OLD COATS BEAR UP WOMAN RECYCLES FUR INTO CUTE TOYS.

Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Fur coats are out of style, but artist Diana Jean Hill has found a way to give them a new use and bring smiles to their owners.

Hill transforms those old coats - mink, muskrat and beaver - into teddy bears.

``I do have those people saying, how could you make real fur bears? And I say, how could you throw this little animal skin away when I can make it into something that will be loved forever?'' said Hill. ``These little bears will be here, and I will not. That's how long they are going to last. For a long time.''

Each bear takes approximately 35 hours of labor. Hill must dismantle the coat, figure out just the right way to cut out the pieces to avoid bad spots and seams and then stitch the fur together by hand with needle and thread.

``The workmanship in some of these old coats is fantastic: There are four or five layers inside. When you make it out of fur coats, you have to take what they have and make it what you need,'' explained Hill.

``I think it's great because I never know what I have to do. And at some point in time the little fur becomes its own project and designs itself. ... At some point I am no longer the artist; I am just helping this baby be born. That's how I feel about it. These are my children.''

Hill started making teddy bears seven years ago and real-fur bears four years ago. Influenced by an American Indian depiction of a medicine wheel that represents life and has a bear as one of its four animals, she started buying old fur coats at Salvation Army shops.

Then she started making bears for customers from coats that belonged to their mothers or grandmothers.

Once she made a bear from a beaver coat that had belonged to a female customer's father. Her teddy bears are usually girl bears, she said, because they come from women's coats, but this bear ended up being a boy.

``I made this bear, and it would not be a girl; it was a boy. So I said, fine, be a boy. ... So then I'm taking it over, and I thought, man, if she's expecting a girl, here's this boy, and he's got a tie on. What the heck is going on here?''

The customer's father was a blue-collar worker who wore a tie to work every day, and she loved the bear, Hill said.

Hill's patterns are customized to each piece of fur. The bears have small tummies, and most have tails, heads that swivel and jointed arms and legs. The eyes are specially made in Arizona. The bears all have names spelled out with tiny wooden beads on necklaces they wear.

She charges from $125 to $550 for the bears.

``I've always been involved in crafts - and sewing and making things and being artistic,'' said Hill. ``I also like to put music boxes in. So if ... we're making the bear out of (your grandmother's) coat, we would put her favorite song in there.''

Retired from a 20-year real-estate career in the Antelope Valley, Hill has made nearly 500 bears, including 100 fur heirloom bears. She usually sews while watching old movies on television at her home in Wrightwood, where she has lived 17 years.

She also teaches bear-making classes at the schools through Boys & Girls Club programs in the Antelope Valley, and she gives private lessons at her home. Last year she conducted a class for 25 children at Lake Los Angeles who each made and took home a bear.

Hill also taught bear-making to 25 girls in juvenile hall in Los Angeles.

``I was kind of amazed that everybody in the institution came to watch me,'' she said.

She quoted one staff member as telling her: ``You've done with these bears what we couldn't do. You've made these gang-bang girls be nice to each other and be girls for the time that you were there.''

Hill considers herself a teddy bear artist.

``The thing I like about bears is there's no absolutely correct way (to make them),'' said Hill, who has sold her bears in stores across the country. All of her bears come with a warranty. She will repair them as long as she is alive.

Hill will have her dolls on exhibit at the Antelope Valley Dolls, Bears and Miniatures show on Saturday and Sunday at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, 155 E. Ave. I. At the show visitors will be able to purchase fur, bear patterns and supplies. Visitors will also be able to sign up for her bear-making classes.

IF YOU GO

The 10th annual Antelope Valley Dolls, Bears and Miniatures show will run 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, 155 E. Ave. I, Lancaster.

Sculpted dolls, porcelain dolls, handmade cloth dolls, teddy bears, doll furniture and trains will be displayed and entered in competitions. Vendors will sell supplies.

Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for children and senior citizens. Two-day passes are $8.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in AV edition only) Diana Hill shows some of her handmade teddy bears. Each has its own name.

(2 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) no caption (Teddy bears)

(3 -- ran in AV edition only) no caption (Teddy bear)

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer