24 hours in the life of a Teddy Doctor

One of our cabinets house some special bears made by 13 Stitches.  The owner, Laura, is also the Teddy Bear Doctor who pops up cone a month for her regular Teddy Bear Hospital. Last Saturday we asked her to do a diary of 24 hours of the teddy bear doctor.....

My preparation begins the night before surgery as I pack my medical supplies into the bear-mobile and spend the rest of the night trying to remember what I've forgotten! Last month it was my cash belt and phone! 

Tomorrow is Valentines day so i'm hoping to meet lots of old loved friends for general check ups. All small surgeries (hole fixing, etc) just cost a donation to the GO4 Children's Area fund, where with the Pop-up Teddy Bear Hospitals help we plan to renovate and rejuvenate the area so children can continue to be entertained in a fun environment while their adults can eat, drink and shop (the three main pleasures in life!). I have no booked in patients, but I am expecting to meet a young man and his keepsake blanket which I will be turning into a Pyjama Bear for him over the next week. So tomorrow is essentially a drop in clinic for me and these can be both the most fun & the most nerve wrecking as I could spend the day meeting all kinds of characters (bear and other!) and sew at the speed of knots, or an absolutely quiet day where I get to sit and hand sew whatever my latest project is I've brought along with me. I have several projects on the go in the morning so am a bit torn as to what kind of a day I am hoping for! 

Saturday morning:- So my morning began with a quick nip in the drizzle with the bear mobile and set up opposite Lesley's Girls Vintage. Then I began work on an old bear in need of a nose job! I'm glad to say surgery was successful and with new eyes and a bit of a brush up all he needed was a new ribbon to give him his sparkle back. 

My blanket-to-bear customer was a very polite young chap and after a through consultation of the design process I am really looking forward to making him a very special ted for bedtime snuggles. 

One drop-in consultation I had today was with a 70+ year young mohair and wood wool bear with a lot of wear on his nose. Unfortunately old bear faces are the most prone to damage from time, usually with bodies and limbs more protected with clothing, just like this very smart sailor chap. Why not check out my Facebook page and see how he turned out!?! 

Another drop-in consultation was a very different bear, this time a modern fur fabric tiny ted who has been thoroughly loved for 20 odd years and still has a place in his owners bed. Love injuries don't hurt bears, they wear them like a badge of honour and show them off to their bear mates. However when a hole starts to develop even ted knows it's time for a little help. This plucky little chap is now booked in with me for my next surgery on March 14th as he was quite insistent on going home with his owner and not missing a night away from her. 

Also during the day I was able to rehome Gilbert, a long haired Pyjama Bear who has had many admirers but was sad not to get a new home for Christmas. He is going to a bear friendly house and I know will make many friends! 

At the end of the day I feel tired but very happy with the exchanges I've had today. One customer admitted, one booked in for next month and a week of bear making for my young customer. Tomorrow i'm finishing off a chair re-upholstery & beginning a sofa, so not too late to bed for me! But then...it is Valentine's Day!

Thanks to 13 Stitches' Laura for sharing her day in a life of a Teddy Bear Doctor, she'll be back again on 14th March.  Or if you can't wait that long pop in and see her cabinet in the market.

A Happenstance Moment

From time to time our retailers in the market will be guest blogging on here.  Today we hear from a trader who has joined... or more accurately returned, to the market- Christina from Happenstance.  Read on to hear her story, and why GO4 Market Cafe has been so good for some indie businesses in different ways.

This week marks my return to GO4 as a trader. It has been a strange year and half all in all and central to all of this has been GO4.

Back in June 2013, I set up for the first time as a pop up under the name Apple Crisp. I was unsure and rather apprehensive as to how successful my pop up would be, I had previously had very mixed success at fairs and to be entirely honest was slowly building up on line sales through Folksy. But I really needed to be more confident in my handmade wares and meet and greet the folk of Colchester.

Who knew what that first Saturday would bring in terms of adventure and learning? I met a great group of creative and supportive people who encouraged me and inspired me and before long I took Apple Crisp full time to GO4. It was a steep learning curve in terms of manning my shop and being able to keep making stock, at one point my sewing machine moved in with me and I sat in the central aisles of the church humming away!

The next stage of my adventure was moving away from the handmade, I think I lost a bit of confidence with it and felt that to be able to keep this creative dream alive I needed to digress. I gained an insight into buying and selling after a number of trips to Lincolnshire alongside another trader and the next step was inevitable...partnership!

I did away with Apple Crisp, and went headlong into this new adventure. And phew, what a time that was! Selling at Spitalfields, spending heady mornings in auctions at Diss, and a lot of time dirty cleaning and "making good" unloved furniture. We felt we outgrew the space that was GO4 and moved into a new workshop and expanded, maybe that was the error, expanding too quickly and shortly after we decided to go our separate ways.

I plunged into a bit of a depression to be honest, what was I going to do? I had invested time and money and felt rudderless. What I came away with was a need to get back to making and being creative in my studio but with a strong knowledge that I loved finding and searching for vintage bits and pieces for the home, and in a happenstance moment, I knew what I was meant to do!

I had to come back to where it all started, I needed the encouragement from those around me, and I had to combine my two passions. So if you pop by my little shop at GO4, you will find personally sourced and curated vintage items for the home alongside my handmade homeware creations, I look forward to welcoming you soon and making you part of the next step in my GO4 adventure.

Christina x

You can find Happenstance in the shared space with Hidden in the Rafters over by the font as you enter the building. You can follow the Happenstance Facebook page here or visit their Folksy shop here.  The motto above are available as mounted prints n the market.

Thanks to Christina for her sharing story, it is great to show how the indie businesses in the church are real people and have real stories behind them, and equally lovely to see how GO4 Market cafe has supported her along the way of developing her business ventures.  We will be hearing form Lesley's Girls Vintage on the next blog post.