Sparkle Crafts

Sparkle Crafts: Plushies for Baby

This week, in the collection At Home with Martin and Sylvia, Momma’s assistant has just had a baby and the family gets ready to meet her with zeal. The story is called "Visiting the New Baby". There seems to be a lot of babies due soon in our neck of the woods, and our favorite sweet gift to make is a simple plushie. If you can do a blanket stitch, you’re most of the way there with this project.

Materials needed:

*next-to-the-skin soft felt or plushy fabric *paper and pen *scissors *embroidery thread and needle *stuffing, wool or poly

All you need is a basic shape, so no superhero drawing skills are required. I made a cat outline, about the size of my hand. It only looks like a cat in that it has pointy ears, a head, and a body, but it’s enough to get the point across. You could try any shape that would be suited to a few embellishments to dress it up and clarify its identity. I thought about a bird:

You could also try a star, a giraffe, a dinosaur… anything goes. Once you have the idea, make your pattern piece and cut out two pieces of the fabric.

With the embroidery needle and thread, we added a little cut-out nose and a big heart. Then, we embroidered some sleepy eyes and whiskers. If the toy is for a baby, use only embroidery and applique…no plastic eyes or buttons that baby could choke on! Once your front is the way you like it, you can stitch all the way around from one side to the other, leaving the bottom open.

Time for stuffing! I used some clean wool I had around, but you could also use a poly fill. Just stuff it enough to give it a pleasing plumpness. If your child does the sewing, make sure that the seams are tight and fluff can’t be pulled out.

Here you can make a choice as to whether you want to seam the bottom of the plushie as-is, for a floppy, flat-ish toy, or if you would like to add a bottom that will allow the plushie to stand up on a surface. As you can see, there is no need to be precise when cutting the bottom piece for a plushie that can stand. I just made sure the fabric piece was as wide as the plushie and cut it into a pointy sort of oval. Then, you can blanket stitch around just as you sewed up the other seams.

Happy plushing!