It was on a bright, crisp morning, as winter slowly faded, that our idea for Windflower Bears was born.
Out walking in our local woods, my sister and I began chatting about our families and home life. With our children growing into young adults and busy with work, college and university, we now had time to put our energies into something new and exciting, a project we had only ever dreamed about.
Over the years, we have turned our hands to numerous things, from sewing and designing costumes for school plays and dress up days to baking and icing themed birthday cakes. We have tackled all kinds of D.I.Y projects, with varying degrees of success and are both enthusiastic gardeners. However, knitting is our real passion and has been a constant thread throughout our lives.
It is this love for creating something out of a simple ball of wool, that drove us to develop the concept for our Windflower bears and the magical world in which they live.
We have created a whole world for our bears. They live in the 'Windflower wood', an ancient woodland on the edge of the 'Buttercup meadow'.
Each bear is' born' with a tiny Windflower on the back of their left ear, which, when they have learnt the way of the 'mystical woodland magic', can grant special wishes.
All our bears take their names from the flowers and trees, which grow in our ancient woods. They are individually hand designed and knitted and given a delightful outfit.
They are kind, happy, thoughtful, friendly, hard working little bears, who are taught to preserve and care for their ancient habitat - which they do with great love and passion.
We are continuing to come up with new and exciting ideas, to expand our concept In development are 'Windflower Bear Stories', which will expand our theme further.
Whilst working on our project, we have employed the skills of our children and husbands, whose input and support have been invaluable. We have learnt a lot of new skills along the way, the CE self certification of our bears was one of many we can add to our list. We have opened up a new and exciting chapter in our lives and have proved to ourselves, you are never too old to follow your dreams.