#plush tips

[skyblob]

Finally. For those who asked. Here’s my Thistle plush doll pattern with some tips too. Only body and hair. So sorry it took me so long because some parts of the patterns are missing & re-created some with what I can remember, I never thought someone would ask so I didn’t keep some, that’s including most of the outfit patterns. Sizes are in cm & they’re approximate. If the pictures aren’t clear enough, click for better resolution.

Materials: minky plush fabric (body & hair), poly fiber filling (fillings).

The body is in a permanent sitting position. Anyways let’s get started:

Heads up: the head may look round but to make it that round, clean, not wrinkly all stretched n plump look, I had to squeeze in a lot of fillings, but yeah it becomes kinda solid & less squishy because of that.

Make sure you fill the bottom torso properly too, so the head that already filled with that much fillings won’t feel too heavy in comparison.

This is how I did the face, I hand embroidered it, the paper is water soluble, so I can wash it away once I’m done with the face. Mine’s simple one with eyes closed no mouth.

But if you want complete face feature here is the tutorial.

Here’s a YT vid link on how to connect the plush body parts.

More about connecting parts, here’s a YT video link of how to do invisible sewing technique also known as ladder stitch.

Now let’s move to the hair. For the bangs, I made sure they have clean edges for better performance and here’s the YT vid tutorial for that.

Let me be transparent. Pros n cons of my plush. Pros: clean stitches, very shaped, & plump-looking. Cons: head & bottom are bit solid, harder to maintain because hand wash is preferable (you have to be strong enough but still careful to properly squeeze the water out during a full body wash, with that, you also have to make sure you have stitched the parts well so it doesn’t break after being squished, this one is depending on your stitching skills, how sturdy you stitched it).

Maintenance: hand wash. Use cold water to prevent the filling from shrinking. Use mild-gentle detergent (for babies clothing), brush with sponge when hand washing. Air dry/dryer with no heat. Perfumes/softener are optional but avoid spraying too much or the fluff will get mated, ok to spray a little and brush it with clean microfiber toothbrush to help soften.

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So that’s all about my Thistle plush patterns, tips, maintenance & all information I know about it. Apologies in advance if it’s confusing & messy. I only know how to make but very little skill of explaining. Have fun experimenting. Keep in mind that this is experimental, I’m open if you want to share better techniques/easier ways including the maintenance, either in the comments or reblogs.

Here’s more of my Thistle plush progress silly documentation pics.

Thank you for being patient!

[makeshiftwings30]

Sewing Tips #10 - Paper Towel Patterning

"Paper towel patterning, where have you been all my life?" I've been asking myself while working on my current plush. I've seen people do it but never have tried it myself. But now I have and boy, am I glad I did! So here I am to try and encourage you all to join the club.

Using paper towels to pattern is great for draping clothes, hair, or any other flowy things on a plush you have in your hands. It would not be good for patterning bodies from scratch. You can easily cut it, draw on it, add extra pieces to it, etc. Paper towels will act more like fabric than normal paper would! I use Viva paper towels. They are a bit more cloth-like than most paper towels, but any should work; they just might not lay quite as nicely.

I’ll go through an example of patterning clothes to show you how it works and to provide some tips!

Pull up a reference photo of what you're making. I'm going to make this dress/ jacket ("dracket"). You will want to make any pieces under the article you're patterning first. So I've already made her shirt and pants.

What we pattern will be WITHOUT seam allowance, so pattern exactly how you want the piece to fall. I'm going to start with the front left side of her jacket. Tear off a section of towel and pin it in place.

Her jacket ends at just about the middle of the right collar, so I folded the towel and pinned it in place.

I cut a little bit of towel right above her shoulder to start a sleeve (or, lack of one in this case). Instead of cutting all the way I folded the towel to make the shape I wanted just in case I cut too far; it's easier to remove towel rather than add! After that I could just tuck the rest of it around her side to get it form fitting.

Her dracket has a V-neck, so I drew it with fabric pen. Then I cut it out.

I added the right section underneath the left one. I like that the paper towel is sheer enough that I can see how much overlap I have between the two layers, which you want since they'll be buttoned together. I followed the same process of cutting a line above her shoulder and then wrapping the towel around the back of her body.

She has a leg opening on the right side of the dracket, which I drew and then cut out. Again, err on the side of cutting less than you think you need.

The dracket also needed to be longer, so I cut a strip of towel and pinned it to the bottom to add length (not shown here, but you can see in the first image).

Next I needed to add towel to her shoulders since the first piece of towel wasn't long enough to reach. I cut pieces and added them to the towel with pins where needed.

