HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN STUFFED ANIMAL--Celina

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN STUFFED ANIMAL
Ever since I created my first mole in AP Chemistry last year, it’s like I fell in love with sewing. It fit right into my niche and as a result I went a little crazy and made 2 more moles to create a mole family. Thus, now obviously I had to continue this little passion of mine and fabricated another little sewing project: a cute little teddy bear. Designing and making your little stuffed animal is a great way to practice your sewing skills or to have some fun for a couple of hours. *side note-If you decide to keep the shape simple for that stuffed animal, you don't have to necessarily make a bear. You can follow these steps and create anything you desire! However, these are the basic instructions for making the cute bear.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• -  White and Brown fleece
  
• -  Black felt
  
• -  Paper
  
• -  Scissors
  
• -  Sewing pins and needle
  
• -  Brown, white, and black thread
  
• -  Stuffing
  
• -  Black sharpie
  
• -  Red ribbon
  
• -  Sewing needle 
  
  
  
  STEP 1: Create a template and cut out the fabric
  Decide on how large you want to make the bear and draw a simple outline of it. Lay your template on top of the fleece and secure it with sewing pins. This ensures that you will cut out an
  

accurate outline of the template. Cut out 2 pieces of white fleece for the front and back. You will also need to draw out the snout, stomach, and ear area as well. Cut out 1 piece of brown fleece for each part.
- Make sure the overall pattern is 1⁄2 inch bigger all the way around since it the fabric tends to cave in after you stitched it up. 

STEP 2: The Front
Once you have all your pieces, decide which of the 2 white fabric that’s going to be your front. Place the snout and stomach pieces in the center and the ear area close to the edge of the ears on the white fleece and secure it with sewing pins. This ensures that the fabric pieces will stay lined up correctly while you’re sewing. Before you begin sewing, thread a needle and tie a knot at the end. Start sewing a simple back and forth stitch with the brown thread. Start from the back and place your needle 1/16 inch inside the brown area and finish the stitch at the outline of the brown area. Repeat this process until you stitched up the entire part. 

STEP 3: The Face
Using your black felt, cut out 2 circles for the eyes and 1 nose.
- Optional: You can draw a template of the eyes and nose on a piece of paper or roughly
cut out the pieces just like me. 

STEP 4: The mouth
Take your eyes and nose, roughly place them where you want them to be and secure them with sewing pins. Sew using the back and forth stitch with black thread. To create the mouth, use your black sharpie, draw a rough sketch of the mouth and start sewing with a back stitch. 

STEP 5: Sew the pattern
Get your 2 pieces of white fleece with the pattern, place the front side facing the inside since we are going to flip it inside out to stuff the bear later and secure it with multiple sewing pins. Sew a simple running stitch all around the sides with white thread.

- Sometimes it takes too long to go back and forth one by one; thus, you can sew it partially back and forth multiple times and pull the string through to make the process faster. 

Step 6: Turn the stuffed animal inside out
Once you only have a few inches left, flip the animal inside out and start stuffing it.

• -  Now the raw stitching should be hidden and the front will be visible.
  
• -  If you have difficulty stuffing the animal, use the end of a wooden spoon, chopstick or a
  stick of some sort to help push the stuffing to places where it is hard to stuff like the ear, arm or leg section. 
  
  
  
  

STEP 7: Finish the bear
After you finished stuffing it, close the hole with a zig zag stitch using a white thread. - This should not take a lot of thread. 

STEP 8: Accessorize
Once the basic foundation of the bear is done, I decided to add a red ribbon to add some color and decorate the bear. At this point, feel free to use any available at home items such as a scarf, bow, marker to embellish your creation. 

Hope you had as much fun as I did making this. Enjoy!

Here is a link as a reference for all the stitches I used. https://www.mybluprint.com/article/top-10-must-know-hand-embroidery-stitches