Here’s What I’ve Been Doing at Bear&Bean in January and February

Jan­u­ary into Feb­ru­ary has been a busy month for Bear&Bean, my stu­dio where I draw and stitch cus­tom pet por­traits and wild ani­mals. For years, I only con­cen­trat­ed on cus­tom, one-of-a-kind pieces. But in 2024, I expand­ed my offer­ings to include DIY. I was inspired by my 52 Weeks to Ms. Friz­zle project and cre­at­ed a col­lec­tion of kits and stick-and-stitch pat­terns fea­tur­ing ani­mals that you can turn into a patch (via my kits) or stitch direct­ly on cloth­ing (with my stick-and-stitch pat­terns). And, there’s more to come this year!

So, what did I work on in January and early February? Here’s a little studio check-in!

If you want to see what I’m work­ing on now, fol­low me on Insta­gram.

Embroidered pet portraits

In Decem­ber, I was a ven­dor at the win­ter Urban Craft Upris­ing show and spread the word that hey, I cre­ate pet por­traits! I received some com­mis­sions from that, which has been great. I didn’t stitch as many pet por­traits this past year because I was focused on launch­ing my kits and oth­er prod­ucts. But I love draw­ing and stitch­ing cats and dogs—and hear­ing about your pre­cious fur­ry friends—so it’s been a real joy to return to that.

52 Weeks to Ms. Frizzle

This project was orig­i­nal­ly sup­posed to be done in 2023. Two years lat­er, I’m still work­ing on it! I’ve got 29 ani­mals com­plet­ed, so I’m just about to enter Week 30. This project also fell by the way­side in the last year. I com­plet­ed four ani­mals in 2024, com­pared to 23 in 2023. I’m back in the swing of this project and it’s a pri­or­i­ty again. Folks love fol­low­ing along, and it’s been amaz­ing to con­nect with so many ani­mal lovers!

DIY

I redesigned my stick-and-stitch embroi­dery pat­terns at the end of last year. They made their debut at Urban Craft Upris­ing, and I’ve final­ly list­ed them in the Bear&Bean shop. Choose between wild ani­mals and a spe­cial aquat­ic pack.

And more!

In mid-Jan­u­ary, I taught a work­shop at Make Apothe­cary in Both­ell, WA, show­ing how to stitch my red pan­da embroi­dered patch. It was fun! I’ve got also got a cou­ple more work­shops there in April. One work­shop will teach you how to turn your pet into a stitch­able embroi­dery pat­tern. The sec­ond work­shop will show you how to stitch wild ani­mals on your clothes.

I par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first Hand­made­land this past week­end at Mag­nu­son Park Hangar. It’s a fun, giant, space to show in. I like being in markets—I like build­ing out my booth and talk­ing to peo­ple about my work. It’s also great cre­ative inspi­ra­tion for prod­ucts. I’m plan­ning on doing more mar­kets this year—I’ll share more once I have stuff on the calendar!