DIY Silly Critters

Silly Critters
© Melissa Gaggiano

    I created a doll that could be made by people who believe they can’t sew. There is no right or wrong way to make a silly critter. In fact the aim is to make each critter as unique as possible. Go ahead and change placement of facial features, cut out strange shapes to make the eyes and ears. Go wild with this one.

Materials
· Scrap fabric
· Scrap felt
· Needle & thread/sewing machine/ or craft glue
· Scissors
· Doll filler

Steps
1. Using scrap fabric, cut out two body pieces*.

2. Using scrap felt, cut out ears*, chest, eyes, pupils, mouth and bottom. Design your own mouth shape and use any eye shape you want.

3. Pin chest piece to lower half of one body piece [this will become front of the doll. Stitch the chest piece to front of body. At this point you can hand sew, use a machine or simply glue it on.

4. Sew on or glue the pupils to the eyes.

5. Consider placement of eyes and mouth to front of doll – go crazy, make it unique. Sew/glue these pieces to front of doll.

6. Now for the ears. Bring the two body pieces together – wrong sides together. Slip the two ears in between the body pieces – you choose the placement and pin into position.

7. Sew/glue along the edges of the doll, but keep the bottom open for filling.

8. Now you can stuff the doll with filling.

9. At this point you have two options. [i] Sew/glue straight along the bottom to close the silly critter. Or [ii] Pin the bottom piece into the remaining opening, lining up the edges and hand sewing the silly critter closed. This bottom that will allow the silly critter to stand upright by itself.

* You have two different body and ear options to choose from.

Small Critters pattern
© Melissa Gaggiano
Print to scale on A4 paper.