There are not many exciting activities that are interesting for both kids and their parents. And one of such pleasant pastimes is creating toys from felt with your own hands. The child will watch the process of making the craft with interest and pleasure, and then play with a warm, pleasant to the touch doll.
- What is felt
- How to Choose the Right Felt for Toys
- What else do you need for work?
- What felt toys can you make yourself?
- Educational toys for toddlers
- Mini toys
- Large felt toys
- New Year's toys
- Felt hippo
- The general principle of creating light, beautiful toys
- Step-by-step master class with a detailed description of the work
What is felt
Felt is a dense, homogeneous fabric of mechanical origin. It attracts needlewomen with great opportunities for creativity. Its structure does not have intertwined threads, so the material is classified as non-woven.
The raw material for felt is soft wool or fluff collected from goats or wild rabbits. Modern materials contain synthetics and artificial components. During production, the fibers are wetted with hot steam, then exposed to friction.
Felt has the following advantages over other fabrics:
- variety of colors;
- ease of use – easy to sew and glue;
- smooth, non-crumbling cut;
- homogeneous composition;
- antiseptic properties;
- the same view from both sides.
Please note! The disadvantage of felt is the gradual shrinkage of the material, which spoils the appearance of the finished product.
Depending on the degree of nap, there are 4 types of felt:
- suede with a pile of no more than 0.5 mm;
- short-haired – up to 1.5 mm;
- velour – up to 2.5 mm;
- long-pile – with a pile length of up to 12 mm.
How to Choose the Right Felt for Toys
Before buying felt to create a toy, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions to make the right choice of material:
- What size will the product be?
- How well should it hold its shape?
- Will the product be subject to active use?
If a needlewoman wants to sew voluminous felt toys with filler with her own hands, she needs to choose the softest and most flexible felt (suede or short-haired), since the seams will be less visible on it. Such felt slightly stretches in the right places.
If you plan to heavily stuff the finished figure, you can take not too thick semi-rigid felt. It is not too fluffy, so stitches are more visible on it and this feature can be successfully played up by choosing contrasting threads for stitching.
Hard felt is not suitable for voluminous items - when stuffed, it will form unsightly creases. But it has its purpose. From thin hard felt, using special hole punches, you can cut out small figures that are suitable for decoration.
Please note! Hard felt is great for children's creativity. Figures cut out of it can be used to create appliques.
Also, when choosing, you need to pay attention to the size of the felt and calculate how much you will need to make the toy. It is usually sold in sheets of A4 or A3 format.
What else do you need for work?
To make the toy you also need to purchase:
- office scissors;
- marking marker or tailor's chalk;
- sewing threads;
- pins;
- cardboard, sheet of paper;
- pencil;
- roller knife for cutting thick felt;
- needles with a thin and sharp end;
- textile glue or PVA;
- eyelet punch to cut round holes.
Please note! Not all the tools and materials listed above may be needed for the work. It all depends on what kind of toy you plan to make for your child.
If the felt toy is going to be voluminous, then you should definitely buy some filler. You shouldn't use various fabric scraps, cotton wool, or batting. It won't be possible to fill the product evenly with such materials: it will be uneven and heavy. In addition, a toy filled with cotton wool will be difficult to rinse after washing.
Please note! Fabric scraps used as filling may fade and stain the fabric of the product after washing.
Recommended fillings for felt toys:
- foam rubber;
- synthetic fluff;
- holofiber;
- polyethylene granulate;
- holofiber.
What felt toys can you make yourself?
Felt is the most unpretentious and easy-to-work-with material. Even a novice needlewoman can use her imagination and create something that the baby will definitely like. It does not crumble or fluff. In addition, products made from this material are much safer for children than toys made from wood or plastic.
Educational toys for toddlers
Toys help children from birth to learn about the world and develop their mental and physical abilities. Felt crafts also serve this purpose. Kids, playing with bright funny dolls, puzzles, and construction sets made of this material, learn the names of animals, distinguish colors, and learn to read and write and count.
