Make a Felt Animal Plushie

I recently discovered the joys of crafting with felt. Craft felt is relatively easy to work with, and so inexpensive! My son received two amazing books from his uncle and auntie for his birthday - How Loud is a Lion? and Hidden Hippo - featuring hand-stitched felt illustrations by Clare Beaton. After reading the stories to him, I found myself flipping through the books with admiration long after he had moved on. I was so inspired by the felt jungle scenes in these books that I began to plan a felt jungle project of my own. At first I envisioned a felt board, but ultimately fell in love with the idea of a collection of plushies for play and bedtime snuggling. I found this felt penguin tutorial and used it as a guide for my own plushie.

Here's how I did it:

1.  Lots of google image searching. I searched for simple animal illustrations, stock photos, and coloring book pages with a cute, trace-able jungle animal that would translate well into a plushie. Finally, I picked this lion:

2.  A template. I could have drawn this image and blown it up on a copy machine (if the size needed to be adjusted), but my hubby is a Photoshop wiz, so I employed his help in creating a template using the image above. We traced individual shapes in the image, tweaked them to get the size I wanted, and printed them out. I then cut these shapes out.

3. Cardboard stencils. I traced the shapes onto cardboard and cut them out to create stencils for the felt.

4. Cut out felt. I used binder clips to hold the cardboard stencils in place while I cut the shapes out of craft felt sheets. Since the plushie is two-sided, I doubled up felt sheets for the mane, body, and hair tuft on the tail.

5. Attach face pieces to mane and hair tuft to tail. I selected an orange thread for the bulk of this project, and black thread for the eyes and nose. I decided to hand-stitch the whole thing for more of a handmade look. I used a running stitch for the cream-colored piece, eyes, and nose. I used a blanket stitch for everything else. I had never sewn a blanket stitch before, and I found this video very helpful in getting started. I used a running stitch to add a smile and whiskers to the lion's face. I added Poly-fil to the face before closing the stitch, using a pencil to fill out all the corners. I stitched the tail hair tuft closed and stitched it over the ends of the tail pieces (front and back), overlapping slightly.

6. Stitch and stuff the body. I stitched the body pieces closed using a blanket stitch, adding Poly-fil with a pencil before closing the stitch.

7. Attach the head to the body. I stitched the back piece of the mane to the body.

8. Stitch and stuff the head. I stitched the mane pieces closed using a blanket stitch, adding Poly-fil with a pencil before closing the stitch.

9. Enjoy!

I am pleased with how this adorable little guy turned out. He's cute and cuddly, and closely resembles my photo inspiration. I considered saving the plushie for a Christmas gift, but was too excited to wait to see how Jackson liked him. I was thrilled to see that he adores him, too.

Next, I am planning a felt plushie for my niece for Christmas, and many more in the future. I am thinking of applying the same concept to a crib mobile as well. I hope you'll take this idea and make it your own, too!

Happy crafting!