Hi. So I'm really interested in starting to sew plushies together and wanted to know if you could give me advice on how to design a pattern and stuff. I'm in love with your plushies and I've always wanted to make one. Your Rowlet is amazing and it made me wonder how you made the exact sizes and stuff. I really wanna make plushies for people too for Christmas and stuff
I personally recommend checking out Elements of Soft Toy Design, a series of blog posts by Abby Glassberg. It’s a fantastic guide detailing several fundamentals of plush pattern design, and if you want to go even more in depth, she also has a book titled Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction that covers a wider variety of design elements and even includes sewing patterns that coincide with each project.
Sewgoods’s Sewing Tip Tuesday tag is full of fantastic advice that I’ve learned a lot from when I was starting out and I still reference it along with the aforementioned book whenever I’m stuck trying to figure out something.
My best advice is to look at sewing patterns found online and put them to use to study how each shape looks when deconstructed and how they all go together. I can personally vouch for Choly Knight, who offers a free plush pattern when you sign up for her mailing list (and subsequent free patterns when you show her something you’ve made from one of her patterns!) and Teacup Lion, who offers a wide variety of different types of plush patterns and tutorials. Both artists include helpful sewing hints and tips along with clear instructions on how to construct them in their patterns.
Designing patterns requires a lot of trial and error (most of the time I spend on commissions is in the design phase trying to figure out shapes I’ve never made before and making sure everything is to scale), but if you have the persistence and patience to learn, you’ll be off to a good start! Good luck!
