Our workshop
Four people, one long table, forty bears at a time. Off Gloucester Road in Bristol since 2019.
Plumpkin started in 2019 with one paper pattern, a second-hand overlocker and the idea that a bear should have a name before it has a barcode. Two of us then; four now. We still cut every piece by hand, because the plush moves under a blade in ways a cutting machine does not forgive.
What they are made of
The plush and the stuffing are both recycled polyester fibre, sourced from a mill in Yorkshire. Linen and corduroy come from a supplier in Lancashire. Faces are embroidered on an old industrial machine that does one bear every four minutes and has never once put an eye in the wrong place.
Why forty
Forty is what fits on the table. A batch is cut on Monday, sewn through the week, stuffed and closed on Friday. Every bear in a batch is weighed, so it sits the way the others do, and named on the paw tag before it goes into tissue paper.
Come and see
The workshop is open Thursday to Saturday, ten until four. You can pick a bear off the shelf, have a name embroidered while you wait (twenty minutes, one coffee), and pay at the counter — there is a “pay at the workshop” option at checkout for exactly this.