Soft toys are not only an attribute of childhood, but also a symbol of coziness and comfort. And if the toy is made with your own hands, then this thing is also with the soul. It is very valuable and touching. Self-made soft toys are the best gift, souvenir, as well as decorating your own home.
Toy classification
If we talk about the variety of soft toys, then it is worth considering such categories as Tilda, Teddy, Primitive Toys, Amigurumi, Pillow Toys, Portrait Toys, Attic Toys. A special chic can be considered a set for a child, consisting of an element of clothing and a soft toy made of the same fabric. Simply put: there is a girl in a polka-dot dress and carries in her hands a hare sewn from the same fabric. An interesting idea for a gift or image for a photo shoot. This direction is only gaining momentum, and the idea itself can be interpreted in different ways. If you want to make a soft toy with your own hands so that it does not look casual and corny, use this idea. Success guaranteed.
About everything a little ...
The world of tilde toys is so diverse that it will not work to describe it in a few words. Tildes are simple and cute: hares, ducks, snails, cats, horses, bees and just dolls. They are united by simplicity, natural fabrics, small sizes and fantastic appeal. A professionally made toy tilda will not leave anyone indifferent - it has a character that is reflected in every detail, in clothes, in hair and accessories.
Amigurumi - crocheted soft toys of small size (from 2 to 15 cm). All the details of such toys are carefully knitted, they are endowed with mood and personality, animated. This "jewelry" work requires special skills, patterns and colors of yarn. Amigurumi - not only humans and animals, these are bagels, muffins, sandwiches, as well as creatively “humanized” household items.
The art of a teddy toy is so multifaceted that legends can be made about it. Lovers and masters of toys in the style of "Teddy" - a separate "sect." The people in it know the secrets of choosing fur, aging and dyeing fabrics, patterns of clothing for bears of minimum size. Teddy-style is not only bears, they are foxes, hares, deer, moose, hedgehogs and other characters who sometimes look as if our great-grandmothers inherited our generation. Shabby, shabby, burnt out in the sun, with a patch on his tummy, toys are just a carefully thought-out work of the author, and not an echo of centuries past.
The first steps in the toy business
To sew a soft toy with your own hands it is not necessary to be a highly qualified specialist. If there is a desire, everything else will follow. Sewing soft toys with your own hands for beginners will not cause special difficulties if you start with simple patterns and clearly follow the instructions.
Now pillow-type toys of a primitive cut are very popular. Children like such friends, they are taken with them to the kindergarten, for a walk, to the cottage. They are easily erased, do not deform after washing, they can be used as toys-splyushki. Cozy, made from natural materials with environmentally friendly filler - these toys are ideal companions for the child. Self-made fabric soft toys can become a family heirloom, if you take the idea creatively. Many mothers sew cute cozy characters from those little things that the child wore, being completely tiny. This allows you to "perpetuate" the warmest, most tender memories that every woman keeps in her heart. There is a huge selection of patterns of soft toys. With your own hands (for beginners, this will also not be difficult), you can make a product for every taste.
A funny frog is sewn quite simply and has every right to become someone else's favorite toy.
The patchwork style horse will look bright and original.
And wonderful cat pillows, selected in the right color scheme, will decorate any interior and add coziness.
It's easier than it sounds
To sew such a primitive toy, you need a pattern, cotton fabric (chintz or calico), sealed with an adhesive lining for strength and wear resistance, threads matching the product and sewing accessories. As a filler, holofiber or sintepuh is suitable.
The pattern is transferred to the fabric, the details are cut, given the allowances for the seams. The head and carcass have several overhead elements that must be sewn before the entire part is sewn together. Having designed the eyes, noses, muzzle, grind the details of the head. We repeat the same actions with the torso of a future toy. The handles and legs are stitched separately and only after that they are connected to the body part, sometimes it is convenient to do this with buttons: neatly and creatively.
Important points for beginners
Before you figure out how to make a soft toy with your own hands, it is necessary to study the important subtleties of sewing such products.
The main principles of a successful result are as follows.
- Observe the scale of the pattern, its individual elements, try not to use the "I painted you" technique. The pattern needs to be downloaded, printed and transferred to the fabric - this is the most important stage, 50% of success depends on it.
- Remember about indents and allowances for seams, make cuts in the indicated places before unscrewing the toy.
- When sewing soft toys with your own hands, all the details should be cut out on the fabric in one direction. If this point is not observed, then during the filling process, the symmetrical parts (paws, ears) are deformed, which will definitely spoil the appearance of the product.
- Stuffing a soft toy is better with a high-quality filler, for example, syntepuh. A synthetic winterizer, when filling a toy, often creates a “cellulite” effect, especially if you work with a thin fabric.
- Small parts are easier to flash along the drawn contour, and then cut it out.
Pillow toy
Sewing such a toy is easy. You need a soft cloth, like fleece, filler and threads of the corresponding shades. The combination of gray and pink is very successful, bright and harmonious. A simple donut pattern, the upper part of which is divided for stitching the ears, will allow you to do this job quickly and effortlessly. The pattern itself consists of 4 parts of the ears, 8 parts of the legs and details of the tail, which, when finished, are sewn between the two main parts of the carcass (except for the ears). Having combined all the necessary elements, the toy is turned out and stuffed quite tightly with a filler. At the final stage, the packing hole is sewn with a blind seam, the elements of the muzzle are formed. Self-made soft toys, the photos of which are presented above, are simple to perform, beautiful and original.
As a gift or for the soul?
Probably the most important thing before starting any business is to understand what you expect in the end result, for whom or for what purpose a toy is being sewn. Sometimes what happened is globally different from what was planned to be stitched. The toy is simple, not quite perfectly tailored, but the child does not let it out of his hands, sleeps and eats only with it. And it happens the other way around: a beautiful soft toy made on the “five” remains unclaimed. This is inexplicable, but handmade toy masters say that if something is “born”, it will certainly find a master. Each doll must have its own person, because a soul lives in it.