LIKE any old teddy bear, these cuddly critters come with a good – if slightly morbid – tale attached.

These teddies have been carefully stitched, patched and sewn from unused clothing by Sue Dowding-Weaver.

But she only got the idea for her creation after her father David Seabourne, a former city car dealer, died in June last year.

“He had this old coat and I thought rather than leave it put away, hung up, forgotten in a wardrobe somewhere, I would do something with it.

“I searched for six months to find someone who could make a teddy bear from it.

“I thought a teddy bear would look better sat in the room, so I had something to remember my dad by.

“But try as I might, nobody could do it.

“So I decided to do it myself, as a way of remembering my dad.”

She has made another bear out of a pair of camouflage trousers, to pin her father’s Second World War army service medal and Palestine service medals on.

“Basically, I make teddy bears of dead people’s clothes (but they can be old and unused),” she said.

Mrs Dowding-Weaver, who runs Astwood Road Floral Services in Rainbow Hill, Worcester, said she put her first bear in the window as part of a floral display and thought nothing of it until customers starting asking questions.

“They thought it was a good idea and other people started asking me to make them,” she said.

She uses the clothing as the bear’s skin, then fills them with hollow fibre material – like all modern-day stuffed bears – with model eyes or buttons off the donated clothing as a substitute.

“I have a nephew and while his mother was clearing the house, she found his old Cub Scout uniform, so we made that into a bear as well,” she said.

“I’ve also made several for other people who have lost a loved one, and given me some of their clothing to use.

“I think it’s comforting to just have a very personal reminder of someone special.”