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As many of us do not see or meet fur in our day to day lives, I thought it might be helpful for you to meet some of the furs that are used for the creation of Debbie's Bears. There is a large palette of vintage furs just waiting to be swirled into a bear with a bit of hardwork and lots of piskie dusk....  And yes, a bit of laughter and lanced fingers from vicious leather needles as well.
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My ultimate favorite is.... Muskrat!! What on Earth??? Muskrat, as you can see, comes in a huge variety of colours. Blue Mist Muskrat is actually the muskrat's normal colour variation. And for the animals themselves, there is a vast range of natural colour as well, with some almost black, others reddish, and still others a very light, almost white, tan. Muskrat is also easily bleached and dyed.
Here you can see various pieces of muskrat, and see the variations of colours I was referring to. On the far left is bone muskrat (a bleached variety). Then in the upper middle is red muskrat from a reddish/ivory coloured muskrat coat. On the far right upper is the blue mist muskrat. This is the fur's natural colour, which will go from a very deep chocolate colour to a lighter brown. You can easily see the natural grey undercoat.
In the bottom left you can see a sheared dark cherry muskrat. And the bottom left is a cafe au lait muskrat.
You can clearly see muskrat comes in a wide variety of colours. And all of these come from vintage coats.
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The fur itself is wonderfully downy soft and fluffy. Its very much like placing your hand in powdered sugar....which is another reason I'm thrilled to work with muskrat. It simply feels so downy soft. The hides are reasonably easy to work with, being slightly thicker than mink.
 Here is a cafe au lait muskrat coat. You can see the thickness of the hide against my thumb. You can also see how dense the fur is. Soft, soft SOFT!!
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Mink: This is the fur most people think of as soon as they see or feel a real fur coat. And with good reason, many coats are mink, and its an excellent fur. It has very thin, pliable hides, and comes in a very wide range of colours, both natural and dyed. I find the mink very easy to work with, and very soft in the hand. Because of the stiffer guard hairs, mink will feel more coarse to the touch than muskrat.
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Seal: I have created bears in the past of this gorgeous fur. For the most part seal is not an easy fur to work with. The fur itself is gloriously silky soft, but the hides are fairly thick. Its this combination that makes creating bears from seal a real challenge. The pieces basically slip and slide apart as you apply the needle. A lot of extra hand pressure is needed to keep the pieces stable for the handsewing. Gives my hand cramps just remembering!
Another trick with seal is you'll find muskrat was utilized as "Hudson Seal". No the species does not exist. What they did was dye muskrat black, flip it upside down and shave the fur short, so all you ended with is the downy undercoat. This gives a very good approximation of the real McCoy.
Almost all seal coats are easily distinguished by the large pelts, and the nap (direction of the fur) being reversed.... so the fur runs upwards, not downwards as with most coats.
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Fox: Here is another all time favorite for coats. Very very few furs can reach the depths of fox. And very few can match the paper thin hide of fox. The depth of fur coupled with the ultimately thin hide actually makes fox extremely difficult to work with. The results if you have the patience are nothing short of amazing, though. Fox has a luxurious silky feel to it. Very much like having a piece of silk run through your fingers and across the palm of your hand. |
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 Three fox pelts showing the different natural variations in colour.
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 Here you can see how incredibly dense the fur is, and how paper thin the hide is. The difficulty is massively increased as I try to handsew with this fur. I have to be very careful to keep the fur from being trapped in the seams.
And yes, it is as silky soft as it looks! 
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Raccoon: One of the few furs that can reach the depths of fox, only raccoon comes with a new twist....an extremely thick hide. Normally I can only utilize this fur for larger bears, and I've used it very successfully with my larger non jointed bears. It creates a very realistic 'bear'. The fur is coarse to the touch, and extremely dense. Raccoon can have a surprising array of colours as well, being bleached to resemble red fox, or naturally being a silvery colour, or the natural ranges that can go from a light ginger to a deep all over dark chocolate, almost black tone. |
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 Here is a scrap of natural coloured raccoon. Because the appearance is very similar to the variations in coat to a real bear, this lends itself beautifully to realistic bears.
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 Two different bleached raccoon collars. When bleached, raccoon can look very much like red fox, but it has a coarse texture instead of the silky texture.
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 Here you can see how dense the fur is, very much like fox. The hides are a lot thicker than fox.
Again this is bleached raccoon, with a gorgeously thick soft undercoat and stiff beautiful guard hairs.
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 Here is a comparison of the two furs with my hand for a reference. Fox is on the left, bleached raccoon is on the right. You can see side by side the difference in thickness of the hides, but the fur is ultra dense for both.
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These are just the bare basics of the furs being utilized in the Bear Room. I've used so many others in the past: rabbit, lynx, marmot, mouton and Persian Lamb. There are quite a lot of furs that I haven't worked with such as marten, coyote to name a couple. Its not from any personal aversion, I just haven't had the chance yet.
To me the furs are like treasure. Getting to see and feel how each one is different, how they react, and most importantly, how they come to life, creating and giving shape to the little bears. Each one is different, and each one is very much like a gem to me. I can only hope I've shared a little of that with you.
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