A FEW BRIEF FACTS ABOUT LEXIE BEFORE HER BEARMAKING DAYS.

She was an only child and spent many of her younger years traveling and living in various locations around Australia as her stepfather was employed with the Railways as a relief Station Master. To this day her favorite mode of transport is the train. Her happiest days were spent in the Northern Territory at Adelaide River, a very small town about 120 kilometres south of Darwin. The family actually lived in the Railway station and she attended a very small one teacher school where the majority of the children were aboriginal. She loved those free and happy years roaming the bush, playing with her friends and has made a series of aboriginal bears as a tribute to this special time in her life.  When the Northern Territory posting was over the family moved to Brisbane. She began attending Kelvin Grove High school where she met the love of her life, John. After finishing school he joined the Royal Australian Navy and four years later they married.  Almost exactly one year later their first son, Simon was born.  They were posted to Sydney in and then to Nowra, New South Wales. They both liked Nowra, so John transferred to the Fleet Air Arm and became an  Sea and Air  Rescue Diver. Three years passed  and their second son, Adam arrived to complete the family.

Lexie had various positions throughout her working life. For almost ten years she was employed as an Interviewer with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, traveling the East coast of New South Wales working on the Employment and Consumer Price Index surveys. She left the A.B.S. in 1990 to take up a position as a Family Liaison Officer with the Royal Australian Navy at H.M.A.S. Albatross in Nowra, a job she thoroughly enjoyed until she left to become a full time professional Bear Artist.

Lexie is an avid collector of old toys especially composition dolls and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. She has quite a large collection. She also collects old Flags mainly Australian, American and British.  In fact she loves all things antique and unusual. It was this love of collecting old things that led her to attend a local auction in her home town of Nowra in 1985. It was there she purchased a wonderful old teddy bear (The Precious). She paid fifty dollars for him and took him home to live with her childhood bear, Ted and the other toys. A few years later she decided to attend a doll and bear show, the first of it's kind in Nowra and had her first encounter with the Artist Teddy Bear. She happened to describe her auction buy to one of the artists trading at the show who informed her that she thought he might be very valuable. This is where it all began. The bear was a rare 1907 Steiff (the Precious), in excellent condition and valued at around 2,500 dollars. All bear collectors will start crying now. Lexie dearly wanted a dishwasher and decided to sell the teddy. She often says with some humour that the dishwasher is now worth one dollar and the bear is worth about 15,000 dollars.

Two weeks after selling him the regret set in, though that regret has since given way to the realisation that if she hadn't sold him, the Bears of Haworth Cottage would never have eventuated. In complete ignorance of the difficulties involved she decided to try to recreate the bear, even though she had absolutely no sewing or craft experience . She went in to the local craft shop, bought some shaggy acrylic plush fur, a Butterick pattern for a teddy bear, called her Mum for help and with all the enthusiasm of a person obsessed the first bear was born. Of course it looked nothing like the magnificent old Steiff and so the quest continued. Her husband, John kept up the encouragement , even going so far as giving her one hundred dollars for the third bear she made. His name was Jack and he was created from her first very own pattern. In fact all the Haworth Cottage teddys since have evolved from that pattern.  He also bought her a second hand sewing machine to try to speed up the process. Hand sewing large bears is an arduous and time consuming task. Lexie's workmates in the Navy were a great encouragement and this also helped to inspire her to keep going.

In November 1992 she attended her first bear show and almost sold out. Lexie says to try to cut a long story short the bearmaking fever had really taken over and sales increased after meeting Maree Millar and Carolyn Roberts from the Teddy Bear Shops in Hobart and Adelaide who began promoting and selling her work.  Soon a very well known teddy collector and bear historian, David Worland noticed her work and encouraged her to keep going with the quest for the old Steiff look. His promotion and enthusiasm was a major factor in the success of Haworth Cottage Bears. Soon the orders were taking up so much of her time a decision needed to be made. Should she leave the job she loved to take up bearmaking as a full time occupation? This was a difficult decision but with John's support she took the big step that changed the direction of her life. That was over ten years ago and the Bears of Haworth Cottage is still going strong.

Except for the short time that her son, Adam helped with the cutting out and stuffing of the bears she has worked alone, completing every stage of the teddies herself.  Lexie still prefers it that way even though this does limit the number of bears she is able to produce each year.

Lexie says it is difficult to concise almost eleven years into a couple of pages and in some ways it seems like only yesterday that it all began. She hopes to continue making her bears for many years to come as long as the demand for them is still there .

Finally she is indebted to the many collectors who have supported and encouraged her throughout her career. Without them it would not have been possible.