I was given the task of making a label for this adorable stuffed bear for a coworker’s Christmas present to commemorate a baby’s first Christmas. I went ahead and said, how about I make it a lot harder and make a whole sweater for the bear? No one who reads my blog regularly is at all surprised, I’m sure.

The only issue was, with this particular bear, the incredibly cute Buddy Balls plushie, the bear itself “unzips” up the back and flips inside out to fold into a plush ball. Yes, this is really, really cool, but makes it so that the sweater had to be able to come off easily in order to make this feature work, so I couldn’t go with any easily obtained existing teddy bear sweater patterns.

This super-simple pattern has a very wide, boat-like neckline to allow for the sweater to be removed by tiny hands, plus close-fitting sleeves to help this particular bear’s strangely proportioned arms look more traditional.

This tiny sweater was made with the lovely, yet sadly discontinued, Naturally Merino Fine 10 ply, but any slightly-lighter-weight worsted wool or wool-blend will do.

Want to go buy a Buddy Balls plushie? Go check them out here: http://www.buddyballs.com/