DIY stuffed animals

I’ve got a little zoo at home lately! I sewed stuffed animals with and without rattle and show you today how it’s very easy!

Sew stuffed animals yourself – with and without rattle

Right now there is a little baby boom in our circle of friends. That’s why I recently took out the sewing machine and sewed together a small zoo from leftover fabric. The stuffed animals are very simple and you can also integrate a rattle. However, this works better with the thick animals (I don’t want to discriminate against them, but the whale is one of them) and without much fumbling. Schwubbs you’ve got a bunch of presents ready!

That’s what you need
For the animals
DIN A4 sheets for template drawing
Coloured fabric
Filling cotton wool (best washable)
fabric colour
Since I get a lot of requests for wadding and fabrics by email: I often use these * as cottonfill, the fabrics I have used are from the Tchibo program 2012 and are unfortunately not available at the moment.

For the rattles
Ü egg casings
bell or rice
Tape or adhesive tape

That’s how it’s done
First, you draw some templates. I simply painted on a DIN A4 sheet and drew a silhouette as simple as possible. The result were whale, dino, giraffe and elephant. Then cut out your templates and transfer them twice (once mirror-inverted) onto fabric. Cut out the fabric with a little seam allowance and paint eyes on the animals with the fabric pencil. Fix with the iron.

Giraffe and whale go then quite simply. Lay the fabric with the good sides on top of each other, stitch once around it, turn through a small turning opening, stuff with cotton wool and close the turning opening. If you want to install a rattle then you simply put a bell or some rice into a Ü egg cover which sticks well and give it wrapped with cotton wool into the animal. Please note only that the animals are then no longer washable.

For dinosaurs and elephants you have to make ears or prongs before you can continue. Sew them first, turn them over and iron them smooth again. I simply quilted the prongs freehand onto a folded strip of fabric. The ears are two-coloured. When folding all the layers you just have to make sure that the ears or prongs lie inside between the layers and that the ends that are to be stuck in the animal look outwards. Then you can continue as with the other animals. Make sure that you don’t stitch something in the wrong place (e.g. at the end of the tail or neck of the dinosaur).

Done!

Have fun with it… I think I’ll add hedgehogs and crocodiles to the zoo,