Heirloom Bear

This is one of the most special project that I've ever worked on and I'm so glad that I did it. I made this for my cousin's first grandchild and here's the story of this little bear.
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This quilt was made for my cousin, Debra, when she was born in 1957. It was made by her Grandmother Eva Mason Young. It was about 33' x 45". Three years after she was born, her mother gave the quilt to my mother for it to be my baby quilt. It's been in our family ever since and I've had it at least 20 years. I hoped one day that I would be able to give it to one of Debra's sons for a new baby. That time has arrived and I pulled the quilt out expecting to simply put a new binding on it. After inspecting it, I realized that it was not sturdy enough to be used as a baby blanket and I eventually happened on the idea to make a stuffed teddy bear from it.
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I selected Simplicity pattern #S9360 and I made a test bear out of Ultrasuede. Ultrasuede wasn't a great idea but making a test bear surely was. I figured out several things that needed to be done differently on the real bear. Here I'm laying out the pieces just to make sure they all fit. I wanted to preserve one block to bind as a little quilt for the bear.
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This is the block I chose to be the little quilt for the bear. I pinned a square of fabric over it to make sure that I didn't cut into it.
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Here are all of the piece cut out. I didn't toss out the leftovers because I wanted to put some of them inside the bear. There's one pretty large piece in the belly in case the bear needs repairs in the future. 
Hopefully, I will not be the one to do any repairs.
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Every seam is stitched twice for extra strenght and I pulled batting from the seam areas where I could to reduce the bulk.
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This is the body turned inside out just before attaching the head. The opening is so small that I had to hand stitch the head in place before sewing the neck seam by machine. Pins would get caught in the needle bar thread guides making the sewing process very frustrating. In this case hand sewing was faster.
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Here are photos of all 4 sides. The pattern matchups on the back were totally by chance. I made sure his tail was white so it didn't look like he was pooping pastel poo. The ribbon is one that I had in my stash and it worked perfectly.
​The only new fabrics are the turquoise nose and the binding on the little quilt.

When you look close, there are areas that look dirty. I did wash the quilt before cutting it and it cleaned up dramatically. But at 66 years old, it's not going to be pristine.

I even made a zipper cloth bag for storage, hopefully to discourage storing in plastic.

Making stuffed animals is not my strong suit but I'm glad I took on this special project so that the new baby can have something from his/her Great-Great Grandmother.