#thylacinification surgery

[thylacines-toybox]

Dandelion (he/they)

A 'baby toy' thylacine made by modifying an already pretty thylacine-like tiger found on eBay in April 2025. Since he had such cute baby vibes, I sewed magnets into the mouth so he can have a dummy.

The original tiger only had a few additional stripes on the head and tail to remove, but this still took a lot of careful unpicking! The fabric itself is quite delicate and easy to rip tiny holes in.

Pile of thread fluff. You can see the embroidery did leave an imprint in the fur too. I gave these areas some washing and scrubbing to help fluff the fuzz back up.

The tail tip was originally embroidered too, but I wasn't fond of its look so ended up replacing it with a scrap of orange fabric from another thylacinification project I was also working on... happened to be very similar textured!

The face stripes left a faint imprint too. I adjusted the muzzle shape slightly by stitching down between the sides to narrow it.

I gave them two magnets in their mouth, placed at either side of the central seam as they'd work better without the extra bulk in the way. They're sewn into a pocket of thin lining fabric, stitched in place in the middle of the seam so you can't see any evidence from outside.

The dummy is just a regular baby's one with the teat cut out and replaced with magnets. I applied a big blob of hot glue first, letting it cool slightly before pressing the magnets on and peeling them off again. This makes a nice level surface to more securely superglue the magnets onto!

I can't seem to find much about the toy brand. Its label only said 'TCM, 22290 Hamburg' (and searching for TCM tiger brings up sad things.)

The tag also advised you to 'remove wood wheels before washing' which explains why there were velcro patches on their tummy! I removed those, but unfortunately there were holes left in the delicate fabric underneath. Did my best to stitch them up neatly, but there are still scars! Ah well.

[thylacines-toybox]

Borage (he/it)

An absolute little unit of a thylacine made by modifying a small sauropod dinosaur in April 2025. I knew while making this one that it'd come out as a funny little stubby guy, but tbh I underestimated its power.

Not sure of this one's brand, it seems like a cheap wee thing! It spent a while attached to a kandi necklace my friend gave me. But I saw the stripes and I had thoughts...

No in depth walkthrough, but this thylacinification surgery involved chopping off most of the neck and sewing the top bit closed as a new head, and using some of the neck stripes to make a little snout! Took a bit of messing around with pieces to look good though. The fabric is all reused but the eyes and flocked nose are all new.

A scrap of leftover orange was donated to the tip of Dandelion's tail.

[thylacines-toybox]

I've made thylacines out of quite a few different animals now! Here's all of my thylacinification surgery patients so far.

Chamomile - Senger Naturwelt fox Nettle and Patchouli - Jellycat bashful bunnies Dandelion - tiger Borage - tiny dinosaur Sylvanian families bear Bingo from Bluey...

[thylacines-toybox]

Chamomile (he/him)

Originally a Senger Naturwelt fox plush, which I modified into a thylacine! A lovely plush made with cotton fur and stuffed with wool. He was a Christmas gift from @wolfies-toys (and the mod was inspired by their custom Senger rabbit-thylacine too!)

Details of the thylacinification process below...

Here he is originally as a fox, and honestly I was tempted to keep him as is! Not everything has to be a thylacine after all... but he would make such a fine one! As lovely as his fox-form was, I don't regret the change at all (and of course, he's very happy with it too!)

The patient is ready for dinner surgery. Tonka in the background is being the anaesthesiologist.

First I dealt with his foxy tail, unpicking the white tip and setting it aside. You need to be quite careful with this cotton fabric, as it frays more than most plush materials I'm used to!

I then cut a section out along the top of his tail (not too much at once!) and ladder stitched down it to form a narrow point. Stitching along the top rather than the bottom also produced a nice slight upward curve!

Onto the ears: I unpicked them from the head, flattened them out and turned them inside out, then stitched them into a round shape instead of a point.

I had intended to use the white from the tail to replace the ear insides entirely, but the pieces weren't quite big enough. So instead I just ladder stitched them on top of the ginger, and honestly... I think it looks even nicer! Again I had to be quite careful of the fraying edges here.

Each ear also gets folded at the top and stitched in place.

The original fox had the unusual problem of a very tall forehead! I didn't think this tall shape quite suited a thylacine head, so I had to shorten it. This was actually really simple, using a very wide ladder stitch following each of the two seams over the top of the head, pulling that big dome downwards. The non-stretchy fabric actually took it very well.

Before and after of dome tallness! I did have to remove a fair bit of the wool stuffing to allow for head squishening... He's actually quite solidly stuffed in there!

Then the ears get sewn back into the head, lower down than before.

