Beautiful hand embroidered teddy bear made by the Forward Bear Project, a women's upliftment group in South Africa. The name for the project, "The Forward Bear," is translated from the Xhosa language meaning "moving forward." The bears are made with the finest French thread and high-quality black cotton. Detailed hand-embroidery is a labour intensive process. It takes several weeks to make a tiny bear. The charm about the bears is that they comprise approximately 20 parts, each part having been made by a different woman. Each bear is completely unique and a one of a kind and therefore may not be the same as the bears in the photograph.
Founded over five years ago, in an effort to empower local craftswomen while contributing to the city's creative pulse, the Forward Bear Project started as a core group of local Cape Town women. Several years later, it has evolved to include over 30 members, from South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Central to the process of creating the bears (comprised of over 20 pieces), is a celebration of the individual. The creative process is left entirely to the embroiderers, who develop their own particular design language. The result is a beautiful collection of patterned bears embroidered with animals, people, houses, flowers and other whimsical imagery. The thread connecting all the efforts is the conviction that a skilled community can produce desirable products of enduring value.
