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Teddy Bear Knitter Works to Take Business to the Next Level

by

mad man knittingTwo years ago, Gregory Patrick was homeless and jobless, living in the woods of south Georgia. He turned his life around, remarkably enough, by knitting teddy bears, and now he wants to go from being a man who can just survive by knitting teddy bears to an inspiring entrepreneur who can help others who have big dreams but no resources.

He set up a campaign on indiegogo to allow him to buy supplies to keep his business going and to give him time to figure out how to make his business bigger than it is right now. With eight days to go as of this writing, he’d raised $3,346 when his goal had been $1,000. That’s such a great testament to the knitting community and how we pull together to help each other (and, I imagine, how we’re all a little touched by the novelty of a redneck who knits bears for a living).

If you’re interested in helping you can click the ling above; donors get thank you gifts including a PDF copy of his book, knitting patterns and recognition on his site. Or visit his blog to learn more and check out the adorable bears.

[Photo via Mad Man Knitting.]

Looking for more Knitting patterns for Teddy Bears? Check it out here.

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Comments

  2. Thank you so much for this! This was AWFULLY kind of you and I cannot thank you enough!
    Gregory Patrick

Have you read?

Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!