dreml Stuffed Animal Project

For approx. the last four years, I have been working on a bear design, trying to create something really different in terms of its being easier to sew than most bear patterns are. I got something together about 2 years back, but it wsn't right and never got further. I started on it again this year, and I actually got him together and at least conceptually resolved some of the problems. However, while he was cute, soft and cuddly.......he
ddidn't look much like a bear. The things I wanted to avoid in the pattern were: any three point gussets, darts, internal joints, and having to sew the ears on afterwards. However, the one complication that I did want was adjustable arms and legs. The design that I have been trying to realize has adjustable arms and legs, without the use of internal plate joints.

I pretty much met those criteria. The only problem was... when finished, it didn't look like a bear! Ann says it looks like a giraffe... I think maybe a horse. Also, my concept for simplifying the pattern turns out to not be as easy to sew without problems as I had hoped. The parts want to walk and end up a little lopsided. All of that is the bad news. Now, for the good news.

What I did create is very nicely soft and squishable, as a Treddie creature should be... It does have a couple of sewing areas that are problems... not insurmountable ones, but enough to not make the whole thing a slam dunk, as I wanted it to be. The concepts I was using are valid, but the shape wants simplifying. So, OK, I thought, what shape would work and what would it be? Without giving away the farm (or idea), I came up with an answer! And, since all stuffed animals are technically teddy bears, I guess my creature would still qualify as a Treddybear. Being absolutely original, it would be nicely copyrightable, and I could offer the pattern to TreadleOnions, which is a nice consideration. That's the good news.

I think I can create a really fun little creature that is very easy to put together in a one day class and that would really please you all... but, I think I would like to keep what it is a surprise until I have a few to show, or even until after TOGA.

By simplifying the pattern even more than I had, I made it easier to sew, and came up with an odd little creature that I think makes a perfect dreml.

On the following pages, I will show some variations of this dreml concept. I will try to provide a little story, or background, to account for each variation. Hopefully, it will be fun and not so silly as to be stupid at least within the construct of Treadleonia!

Above you see a River dreml. This is the simplest (easiest to sew) or lowest common denominator dreml. She (it's a girl) represents a River dreml. River dremls have evolved with very flat, splayed feet for swimming. Their fur is very short, almost like velvet. This dreml has no mouth or nose yet, but will get those tonight. Actually, dremls do not have noses, but since they began associating with humans, who do, they have been rather self concious about it and many (not all) have adopted the practice of using buttons to give themselves "button noses", simply for cosmetic purposes. (Somewhere, dremls heard the expression "botton nose" as applied to humans. They don't understand the idea that in English, some words can have more than one connotation.) You will note a line across her tummy. This is the top of her pouch. dremls are marsupial. Male dremls also have a pouch, but it it on their backs. Male dremls are given to powerful urges to wander, rather like Australians going "walkabout". They use their back pouches to carry things.

Future dreml variations will deal with Mountain dremls, who have developed long (for a dreml) powerful legs and big feet, to give them endurance for trekking and balance on narrow trails. Northern dremls, from the colder climates, have long fur, rather than sleek fur. There are also Plains dremls, who have developed a furless, tough hide, rather like denim, for the hard work they do on the hot plains. Plains dremls are herders and drovers. Many generations ago, the dremls reached an agreement with the dragons... dremls would raise and herd cattle for the dragons' food, and the dragons would stop eating dremls. It seemed a good idea. Nowadays, there is some sentiment for the cattle, but whatever you do, do not try to
discuss vegetarianism with a dragon! Talk about politically incorrect!

This is my idea of the Mountain dreml. Sorry the second picture is so bad. I'll try to do better later. The big thing here is that this version has arms and feet. His feet are fairly complex, having a full inset sole. Note that the arms and legs are attached by means of buttons. I build this into the story by saying that dremls love adornment and are very proud of their shoulder and hip buttons. Even poor dremls who can't afford matching buttons will wear them anyway.

I'm very interested in your reactions to this one, as compared to the first one. I like the face OK, but I'm not sure about the legs. Tomorrow I am going to take the legs back off and do some photos with the first style feet, but with the face.

