softie doll tutorial

as you may recall, a couple weeks ago i stitched together this doll for elle's birthday.




they have become fast friends. elle calls her softie "frost" and totes her along just about everywhere.




want to make your own? here's a basic tutorial...

materials:
felted wool (3 colors for skin, cheeks, and hair)
variety of fabric (printed cotton wovens, corduroy, etc)
variety of colored thread
stuffing material
dried beans, optional
fusing material, such as heat n bond


1. sketch and cut out the pattern. i use heavier stock magazine/catalog pages for durability, but you may prefer tissue paper for ease of pinning.

eta: i used to have a smallish pattern here, but a couple generous readers have drafted correctly scaled patterns and generously shared them here.

the following are jpg files drawn up by the artistic hubby of lisa hanna:

leg/foot

head

face

body

hand/arm

a HUGE thank you to lisa & hubby! :)

for those who'd prefer a pdf, avani palkhiwala has created this gorgeous file for us:

Doll Pattern PDF

thank you, avani! i'm in awe of your generosity and killer pdf-making skills!


2. pin your pattern pieces on the fabric/felted wool and cut out each piece (unless you'd prefer to go this route** in step 5, as i often do). you'll also need to cut out a wool piece for the hair, as well as two cheek rounds. i like my rounds to be different sizes for a touch of whimsy, but if the type-A in you brandishes a heavy stick at the thought of this, feel free to make yours identical.

(note: seam allowances are included, so no need to add your own unless you'd like a slightly larger doll.)

you should end up with something like this:




3. pair a hand piece with a sleeve piece; pin right sides together and sew.



open, press the seam flat, and topstitch.

the right side should look like this:



and the underside like so:




repeat with the remaining arm pieces and the leg/sock pieces.


4. pair a hood and body piece, right sides together, and sew. open, press, and topstitch. repeat with the remaining hood and body piece.




5. fuse one side of the heat n bond onto the backs of the felted wool face, cheeks, and hair pieces. **instead of cutting out the wool pieces separately (in step 2), i personally like to trace the pattern onto the heat n bond, cut out the pieces with a slight margin, fuse them on to felted wool, and then cut out the fusing and wool together.

peel off the waxed paper backing from the face, fuse to the doll's front piece, and topstitch around the perimeter. repeat with the hair and cheek rounds; topstitch decoratively as desired. (on elle's softie i hand-stitched the cheeks; on penelope--below--i machine-stitched a circular swirly.)




now you should have this:




6. pair up the arm pieces and sew right sides together. sew a second seam to reinforce the stitching. trim seam allowances and flip right-side out. repeat with the legs.

with cotton-ball size puffs, stuff the arms and legs with your stuffing material. push each piece in with a pencil firmly to the end of the appendage; if you try to stuff too many puffs at once or too large of a piece of stuffing, you'll end up with lumps.

7. baste stitch the arms and legs where you'd like them to attach on the right side of the doll's front piece. the appendages should all be sewn facing inward at this point.

8. pin front and back pieces, right-sides together, with the arms/legs sandwiched in between (the sandwiching is the tricky bit). sew together along the outer edges, leaving about a 3 inch space to turn the doll right side out. reinforce your stitching by sewing back over the seam.

9. turn the doll right side out and say hello to your almost-completed softie.



10. stuff body with small tufts of stuffing (if you want the softie to be self-sitting, you can fill the bottom fourth with dried beans or a similar weighted filling).

11. hand stitch the gap closed, and voila. meet penelope.




if you find yourself thinking after that 11 step process: hmmmn, i'd like a doll but i'd rather not have to do the actual making of it, here's a giveaway just for you.

to enter for a chance to have penelope live at your very own house, simply describe to me in the comment section below one of your favorite gifts of all time. no pressure to wax eloquent; the winner will be drawn randomly.

this drawing will close on wednesday, october 29th, so please enter promptly. grazie!