The Best Dressed Bears story began in 2014 when my young daughter was gifted a sewing machine. She took to sewing quickly and before long we started designing outfits for her Build a Bear® and Bear Factory® teddies using her old, outgrown clothes for fabric. Her bears’ wardrobe grew rapidly and so did her passion for sewing and soon our house was covered with scraps of fabric, bits of thread, recycled ribbon and buttons cut off her school uniform!

At the same time as my daughter’s Build a Bear’s® wardrobe was expanding, we were becoming increasingly aware of the huge impact that the production of new textiles and the disposal of old fabric has on our environment. And so we had an idea – wouldn’t it be wonderful if, instead of throwing away clothes that are unsuitable for gifting on, we could help people to upcycle them into fabulous new outfits for their teddy bears and reduce our environmental ‘pawprint’ in the process? And so Best Dressed Bears Sewing Patterns for Teddy Bear Clothes was born.

We hope that you, your children, your teddy bears and our planet will love our designs as much as we have enjoyed creating them and we ‘beary’ much look forward to seeing your ‘Best Dressed Bears!’