Shirley Nelsen holds up a knitted bear that she made for her cousin on Monday morning in Chehalis. The bear is similar to the ones she makes for children at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital.
Shirley Nelsen exlpains how to knit a bear Monday morning in Chehalis.
At 97 years old, Shirley Nelsen has made quite a few knitted toys. Recently, though, she has knitted bears for patients at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. So far, she has made and given away about 70 bears.
“It’s very easy to make,” said Nelsen, as she explained the number of stitches and rows required to make the bears. “... When I get them sewed is when you start stuffing them. I have an ingenious helper to stuff the stuffing in the legs.”
Nelsen held up a wooden spoon, and demonstrated how she stuffed the bears. As she sat with bright yellow yarn on her lap, her pink nail polish darted along the half-made bear to show the stitches.
Nelsen originally began making bears for children in her church, after she found the pattern in a magazine.
“I can’t give one, without giving them all (one),” Nelsen said. “I’m hoping that this will inspire — maybe that’s the word — others that would like to do something similar, or the same thing. It makes your life a little worthwhile, at my age especially.”
The first bear Nelsen made for a Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital patient was for Noah Markstrom, a 5-year-old Centralia boy fighting cancer. Nelsen knows Noah’s great-grandmother and she has been taking bears to the hospital for Nelsen since.
Another one of Nelsen’s friends, Janet Bluhm, embroiders a face on the bears. The work takes a bit more precision than the bear’s body, and Nelsen’s hands aren’t steady enough to complete it anymore.
The two have been friends for the last 50 years, or so. Bluhm has never worked on a similar project, but offered to help after Nelsen expressed she was having difficulty with the bears’ faces.
“I told her that I could do it for her,” Bluhm said. “Some of them don’t look too good, but they’re done.”
Bluhm has also sewn for years, and said she can complete two or three bear faces in about an hour. She embroiders eyes, a nose and a mouth.
“The nose is kind of a diamond shape and then I just embroider the mouth with red,” Bluhm said. “... She just gave them to me and at first I was going to do an arrow going down for the eyes, but I didn’t like that, so I just go across.”
Nelsen hasn’t seen children receive the bears she makes, but she puts a note in the back of each bear that says “God loves you.” She has a photo of bears she has donated lined up at the hospital, with a note next to them that says children may each take one.
“The batch of bears were such a hit before, she didn’t see them passed out,” Nelsen said. “This time, they watched the children come and choose one … That means a lot to me that they were accepted.”
Nelsen said she is currently working on bear 71, but is aiming to make at least 100.
