Well, I started and finished the Black Cat block of Lizzie Kate's Boo Club on Sunday. The poor black cat is temporarily blind, his eyes are a pair of white button, which I will add when all the blocks are finished. Each block comes with a set of black or white buttons. Unfortunately I haven't stitched anything else since. Hopefully I can start the next block, Spiders, this weekend.
Reading Karen's blog entry about rediscovering her Ziggy collection, reminded me of a collection I rediscovered myself. When I was growing up my mom collected Annette Funicello Teddy Bears for me. Annette would host shows and sell them on the shopping channel QVC. I used to love those little teddy bears growing up and always looked forward to getting a new one. As I grew up though they became a forgotten nick-knack that occupied a curio cabinet in our house. Shortly after I graduated high school we moved and they were packed away in their boxes and forgotten. Recently while going through some boxes in our garage I came across a box of these bears. It was like being a 10 year old kid all over again! Several of my favorite sets of bears have found a new home in our living room, treasured just as much as before. This is one of my all time favorite sets, called the Soda Pop collection, each is 5" mohair bear. They were sold on QVC through an auto-delivery program. You signed up and paid for the first bear and then every other month a new bear would be shipped automatically to you. After receiving so many bears, you also received the wooden soda crate to put them in. Each one is a different soda flavor, Cherry Pop Fizz (red), Orange Spritzer (orange), Cream Soda (yellow), Lime Divine (green), Grape Swizzle (purple) and Rootbear Bubbbly (brown). I remember how exciting it was when a new bear would be delivered. I even remember the time we moved and before we could change the shipping address, one of the bears had been shipped to our old house. I frantically had my parents go to our old house to pick up the package when the new owners called to say a package had been delivered there for us. They now sit in their wooden crate on top of a bookcase in the living room.
My second favorite set is called Sushi Platter, and was also purchased from QVC. Three mohair panda bears, Sushi (black), Sushimi (red) and Wasabi (green) sit on a ceramic sushi platter, that has green bamboo stalks painted on it. When I took these out the box, I also found a postcard inside, that apparently QVC had mailed to us to let us know about the upcoming show, that advertised this set on the back. They sit on top of our digital cable box in the living room now.
After I rediscovered these bears I did some research online and, sadly, found out that due to the failing health of Annete, who has MS, the collection was discontinued in 2004. As with anything "collectible" right now, they aren't worth much, not even what they sold for originally. Of course, these were never purchased to be an "investment" and I would love them just as much if I could only sell them for $5. For those that are interested in collecting though, it's the perfect time to add new pieces to your collection, even the smaller mohair bears like these that would normally retail for $30-40 can be found for $10-20 on eBay.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and thanks for sharing in a treasured childhood memory. Nick
