I need to check & update the yarn quantities -- it didn’t take nearly 9 balls of yarn!

Embroidered eyes rather than safety eyes (knitted gauge is so large, the kids worked the eyes out within minutes).

Rather than knitting 12 individual 3-stitch claws for each bear (I’d rather stick a needle in my eye), I cast on 9 stitches for each paw and used it as a base from which to knit them. It was still fiddly knitting, but I think it was easier to position and sew in the end.

Ooops! I just remembered that I knit collars for each bear. The head of each bear is filled with polyfil and I couldn’t imagine that it would stay there with playing/cuddling/wrestling, so I “sewed” them closed at the neck… and knit a collar for each bear to a) distinguish one (Jun’s) from another (Gin’s) and b) hide the sewing.