Things are definitely shaping up! Yesterday I cut and partially sewed what I will call "Mark II" dreml. I made this body more of an ovoid or egg shape. At first I was afraid I had made the head too pointed, but on seeing the finished work, I think not. I did go for pointed ears, and right now I am thinking that is a mistake. They are much harder to sew and place appropriately, and, if used, will have to be stiffened inside they flop. These may make problems for beginners. I modified the original flat feet by splaying them forward, and I like that effect very much. I also stuffed the front of them a bit. I did keep the arms, both because I like them and because they give the creature a way to hold things. The most significant change was using very fine mohair fur, a piece of Edinburgh Imports $127 a yard stuff I just happened to have lying around :^) What a difference fur makes! Though to be honest, I think the re-shaping of the body, and going back to just eyes for the "face" also helped tremendously. Anyway, without further ado. Here is hagr, an adult mountain dreml, with trekking staff. He will also get a genuine leather back pack.

These pictures should give you a good idea of hagr. The flat feet are really neat, in that I sewed them on only at the back. Thus, when you lift him up, they flop down, and if you jiggle him up and down, they look like he was swimming or kangaroo jumping.

Someone asked about the size. hagr is exactly 12" tall. Here he is pictured sitting by a sewing machine.

I struck some luck yesterday at JoAnnes. I found a bolt of quite nice fur, better than the usual fake fur but certainly not up to Edinburg standards. However, it looks very nice and was only $13.99 a wide yard. I haven't tried it yet, but I think you could get two dremls out of a yard. It's a nice brown with silverish highlights. I also found that they had the 20 mm eyes I have been using, at .79 per pair. Got a couple of bags of fluff at $2.97 a bag. So on this next one I can start to calculate a representative cost.

There are farm dremls. The males wear a kind of kilted overhaul and are likely to carry a shovel or hoe or some such. Their skin is hard from exposure to weather and smooth, like denim.

There are the plains dremls, who are cattle drovers. The males are likely to carry a stiff coiled rope or cattle whip, and also to wear large brimmed flat hats. Their skin is also hard from exposure to weather, and may resemble denim or canvas.

Male river dremls would carry a thinner pole, with a barb on the end for spearing fish. Their skin is sleek, like velvet. Male river dremls "treks" tend to long swimming explorations of rivers and coastlines.

Mountain dremls are very furry, and the males carry a trekking stick and wear a leather or canvas backpack. They mostly work in mining.

Highborn dremls don't really do any work, but are quite clever, especially about finances. Males may carry a briefcase. They are usually found sharing offices with humans. Their skin coloration is quite high-toned, like brocades.

There are many dremls who have moved into human habitations and become domestic assistants. They take on human characteristics. They may adopt button noses and yarn mouths to look more like humans. Their preferred skin tone is patchwork.

Note: females of all tribes carry a leather or canvas shoulder bag, as opposed to the back packs that males may wear.

It should be noted that genetically, there has always been a lot of intermingling among the dreml tribes, so almost any combination of physical characteristics may occur.

While any of the types of dremls may take up residence with humans, especially in winter, and may even try to be helpful at times, one should never forget that they are at heart mischievious troublemakers. Loveable, but still troublemakers. It is very important to keep them happy. An unhappy or upset dreml is not something you want to deal with. This is most especially true of mountain dremls. Inviting an adult male mountain dreml into your home is not a wise actions!

dremls in their natural habitats are omnivorous. They eat meat, fish and plants. Taken out of the wild, they subsist almost entirely on chocolate and designer seltzer water, and thrive on this diet. No one has ever seen a dreml eat chocolate, but it is well known that if you leave a chocolate bar or piece of chocolate near a sewing machine in a house with dremls, it will disappear! Biologically, this diet characteristic astounds scientists, since there is no natural chocolate or seltzer water in Treadleonia. It is surmised that in prehistoric times, cocoa trees and chemical hot springs may have existed and that the desire for these dietary items is a racial memory.

A special note about dreml culture: dremls are monogamous and mate for life. While the male dremls are a rather feckless bunch, subject to nearly uncontrollable urges to go trekking, they do work hard when home and rarely leave the family unprovided for. Raising of the young is pretty much left to the females until puberty, when the fathers will begin to oversee the training of the males. At about the human equivalent of age 15, the father will take a boy on his first long trek.

