Cherish Teddies - USA Bear FINISHED!

So every time I picked up this project to start stitching I told myself to get a progress pic . . . but it’s just so cute and easy that I just wanted to be stitching it.  So here’s a finished picture.  It was really fast and easy until I got to some of the backstitching.  It was really hard some times to tell if a line was backstitch or a grid line, especially the thicker 10x10 lines.  I eventually had to look at the finished picture on the booklet and see where my piece was different.  Once I figured that out I could match it up with the pattern and see the lines.

Cherished Teddies - USA Bear

So I'm stitching the Cherished Teddies International Bears based on the country I've been to.  I started with Japan since I was born in Okinawa.  I've now started to work on the USA bear.  Unfortunately the only other countries I've been to are Mexico and Canada so I'm going to have to start visiting other places if I want to stitch more of the bears in the booklet.

Here is what it is suppose to look like:

I'm doing it on 14ct Lt. Oatmeal (Fiddler's) Aida in 2x1, full stitches.  This is what I've got done so far (it's 2 hockey games worth of work):

Cherished Teddie - Japan FINISHED!!!

I didn't think it would be this easy to stitch up.  Even the backstitching wasn't as bad as I had fears.  I'm not saying I liked it either, but it's finally done.  Now I can wash it and store it away with all the other projects I've made for myself that I haven't framed.  I think I need to do something about that.

Cherished Teddies - Japan

I got a book called Cherished Teddies Around the World and it has a bear for a lot of different nations.  I loved it and thought I'd stitch them all.  But which one to start first?  I thought I'd do them in order of the nations I've visited.  I'd start with Japan, because I was born there.  Then the USA, because I live here.  Then Mexico, because I've visited there first.  And finally Canada, because I've visited there too.  And that's about it.  How depressing is that?

So . . .

I've decided to make it one of my "bucket list" items to visit all the places represented by these bears and then stitch up the corresponding bear to hang on my wall.  I doubt that I'll get to all of them but at least it's worth a shot.

Here's the book:

I'm doing the Japanese Bear first.  This is what it's suppose to look like:

This is how much I've got done so far (14ct Mint Aida, 2x1, full):