By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Jean Scott pieces together puzzles made from swatches of shirts, hats – even undershorts.
Over the last 15 years, Scott has stitched more than 600 “memory bears” for families wanting a squeezable reminder of lost loved ones.
Dressed in swatches of grandpa’s favorite flannel shirt or grandma’s delicate handkerchief, the stuffed bears stir memories of those gone.
Scott, of rural Tontogany, stitched up her first “memory bear” after a recently widowed friend called to ask if she could construct a bear using sections of his wife’s favorite clothing.
“I scratched around here and I found it,” Scott said of her 20-year-old teddy bear pattern that was missing a few pieces. A skilled seamstress, she was undeterred by the partial pattern and she created four bears for the man, making use of such items as his wife’s pajamas, blouse, jeans and a T-shirt.
“That’s the way it started,” she said.
Since then, she has been making personalized bears covered in treasured fabrics.
For example, one family wanted bears made of the beige felt of their grandpa’s pool table.
“Grandpa loved playing pool,” Scott said.
Scott is able to fashion nearly every material into some part of the bear. Bra straps have been made into suspenders. Work gloves, leather purses and billfolds have been transformed into feet.
She doesn’t mind working with really worn material. “That means they wore it more,” she said.
Some bears feature swatches of baseball uniforms, wedding dresses, old high school jackets or men’s ties. Some incorporate firefighter patches, or stitched handcuffs for law enforcement officers.
Plaids can be tricky – but not impossible – to get the patterns to match up.
“Most people don’t care, but I care,” she said.
“It’s like putting together a puzzle,” she said. “If you do it a lot, you’re bound to get better.”
Scott is able to fit up to 13 different clothing items on each bear. Some are very personalized, such as the sweatshirt with tiny burn holes from several nights by the campfire. She tries to fit in whatever a family may want – buttons, jean pockets, ball caps, undershorts, and couch blankets.
One of the more unusual requests was for a seal fur coat to be transformed into three bears. With some effort, Scott succeeded in turning the fur into bears.
She recalled a woman coming to her after her husband was killed in a farm accident.
“His wife brought me a bag of clothes and said, ‘I need bears for both my boys.'” Scott was able to incorporate the sons’ football numbers into the stuffed bears.
The bears are a comfort to those who have lost loved ones – full of memories from happier times, Scott said.
“They mean a lot to them. I’ve gotten a lot of very nice notes, and it’s always rewarding,” she said.
And Scott falls in love a bit with each bear she creates.
“It seems like the last one I do is always my favorite,” she said.
It takes Scott about one and a half days to make each bear – and at least one and a half hours just to stuff it.
“I stuff them very tight,” she said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the bears kept Scott busy.
“This kept me occupied. I’m a homebody,” she said.
Scott has a website showing some samples of her bears at memorybears4u.com.
