Huevo the Chicken Stuffie: How to Make a Custom Stuffed Animal

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Want to make a perfect present for a friend? How about a handsewn stuffed animal based on something they love? A gift like this is sure to make a friend, family member, or loved one feel very special. The pattern for my stuffie was based off a cardboard chicken named huevo that my friend made as a prop for a little kid show. (See the picture!) She loved it and carried it around a lot, and since I got her for secret Santa, I decided to design and make her a version of Huevo that she can snuggle with!

I will be showing you how to make Huevo and hope to inspire you to make your own pattern.
I hope you enjoy this tutorial!
Please make sure to credit me if you use my pattern and share it in any way.

If you like this instructable, please vote for me! :)

Love,
Fuzzy Monkey

Step 1: Make Your Pattern (Or Here Is Mine)

1. Begin by finding an image of what you want to make. It could be a character from a cartoon, book, or anything you want! I used a picture of my friend with her cardboard chicken.

2. Think how you would like to go about this project... Do you want multiple parts, to make it more 3D, like an actual animal or person? Or would you like it to more closely match it to your 2D image? At first I thought I would make mine more 3D like an actual chicken, with one eye on either side of the head, but when I drew it out a bit and thought about it, I realized it made the stuffie loose the defining factor that made it Huevo. Instead, I decided to have it match the cardboard chicken as closely as it could.

3. Draw out your (preliminary) pattern. My original pattern was very close to what I ended up doing, but not the exact same thing. When you end up cutting and making your stuffie, you may have additional pieces or adjustments to make. I will include these here with my pattern.

MY PATTERN: Please look in the images to find it- the pattern is in a few scanned image files, so that was how I was able to include it.

NOTES:

The feet I did not end up doing the individual toes. I instead made a rounded line from the tops of the toes and used that. The toes would have been too thin.
I also recommend not cutting the beak in half, use the outline, but don't cut along the center line. I did, and it ended up creating more work after I changed my idea for the beak.
Cut everything, especially the body, a little larger than the pattern shows. this gives you room to sew but still have it the correct size and proportions. You don't need to do this with things like the eyes or eyebrows since you will be sewing them onto the body and they will be in proportion.
Enjoy!

Step 2: Materials

1. White Sherpa fabric-- or white felt if you don't want the fuzziness

2. Felt:

red
orange
white
dark brown
light brown
black

3. Thread:

white
red
orange
brown
black

4. needles

5. embroidery scissors or scissors to cut thread

6. optional but helpful

needle threader
pins
sewing machine if you are comfortable and would like to use one... I don't have one but I also like to hand sew.

Step 3: The Body

1. Cut out the pattern, making sure that you cut both sides on different sides of the fabric so that the fuzzy side will face on both sides. (See the pictures to make sure you are doing this correctly.)

-- Picture 4 will show this perfectly. If you lay both sides of your pattern down with the fuzzy side facing up, you will see that they face different directions. When you put them together, they will fit together well.

-- If you use sherpa as your fabric, don't bother to make the small feathery edges of the pattern, except on the tail end. These won't show up unless you are using an easier or different fabric.... So you may use these if you are using felt or other non fuzzy fabric.

2. Once you have cut out the pieces, put them together facing inside out. You will sew them this way. Leave the legs -- where the feet will be attached unsewn, (you can see this on the pattern) as well as the space between the legs, because this is where you will add the feet and the stuffing for the body, which you will add while sewing on the feet.

Step 4: The Feet

1. Cut out the pattern for the feet..... you may do the individual toes but I just rounded it off.... It was easier and still recognizable as the same chicken she made on cardboard.

2. Sew one side of the front foot onto the inside of the leg. You left this space open in the last step. sew the other side of the same foot to the already sewn on side, and sew the top to the inside of the leg.

3. Leave the heel open and stuff with a bit of stuffing, then sew it shut.

4. Now you will stuff the body with stuffing and sew the space between the legs shut.

5. The next step is to sew on one side of the other foot, then attach the other side and stuff, just as you did in steps 1-3.

6. Once you have sewn up the heel and sewn the body completely shut, you can move on.

Step 5: The Comb

1. Cut the pattern out of red felt/fabric.

2. begin to sew one side onto the top of the head. Use the pictures for reference.

3. Sew the other side on as well, leaving the edges of the 2 sides in the middle, where they will not be seen, as opposed to on the sides of the comb.

4. Begin to sew the comb shut (visible stitches like with the feet... so make 'em neat).

5. put stuffing in the comb, and push it in with a pen. (see pictures)

6. sew the comb shut, adding stuffing if or when necessary.

Step 6: The Wings

1. Cut out the general wing shape from a darker brown felt.

2. Cut the feathers from light brown felt.

3. Simply sew down the wing and stuff it

4. sew the feathers on top

5. Do the other side

The wings are incredibly simple and easy and take only 10 or 20 minutes to do!

Step 7: The Eyes, Eyebrows, and Other Bits

1. Cut out the shapes from the pattern, as well as a tiny strip for the under eye line out of dark brown, the same color as the eyebrows. You can see this on the general pattern, but I did not create an actual outline for it on the pattern... it is just a very thin curved line. You may also leave it out if you wish.

2. sew on the whites of the eyes. The difference in type of fabric will make these noticeable, but if you are using the same fabric you may need to outline them in black with a fabric marker or something.

3. sew the blacks of the eyes on , and the eyebrows (even though chickens don't have eyebrows, I wanted to make it look like the cardboard version).

4. Your chicken now has personality!

Step 8: The Beak and Gobble

1. Cut out the 2 sides of the beak... Even though I put a line between the top and bottom you may cut out the whole thing as 1 piece. Otherwise you will have to sew the 2 pieces together to make it 1.... Doable, but unnecessary.

2. Look at the main pattern/ picture of the whole chicken, and sew each side of the beak on accordingly. You will now have 2 flaps on each side of the head. One side has both eyes, one side has none. Even though this is inaccurate, this is how the cutout looked like, and the pattern tries to follow this. If you want a more accurate chicken, you should put one leg on each side and an extra part on the bottom, and each eye on one side. (No eyebrows.)

3. Cut out the top and bottom parts of the beak, and attach to the sides of the beak (sew it on.)

4. sew the top to the chicken's head.

5. Put stuffing in the beak through the space in the bottom, and sew shut.

6. Sew the top of each side of the gobble to each side of the bottom of the beak.

7. Sew the gobble mostly shut, stuff, and then sew it completely shut. See pictures to look at how I did my stitches.