping and buttons and he had the added bonus of being musical. He is kapok filled with an art silk type fabric, so I’m tentatively thinking he is quite a modern looking 1950-60s bear.
Trying to research what make of bear he is, was very difficult and all I could find was another bear on the internet that had the same sun ray type eyes, which had a Gund label. It is so important to try to find out the make of bear to help with features especially if new eyes, nose and mouth are needed.
It can be quite time consuming searching when you have a mystery bear. Looking through books, perusing Google images, and by now you probably have guessed I will get easily diverted, especially if I see another poor neglected bear in need of TLC. It is not a simple task of picking up a needle and thread and setting to work. There is a certain amount of teddy bear investigation and reading the clues from the teddy bear itself, I sometimes wonder if I should get a special deerstalker hat and fancy pipe for these moments!
This bear's main problem was his bottom, the fabric was ripped and worn where the music box was housed, due to all the years of being wound up, He also had a few loose seams and had lost his nose and mouth.
Firstly, I attended to the tear caused by the music box, there were threads and stuffing wrapped around the winding mechanism, which were removed, I then placed a piece of black wool on the inside and then again on the outside of the body to help protect the delicate fabric from any future damage that may be caused when his music box was wound up - who can resist listening to a teddy bear lullaby. Before the final stitches a small top up of kapok to help stabilise his seating position.
The piece from my article about Ping
I needed inspiration with regards to his nose and mouth, all I could see was evidence of glue, a sticky residue where the nose and mouth would have been which gave me the clue that this Panda most likely had felt pieces glued into place, again the picture of the Gund bear I had found on the internet had a nose and a red felt tongue, so I took inspiration from that and now the BWB Orphanage has a rather cheeky looking musical Panda.