There it's sitting, the growling teddy bear, and is peeping slily from behind a bow garnished parcel, at its side the candy decorated fancy-cake, the wooden ring with the birthday candles, and a lot of further small parcels. The child celebrating its birthday discovers it at once and clasps it passionately in its arms. It presses the face into the soft pelt, is caressing belly and paws, is tugging at the necklet. After having said firmly sounding "I like you", the child is tucking the plush bear under its arm and both continue inspecting the table of presents. While parents and grandparents are watching them, mother remembers how she was rather wavering shops, between the different sizes and shades, and how finally she has decided for this specimen. Wasn't it so that just that teddy looked fully to her eyes? Well, in whatever manner, the decision apparently has been the right one. It's true that she had to pay a tidy sum, but the name of CLEMENS-SPIELTIERE is vouching for quality, that mother is remembering still from her own childhood. Certainly, the appearance of the plush animals has changed and their interior isn't longer composed of wood-wool as that was the case with the playmates of one generation before. How actually they are making teddies today, perhaps at the production line?

Now the child celebrating its birthday is bending forward and blowing out the seven candles. Teddy looks over the child's shoulders and twinkles at the mother. "Later I will tell it to you!"

My name ist Teddy and I'm coming from the house of CLEMENS SPIELTIERE. Unlike my brothers having the same name, I am having a honey-coloured pelt. We are available also in brown, white, green and in the sizes of 10 to 90 centimeters. CLEMENS SPIELTIERE is manufacturing a lot of different bear models, e.g. the "Nostalgia Teddy Bear", the "Growling Bear", the "Panda", the "Baby-Bear" or "Cotton Bear". Above all in comparison to the traditional bears, we baby bears are among the particularly soft petting and necking bears. We are said to smile in an inimitable way giving to us the "certain something". Well, I also will hope so! We baby bears are having our self-confidence and also a pride which for certain men is resulting from a title of nobility, but for us plush animals from the origin from a house of worldwide reputation and producing teddy bears since more than seventy years.

At the begin of any plush animal there is the idea and the design on paper. A lot of critical considerations are made before sewing the first reference samples (That means the conversion from the drawing to plush) and before finally giving the animals to the production line.

For us teddies they have chosen a machine washable woven plush. Thus moist and tacky proofs of love are free of consequences. And also the marks of the last common drinking of cocoa may be extinguished. It's a matter-of-course that our pelt is hardly inflammable.

Similar to a complecatedly tailored dress, we also are composed of a lot of cuttings: two paw soles, two interoir parts of paws, two arms etc. If your are examining us thoroughly, you will find it out: each of us has been composed of twenty pieces of plush. In the case of pile lengthes of more than eight millimeters the individual pieces have to be cut manually. Before that the pattern is transferred to long webs of fabric by manually applied silk screen printing. Since our plush is of relatively short piles, the pieces by exception can be punched.

Respectively separated from each other, the parts for the head, the arms, the legs and the body are sewed together from the reverse side. A seamstress at Clemens'has been trained for a period of up to six months and then she's able to sew five or six animals. "Old hands" reach a repertoire of X different animals.

The manufacture of a plush animal is differing considerably from other toys. If e.g. for dolls the copper moulds for head, body, arms and legs have been designed satisfactorily, then it's possible to produce any quantity of individual vinyl parts which subsequently have to be assembled, painted, haired and dressed. Every doll leaving the quality control of the vinyl department is identical with its sisters and is corresponding exactly to the designer's ideas. If at sewing of a plush animal one of the mohair or woven plush pieces is getting only a little bit out of place, and if the seam line is diverging diminutively, then the teddy has got two differently long arms or a too deeply set ear. The same applies to the insertion of the eyes, the application of the smile and the stuffing. Stuffing is an essential step, the bear might turn out too lean or too roly-poly. You see, how much working discipline and how many quality controls are necessary to get every individual plush animal exactly like the reference sample.

Now a seamstress isn't rattling nothing else than seams of bears'legs or bodies all the day, but she manufactures by herself all necessary parts which subsequentliy have to be turned.

After having embroidered manually the nose, now the eyes are inserted. These so-called safety eyes made of high-grade synthetic material are fixed on the head's plush shell in a manner that no child is able to pick them out.

Up to this moment we teddies were composed only of individual, flabby pelt bags which now at the stuffing department are getting their final shape. Head, arms and legs one after the other are slipped over a tube, through which foamed plastic chips are blown in. The shell skilfully is turned to and fro and by the worker's hands a well-shaped bear's character head is formed.

At the next department head, arms and legs by means of respective fixing materials are fastened to the still flabby body which subsequently at the blowing machine is getting its sound and jolly belly. The blow-in spot then is sewn up manually.

Now we are already quite fine-looking fellows, but might be that here and there something could be still improved! First by means of a hard brush all seams are scraped out, all included piles are set up. Then - as far as necessary - we are getting an ideal figure: by help of a long needle it's possible to shift "small cushions of fat" there, where the designer originally wanted to have them. Also wrinkles may be smoothened or the facial expression may be influenced. At the painting department we are getting the typical bear's make-up. An air-brush (very fine spray nozzle) is drawing snout, eye corners and mouth part.

Then we are "decorated" by a necklet and - after having passed the final quality inspection - like a medal we are getting the well-known "Clemens triangle mark" specifying the manufacturer and the country of origin.

You see, thus teddies are coming into being.