I repeated the same process with the back. Since it's symmetrical, I didn't need to do the entire back; in fact, you likely DON'T want to do that since you can end up with an uneven pattern. I lined up the edge of the paper towel along her back exactly where the seam/ middle would be. You can just pin the other side of the towel to the front side where it overlaps. The edges of the towel don't matter for the most part (unless you've strategically placed them like I did with the back). You just want all the towel to lie flat.

Continue to pattern all your pieces and make patches of paper towel as necessary, pinning everything in place.

Once you have the whole thing draped and patterned, you need to draw the seams. For standard clothes you want a seam along the shoulders and the sides. For the back, you can lay the middle back seam along a fold of fabric to get it perfectly symmetrical instead of having a seam. I drew where the seams should be with my fabric pen directly on the paper towel. You can see that I’ve drawn over many layers of towel, ones that started on the back, front, patches of towel, etc. Again these layers don’t really matter, but you want to make sure that your layers will stick together when you cut along the seam line, so you likely will need to add some extra pins along the line you drew. You don’t want your pattern to fall apart after you cut it!

You can also add darts to your clothes if needed by folding the towel, pinning it in place, and then drawing along where the seam would be, but I didn’t need to since it’s a flowy piece.

Once you’ve drawn all your seams and pinned the towels together securely, carefully cut your pattern along the seams. Use a crappy pair of scissors that won’t cut through the fabric or plush underneath it (you should be using a crappy pair anyway, since nice scissors should be reserved only for fabric). I’m serious, be super super careful and if you feel any more resistance than you think you should, stop and make sure you’re not cutting into anything you don’t want to! If you notice your pattern coming apart, stop and pin where you need to. As you pull the pattern off your plush, you probably have pinned through the fabric beneath it so gently remove the pin and replace it.

Now you will have all your pattern pieces in paper towel form! But, this isn’t sturdy at all, especially with pins holding it together. If you’re anything like me your pattern pieces go through hell and back. Trace your pattern piece onto your REAL patterning material of choice (I just use normal printer paper). Make up for any minor rough parts/inconsistencies (you can see I corrected the rough edge around the armpit). Add seam allowance if that’s how you roll with your patterns. I use 0.25″ and just eyeball it, but you can certainly be precise with a ruler. Mark what piece they are and what side of the fabric it is as necessary.

Repeat with all your pattern pieces. For the back, you can see I just mirrored the pattern I made by folding the paper and tracing the pattern along the edge (this isn’t really necessary either, since I’m going to end up just folding it in half and placing it on the fabric that way, but whatever). Now you have a nice pattern that should fit your plush just perfectly! Hooray!

[sew-adorkable]

Free Tutorial Collection! Plush Sewing Basics eBook

Hi everyone! I’ve got a huge project to share with you all today

This is what I show most people who want to start to sew. It's very VERY helpful and easy to follow~ I highly recommend it

[ratchet-the-whambulance]

Not quite a tutorial, but I figured this might help some people out there who are interested in learning to plush. This is not a complete list, nor is it something you need to follow to a “t”, just some things I found helpful :)

So you want to make plushies: Supplies

A) I use Coats&Clark dual duty thread, but Gutermann is another great brand. Your embroidery machine will probably need embroidery specific threads, so watch what threads you use for each machine

B) Push pins help prevent slippage while sewing, Pull the pins out before feeding the fabric under the foot or your machine needle may hit one and bend/break.

C) A hand sewing needle if needed

D) Thread trimmers to trim those pesky threads!

E) Tape measure is also not really needed, but I like to know the size of my plushies when complete. Should be used if you’re sewing clothes

F) A seam ripper to undo any mistakes. I once sewed the legs of a plush on backwards, and the seam ripper saved my project ;u;

G) A brush to clean your machine. Clean the machine after every few plushies to help keep it running smoothly

H) Keep extra bobbins lying around, and make sure they are the right size for your machine. I got lucky and both of my machines use the same size

I) I use Fiskars and they are the greatest scissors ever! A solid pair of fabric scissors is well worth the extra $$

J) I use quilting needles to pin pattern pieces or kibble bits to the base plushie to help get a better visual

K) Something poke-y. I use a knitting needle to poke out any pointy/tiny pieces on my plushies when I reverse the pieces. Sometimes your stuffing will include a wooden stick, but I’ve snapped mine before and had to upgrade XD

More tips and advice under the cut!!

