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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Homemade Stuffed Owl and Bunny

 I bought some felt pieces on a whim at the craft store after entertaining the idea that I might be able to make little felt stuffed animals from them. Surprisingly, it worked!

The owl, since his shape was simpler, was my first attempt. I didn't have a tutorial or a pattern, so I cut a blobby owl shape out of card stock and used that for the body. I made the wings from card stock also, but traced around the caps of an ibuprofen bottle for the whites of the eyes and free-handed the other facial pieces.















Here are the pieces laid in place without any sewing or gluing yet.


















I am not a talented seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, so I glued as much of the felt as made sense. For this stuffed animal, I only sewed the main body pieces together. All the accent pieces were glued on with god's gift to crafting, a hot glue gun.

Then he got some stuffing and here he is!


















Riding the success of my first attempt, I tried a more difficult design for the second one, which was clearly a mistake. I had to make separate ears and sew them on, as well as add a face with elements other than felt. The felt piece on the bottom of the rabbit really made me step-up my sewing skills.











 Once I sewed the sides together and turned the rabbit right-side-out, he looked more promising. Still, he lists a little to one the left, and I can just hope that that is an endearing quality, rather than shoddy workmanship. 
And I really like the rear view.

Now that I have the experience of creating two felt stuffed animals, I want to do more! The problem is that if I make more, I will HAVE more, and even though my intent was to give them away as gifts, I'm not quite sure the crooked rabbit make the cut. I fear I would end up with an army of off-kilter stuffed animals that might be unsuitable as gifts. On the other hand, maybe they shouldn't be looking a gift rabbit in the mouth. (Note: stuffed rabbit does not have a mouth.)

What animals would you like to see made?

2 comments:

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  2. Those are adorable. And I love the rabbit's skeptical head tilt.

    I want a Jabberwock.

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