I’ve turned all but the legs the right way round here, as modelled by Mr Potatohead:

Here follows a step by step turning of one of the legs. I used haemostats to clamp onto the toe area, then I slowly roll the fur from the foot upwards over the length of the haemostats until they emerge through the stuffing hole.

Having turned the head the right way out, I stuffed it, using little balls of Bouncifil stuffing. Next was to add position eyes so I could see what my little panda would look like. Position eyes are great, they’re basically eyes on a spike rather than a look, so you can try them in different positions on your bear head without having to sew the eyes in. You can also try out different sizes to see which ones are right.

Next step is sewing the nose. As this bear is quite small, I’m using #8 perle cotton

Having sewn the nose, it’s time to shade the panda eye patches. For this I’m using a Prismacolour pencil in goldenrod, as that was the closest match to the contrast fur.

Next step is to wax the nose. I use my Melting Pot, by Ranger, to melt beeswax in it, which I then paint onto the nose with a paintbrush. To try and prevent excess wax getting onto the fur, I mask it off with magic tape. The paintbrush to use for this should not be acrylic, or it could melt, but I picked up several bristle brushes of different sizes for 99p from my local art store (and full marks to the assistant for not batting an eyelid when I explained what I needed the brushes for!)

After adding a layer of wax, I then blast it with a hairdryer to help it soak into the thread (otherwise it will just sit on the top and go all white). After several layers it won’t soak in any more.

At saturation point you then need to arm yourself with a bit of newspaper (no, I’m not kidding!) this is then used to buff the nose to a shine

Tomorrow I’ll post the last pics of the jointing, stuffing and pulled toes