This bear was born in the autumn of 2022. I wanted to make a cuddly, easy to knit bear with some leftover yarn with a bit of a ‘scruffy’ look to it, like it was already loved by someone for a while.

The bear is knitted in the round with the Magic Loop method on one long circular or on two circular needles. We start at the legs and build the bear up from there. The arms and nose are knitted separately and are sewn on. The ears are sculpted with a thread and a darning needle. The eyes are sewn on by using (mis) matching buttons.

You can knit this bear with any yarn, as long as you use a needle size smaller than is recommended for that yarn. This will make the ‘fabric’ that you are knitting strong enough to hold the filling that is needed.

IMPORTANT: IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS BEAR FOR A SMALL CHILD, I WOULD STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO NOT USE BUTTONS FOR THE EYES BUT TO SEW EYES WITH EMBROIDERY THREAD OR YARN INSTEAD.

Materials
For the legs, body, head and arms, you will need about 50 grams of yarn of your choosing. You can use any yarn you have. You can use pure wool, wool combined with alpaca (or any other fiber) or 100% acrylic or a combination of acrylic and wool. Use any color that sparks your joy. Why not use red, blue or purple? It really doesn’t matter. The bear will look cute anyway. You can combine two or more threads to get an interesting marled effect. This will make a bigger bear.
For the nose you will need a small amount of light cream colored yarn or any other nose color yarn of your choice.

Ravelry forced me to fill in an estimate yardage and gauge. I had to fill in some numbers but this all depends on the yarn you use and your gauge. The mentioned gauge is obtained by knitting with multiple threads of yarn on 6 mm. needle.

Needles
One size smaller than you would normally use for your chosen yarn to make a compact but still squishy knitted fabric.

Difficulty
I would say this is a pattern for an advanced beginner. If you know how to knit, purl, increase, decrease, knit with Magic Loop in the round, cast on with Judy’s Magic Cast On, knit garter stitch and stockinette stitch in the round and know how to close a project with the Kitchener stitch, you are good to go. If you are unfamiliar with the methods mentioned, I would strongly recommend searching for it on YouTube. There are wonderful tutorials on there. YouTube is your best friend!

Size
That depends on the yarn of your choosing, needle size and your gauge.

Notions
A stitch marker.
Two (mis) matching buttons.
Darning needle.
Scissors.
Wool or synthetic stuffing or scraps of yarn.
A poking tool to stuff the legs and the body. I use the rear round end of a wooden cooking spoon.

If you choose to make embroidered eyes.
Embroidery needle and black and white embroidery thread or yarn.