How Can I Make Felt Animals?

 Arts and crafts are always a lot of fun, but have you ever tried making felt animals? It’s a challenge but also pretty rewarding. You can make large or small animals depending on how much time you’re willing to commit to the process. Felt animals are great for gifts or just to keep around the house. The best thing is, they’re pretty easy to make!

Method1

Preparing to Build Your Felt Animal

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   Buy some felt and stuffing. Obviously if you want to build a felt animal you’re going to need some felt. Poly-fill stuffing is most common, but you can also buy cotton or even bead if you would prefer to work with that material.Stuffing is important to give your animal some structure. You can buy both these materials at an arts and crafts store.
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   Download your pattern piece. There are many pattern pieces that you can find out on the Internet. Pattern pieces are traced onto the felt and then cut out so that you have all the component pieces of your felt animal.

   • You can also try creating your own pattern piece. If you want to make a simple animal like a snake your can use four very elongated football shaped pieces. Make sure all your football shaped pattern pieces are the same size. Measure the width of each piece at its midline to figure out how wide your snake is going to be. Take that number and multiply it by four to get the circumference of your snake. Use this information accordingly as you make the body. You'll want the length of the snake to be four times larger than the circumference of the snake. Make sure you have enough felt! That's the idea behind making pattern pieces. You can add eyes and a tongue with extra fabric.
   • Remember to leave 1/4 of an inch extra room in the pattern piece for sewing purposes.
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   Gather your scissors, stitching, and sewing supplies. If you don’t already have these supplies you can buy them at an arts and crafts store too. You can use a sewing machine if you have one available, but felt is easy to work with. You can just use a needle and thread.

Method2

Assembling Your Felt Animal

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   Cut out the pattern pieces from the felt. You’ll want to enlarge your pattern piece to the size you want your animal to be. Make sure that you allow for a 3-millimeter seam allowance. That means you need that much extra space for the animal to fit together once you stitch it.

   • For example, if you were sewing a mini dog together you would have eight pattern pieces in all. Two body pieces, two head pieces, one belly piece, one back piece, one crown piece, and one tail piece. ^[1]
   • A snake would only have the long four football shaped pieces.
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   Start stitching the corresponding pieces together. For example, if you were making the mini dog you would start by sewing the body and head pieces together. In the pattern piece layout there will be letters that correspond with where each part connects. For this little dog, you’ll be sewing the two head pieces on top of the two body pieces. ^[2]
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   Sew the two body pieces together. Now you’ll connect the two pieces. You won’t be sewing all the way around obviously. Only sew the top half of the body together as the letters indicate. For example, if you were making this little felt dog you would start to see the outline of your animal. ^[3]

   • If you made your own pattern pieces for the snake you'll just want to connect each of them to form a cylinder.
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   Add your connecting and additional pieces. For example, if you were making the little felt dog you would need to add the crown piece to the top of his head. Once the body pieces are together you can start to figure out how to fill in the gaps. The little felt dog also requires a brown speckle on his back to fill in the hole on is back.
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   Connect your belly piece. The belly piece is generally one of the last pieces to add. Using the little dog as an example, you would turn the body pieces upside down and add the belly piece to the bottom around the edge.
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   Don’t forget to leave an opening. You absolutely need this opening so that you can stuff your animal. If you forget to leave the opening you’ll have to undo your stitching or start all the way from the beginning. The little dog example has a hole already built in for stuff, but you might need to leave your own hole. ^[4]

Method3

Finishing Up

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   Turn your animal inside out. The little dog pattern piece leaves a hole in the stomach for you to turn your animal inside out, but you might need to leave your own hole if you are making a different felt animal.
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   Stuff your animal. Using the whole you left stuff your animal thoroughly with polyester fiberfill. Make sure the animal is well stuffed but not over stuffed. You want the animal to feel firm without looking like it is going to explode. Use your judgment. ^[5]
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   Add your embroidery. You can add whatever pieces you want. The little dog calls for small beads for eyes and some black string for the mouth and nose. You can add designs all over the felt if you desire though.

   • The snake embroidery would consist of little sewing on black circles of fabric or string for eyes, and a little piece of red felt for the tongue. Draw a tongue that appeals to you. Most snakes have forked tongues.
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   Stitch up your final body pieces. This would be the time to add ears, tails, or whatever else your animal might have connected to their body. The little dog will have a tail stitched to the back of his body and two ears connected on top. Remember to turn your body pieces inside out after you sew them to hide the stitching. ^[6]

   • Follow the letters on your design piece. If you aren’t sure what pieces are added where, look at which letters correspond to what pieces. For example if you are adding ears to the top of a dog there will be the same letter on the ears as on the top of the body piece. Anywhere with matching letters is supposed to be connected with stitching. ^[7]