Fabric

Beginners: practice with felt or fleece if you can catch a sale (check Joann Fabrics or similar stores). You should sew with something cheaper until you get used to the machine and creating 3D products. Never start with minky because a mistake could cost you a lot of $$

Beginner-Intermediate (?): Fleece makes for a great middle between felt and minky. It’s relatively affordable and comes in a variety of colors. It’s a bit thicker than felt, and stretches, but it’s more durable and soft. I use this fabric a lot bc it’s readily available and Joann Fabrics is almost always having a sale on this material

Professional: While you can still create professional grade plushies with the other materials given enough skill, minky, faux furs, and suede fabrics make for a higher quality plush. These materials are also more difficult to use and the cost is higher, but, in my opinion, the end result is always worth it. Pay attention to the grain/pile of minky and faux furs, and keep some extra pins on hand bc these fabrics slip. I have to buy all of these fabrics online, so be aware that there will also be an added shipping fee. I only use minky boutique for my minky, and fabric.com for any furs. I have not personally used suede fabrics, so I can’t really recommend the best place to find them.

There are plenty of other fabrics out there to use for your plushies, and the best way to figure out what works for you is to just get out there and try it :) I’ve sewn with cotton, flannel, felt, fleece, minky, and faux furs before finding what I work best with.

Machines

I could make a whole post dedicated to all of the different machines out there, so I just included pictures of what I use above. The Brother- SE400 embroidery/sewing machine is great for beginners since it’s more affordable (think mine was just under $400?) and it’s very easy to use. It makes for a great starter machine :)

As for the sewing machine, this Bernina was used by my great grandmother for years, and it still runs smoothly for me! It’s a very old machine, but if you can ever get your hands on one I’d highly recommend it. If this is not an option, I’d put in the extra dollar for a decent sewing machine. My first one was purchased new for less than $100 (on sale), and the thing is a mess! For light sewing, it should be fine, but if you plan to sew a lot, just save up for a better machine.

General Advice

Don’t give up! Your first plush(ies) won’t be perfect. If you don’t like the plush, at least you still learned something about your machine and how to use a pattern :)

I’d start with using pre-existing patterns that you can find for free online. It’ll help you learn how to turn a 2D shape into a 3D product, and it help you get used to your machine and the materials your working with.

Check with your local fabric/craft shops to see if they offer any classes (online or in-store). Youtube is also a great resource, filled with video tutorials and advice for new artists.

Practice really does make perfect! The more you sew, the better you will become :)

[avanii]

Hi, I saw your dog plushie, and I got curious, when you say "Copic shading and detailing" what do you mean? Do you paint the fur? does it stay if you wash it? Thanks!

Hi!

I use Copic markers to paint small spots and details. Examples on the latest dog plush would be the spots on the neck and the pawpad outlines. Since these markers are alcohol-based, once dry they cannot be washed out with water. Bleeding might occur with very dark/strong colours, so I always recommend to keep the plushies dry. It stays on very well with handling, combing etc. I hope that helps! If you have any more questions about working with Copics on faux fur, I am happy to help :)

[makeshiftwings30]

Sewing Tips #2 - Sewing Angular Seams

Sewing squared or triangular seams is not super intuitive and can be very awkward. Many will use applique for pieces like this (which isn’t a bad solution by any means) but if you have other pieces that are sewn on the ‘normal’ way it can look inconsistent with the rest of your plush. I’ll demonstrate sewing together a squared piece here, but triangular pieces are similar.

First, make sure your cat is there to supervise! This is Prowler in his chair. We used to share, but then he got greedy and now he has his own chair in my sewing room.

Here are the two pieces we’re sewing together. They form the piece by the arm in the Furret plush above. Now to use some mathy terms! The hot pink piece will be the ‘concave’ piece and the light pink the ‘convex’ piece.

As you can see joining these pieces is not as easy as joining straight or even somewhat curved pieces since the bottom pieces point in opposite directions when right sides are placed together.

Start by placing one of the sides in the correct position. Usually I start with the easier piece to sew, if there is one - so I chose the bottom side with these pieces. Pin in place. If you’re getting used to this process marking your seam allowance will help show you where you need to stop sewing. You want to stop where the two seam allowances would meet - so, on the left side of the black line below.

Turn the piece over and clip the concave piece diagonally to the end of the seam you just sewed. Don’t cut the thread. This will help you maneuver the concave piece into its next position.

Now turn the convex piece so that the other side meets, right sides together. Since you clipped the corner it should line up pretty nicely. You can see the light pink corner sticking out at the bottom a bit. This is perfectly normal. Now you want to pin this entire side together. I didn’t mark all of my seam here, but I’m going to sew to the bottom of that black line. It will come extremely close to where the other seam ended.

Close up.

Here is the back of that piece after it was sewn. See how the stitches line up to form the square. Sorry for the blurry pic!

Press your seam to make it clean. I already went over this in my first tip - but it’s extra important for angular seams!

All done!

Sewing triangular seams follows the same process but will be a little more awkward because you have less room to work with.