And of course, stripes! I used an alcohol based permanent marker for this which worked very well, though he was a little fumey for a few days...

And the final step... as a member of my thylacine plush collection, he needs a herb or spice themed name! I actually happened to give him that chamomile flower pendant to wear before I'd even decided to make him a thylacine, so this time it was an easy choice.

(I'd originally considered naming the fox Ripper, but instead I reused that name for someone else...)

[thylacines-toybox]

I had an extra Bingo figure so I spent today turning it into a thylacine! I painstakingly scraped off all the old painted markings, whittled down the ears, and carved a new tail (that can still rotate!) from a piece of another figure. Not perfect but I like it!

[thylacines-toybox]

So I also love thylacines and even though I live in Australia most of the plushies that i can find here are very stiff and made of scratchy fabrics. I’d seen your Jellycat thylacine ages ago and was inspired but struggled to find a bunny that was the right colour and wasn’t horribly expensive. I found this cheap (but in very used condition) Jellycat kangaroo at a thrift store and knew this was my chance.

I changed the ears, tail, changed the stuffing ratio and added weighted beans, embroidered toes on the paws and sewed on stripes made of faux fur. I even made her a tiny bandana. I think it turned out really well!

I’ve never made a plush from scratch before and I am a self-taught hand sewer so while this was a little scary is was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Thank you for the inspiration and the helpful tutorial you posted.

Oh my gosh this is a fantastic mod, nice work! The kangaroo was such a lucky find, it makes an excellent base. Looks like the face was about perfect already, and the big ears and paws and white tummy look so cute! You apparently had more patience for stripes than I did too, hehe.

Thanks for showing me, love to see some more thylacinification being done heh! (Also, so true, plush companies gotta make more soft, fluffy and cuddly thylacines, in fun styles. So many just have smooth fabric or lack of flop...)

[thylacines-toybox]

Making a bunny into a thylacine!

I’m at it again with extreme Jellycat modding! I love my bashful thylacine Patchouli so much, I wanted to have a small version too. This time I thought I’d record the process a bit more!

Plushie surgery under the cut! It’s fairly extensive, including removal and rebuilding of a whole face, so be warned! (It all turns out well in the end though!)

The first step is de-earing the bunny! They stitch these ears in quite firmly (you know how much these bunnies get swung around by the ears!) so it takes quite a lot of unpicking.

One ear gets folded inside out, stitched, trimmed, then stuffed to form a tail!

The second ear gets unpicked entirely, so I’ve just got a single layer of ear fabric. I sew this together with some white fur to make new ears.

Oh, I had to shave this fur down a little to match the shorter fur of the small size! Some extra trimming was needed after sewing pieces on too, especially on the stripes to neaten them up.

Next it’s time to rework the face, unpicking the nose and embroidered mouth, and basically opening up the front of the snout and chin a little bit. With an extra white muzzle piece added, this will help elongate the whole head.

The old eyes need to come out too! I can access the backs of them through the open snout. This plastic washer on the inside needs to be cut off to remove the eye, and the small hole that is left needs a couple stitches to close it up.

A little white fur is used for the muzzle (the shape of this piece is sorta like, a bean with a dart in the bottom…) and stitched nearly all the way around, just leaving an unsewn gap at the top where the nose will go.

A new nose made from an oval of minky, stitched around and drawn up like a little bag around a tiny ball of stuffing. Bashful Jellycats usually have a faux suede nose, but minky doesn’t look too out of place! Other Jellycats can have minky noses.

Nose and ears sewn in place, and new eyes have been fitted in a higher up position than the original eyes, emphasising the snout! (Fitted the eyes by going in through the ear holes before I sewed those in…)

On my medium bashful thylacine I sewed a little dark patch of fur on under the eyes, but I left it out here as it’s just too small and looks fine without. The medium also had a mouth embroidered, but I decided against that here too!

Now time to pattern out stripes… three is fine. Gets the idea across.

This is my least favourite part lol, it’s so tedious… sewing through fur, trying to get the stripes’ positioning and furry edges to look nice and even……. blah.

And finally, small bashful thylacine is done!! Now they just need a name and some accessories :)

[thylacines-toybox]

Jellycat Bashful Thylacine… but not really! This isn’t an official Jellycat, but a custom plush I made in April 2023 by heavily modifying a bashful golden bunny. I did my best to make it look as close to official as I could!

I would absolutely love if Jellycat produced a thylacine for real, but until then, this one will do!

Just in case you can’t believe it’s not a real Jellycat, here are a couple of WIP photos!

No walkthrough this time because it was very experimental and messy and honestly a little graphic lol.

Haven’t decided which herb or spice to name this one after yet!