Trekking: The males all species of dremls are subject to the trekking urge. dremls usually trek in pairs, for safety. While dremls are very, very fast (sometimes so fast you can't see them move), and very strong, a lone dreml in olden times was regarded by bears and dragons as prey. However, two adult males, with their stout trekking staffs, could give a good account of themselves against either adversary. Of course, today, Treadleonian bears have become pacifists, and the dremls long ago made agreement with the dragons to supply them with food in return for their not preying on dremls. The dremls enjoy their work and don't mind supplying the few dragons who are left. In fact, there is real concern among dremls that the diminishing numbers of dragons may herald eventual extinction of that breed.

Language: The dreml language, dremlsh is very similar to human English, except that at least one vowel is left out of every word. Thus names tend to be things like hagr, edwrd, robrt, etc. Note that in dremlsh, there are no capital letters.

Well, the weekend cut into things a bit, but dreml No. 3, wilfrd, is now finished. I also went back to dreml 1 and modified him to provide more "normal" dreml feet and face.

dreml No. 1 Now named bergn

I have replaced the teddy bear feet with front splayed feet and removed the extra facial features, making him more what a "typical" dreml has come to be.

wilfrd dreml No. 3

wilfrd is made from very thick fur, which involved some sewing problems. He has very nicely splayed feet, which were inset into the body seams. This gives a nice effect, and I thought would make it easier to sew the feet on, but because of the thickness, it was terrible to sew. I am going to modify the feet further to get the same effect with easier non-inset sewing. Note wilfrd's purple eyes. I found a pair of big, kind of triangle/oval buttons and just decided to use them instead of the press in teddy bear eyes.

A group of dremls, on trek, examining the results of their day's work in the button mine.

While playing with wilfrd, I came up with the reason that dremls go on trek. Some just go for the sake of going, seeing new country. However, for others it is a way to make a living. These are the button prospectors. dremls are quite vain, and terribly proud of their shoulder buttons, often their most cherished possession. Treadleonia is very, very old, and the country "back of beyond" was once settled. Such settlements are, of course, now far underground, except for some areas of the mountains where seismic action has raised or lowered geological strata. Ancient buttons are much valued, far beyond new ones, and the prospector dremls delight in searching these remote areas for old dumps and trash middens, looking for ancient buttons.

Let's see, yesterday I bought a bunch more fabric, trying a lot of different stuff. Somebody said where are the female dremls, so obviously it was time to make one. By and large, the females can't be told from the males except by their behavior. If a dreml is carrying a baby in a front pack, it's female. If it is wearing a shoulder pouch/purse type carrier, it's female. If it is carrying a stout stick or equivalent, or wearing a backpack, it's male.

Anyway, this is a female dreml of the "highborn" persuasion. She is identifiable by the extremely ornate skin pigmentation. highborn dremls carefully arrange their marriages to enhance this characteristic. (It should be noted however that dremls in the past, and to a degree even today, take partners from other groups. Consequently, no dreml, even the highborns, is too surprised if offspring throw back to another group type.) This dreml's name is gwndln. Note that there are no vowels at all. highborns speak a pure ancient dremlsh that has no vowels and is called "hgh drmlsh". Most other dreml groups have gradually adopted some vowels over the generations, though there is always at least one missing, even in low dremlsh.

As noted previously, highborn dremls tend to find their life in finance, law and politics. The latter is particularly difficult as a result of their speaking hgh drmlsh. Their constituents usually can't understand them. In fact, most of their constituents feel the language difference is purely an affectation and that highborns can often not understand what they are saying themselves.

highborns are noted for skill in finance, and here we see gwndln guarding her fortune in old buttons

gwndln is made from a highly patterned drapery fabric remnant. I thought I would like it better than I do. Her eyes are brass buttons. I had large cloth covered navy blue bottons that showed up better, but the cloth turned out to be rotten. While the patterning didn't take as well as I like (though she is much more attractive in person than in the pictures), the drapery fabric as material was great. It was lighter but still quite substantial and sewed beautifully. I didn't even pin most of the parts. I made this one in four hours, including layout, cutting and stuffing. I think that in this kind of lighter material, you could do a much better job with the pointed ears. I am thinking that even with fur, the ears could be made of a complimentary suede or velvet, so that you could stiffen them easily and inset them much more easily than the fur. The feet on gwndln are a separate piece, stiffened with two layers of Warm & Natural cotton batting and hand sewn on after the body is stuffed. This worked out very well.

One thing learned from this one is that for drapery fabric and brocades, stick to small repetitive prints that you can match, or use solids.