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Sally Winey is a world-renowned teddy bear artist. She has designed bears for Annette Funicello,Cascade, and Sweet Memories. Sally has been seen on Home Shopper Network, QVC and Discovery Channel.    She has written books, produced Patterns and How to Videos through out the last 25 years.  Her own line of artist bears called Winey Bears are unique, artistic creations hand-made with love in her North Carolina workshop one by one. Sally's family is involved in the bear-making process, often helping with the hand-dying of the mohair . Her immense popularity has brought attention to her outstanding work and leadership in the teddy bear field today. -Mindy
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These three bears were sally's first bears she made for her children.  their joints are made from buttons.



This is the SAM bear.  One of Sally's signature designs.  It has no joint connecting the head, Sam has a neck! This pattern has been the inspiration of many.  It originally started as a larger bear named Earl.  After many sales of the Earl bear, Sally designed the same pattern a smaller size and named it Sam.  Sam was then bought by Ty and this pattern was the inspiration of many of his other designs.

This purple synthetic was one of sally's first show bears as well as class bear.  She would cut out, machine sew, and create kits and would teach others how to make their own bears.



Sally was the first to be daring enough to take mohair and hand dye it.  Mohair must be imported from England or Germany and is quite costly.  So a normal mohair bear was extraordinary back in the beginning of the market.  Sally was revolutionary in the dying process, being daring enough to try. After getting her fingers a rainbow of colors and some odd looks at first, the colored mohair bears sold well and others joined in on the fun.



Hand-dying was an experiment that was worth its effort ans so was airbrushing. Sally was able to create many different color patterns, making neat artist bears that truly were one of a kind. And really fun to make! This pattern was known to us as the BL bear which stands for Bill Laurie. Bill Laurie was an employee at Winey Bears, he always brought something new everyday, he passed away a few years ago, but he will always be with us.