It is not difficult to make educational toys from felt for children from one year and older. The main thing here is to show your imagination and immediately decide what the product will be focused on. Here are some interesting options that you can sew with your own hands:
| Toy | Peculiarities |
| Bright rattle flower | The petals of this rattle are of different colors and made of different fillers. During the game, the baby sorts through the petals of the toy with his fingers, developing his tactile abilities. When moving, the flower should make different sounds. |
| Homemade puzzles | Puzzles with images of toys and animals are interesting for children. Pictures for the little ones should be simple: a unicorn, a hare, an airplane, a car, a mouse. You can use Velcro to fasten the parts. |
| Educational cubes | If you make felt cubes and fill them with soft material, you won't have to worry about your baby hitting, getting hurt, or hitting someone while playing. You can sew letters on the sides, then they can be used to prepare for reading. |
| Constructor | If you make many cubes of different sizes and configurations, you will get a construction set that is suitable for boys and girls. A soft and safe construction set will allow a child to build a dog house or a princess house in a matter of minutes. |
Mini toys
For children of preschool age and older, you can make small and cute toys for role-playing games from felt. With them, children can organize entire theatrical performances at home. Unlike paper crafts, they will not tear and will serve children for a long time.
For finger theater, figurines of fairy-tale characters are made, which are put on the fingers. You can make small finger cots from fabric and sew or glue flat figurines to them.
A tabletop theater requires three-dimensional figures of characters so that they can stand. The stage and scenery can be made from felt and fabric scraps.
Large felt toys
Large felt toys are great because they are suitable for children of different ages. For little ones, they will become a new soft friend that you can take with you everywhere. With older children, you can create toys together and then play with them.
The advantage of felt crafts is that they can be made in any shape, size, and the child will not be able to put them anywhere, because they are bright and stand out against the background of other toys. Various animals, objects, and heroes of children's cartoons can be the basis for creating the product. Here everything will depend on the child's hobbies and the imagination of the parents.
New Year's toys
A popular New Year's toy made of felt is made from a pre-prepared pattern. Such a souvenir will be symbolic as a gift. In addition, the craft will become a beautiful and unusual decoration for the Christmas tree.
Please note! Felt Christmas toys are most often not made voluminous, so it is better to use semi-rigid felt to make a fake.
Here are some ideas of what kind of felt Christmas toy you can make:
- Christmas tree – can be made as a flat blank, decorated with various beads, buttons, sequins and satin ribbons;
- angel - the product is sewn with neat stitches, the body, arms and legs are filled with synthetic padding;
- garland - such decoration is easy to make from circles, squares, triangles, and other figures cut from this material;
- Christmas tree ball – you can decorate the product with appliques of small forest animals.
Felt hippo
You can also make a soft hippopotamus, an inhabitant of hot savannas. After all, a child can only see wild animals in books and on TV. Making a craft is not difficult. For this, you will need a pattern of parts, which can be easily found on the Internet, as well as semi-rigid felt that holds its shape well.
You can make not only one hippopotamus, but also other inhabitants of hot countries. Such animals from felt will appeal to both children and adults. They are cozy and bright, and you can also come up with many games with their participation.
The general principle of creating light, beautiful toys
The main principle of creating a beautiful and neat felt toy is the use of pre-prepared patterns that will be transferred to the material. Many templates can be found on the Internet. If desired, a pattern, if it is not on the Internet, can be made independently. To do this, a model of the future toy is outlined, and then each detail is transferred to thick cardboard.
In addition to the main rule, it is also important to adhere to the basic principles of working with felt during the sewing process:
- select threads for the product. They should match the fabric in color or, conversely, be contrasting against its background;
- use step-by-step instructions and a diagram to create a particular toy, which describes in detail the steps to complete it;
- The parts of the future toy should be sewn with a 2-2.2 mm seam. The parts are small, if the needlewoman sews them with a standard three-millimeter seam, they will all be angular and ribbed at the seams.
Step-by-step master class with a detailed description of the work
Instructions on how to make a felt toy will help many parents discover this fascinating activity. And for children, this hobby will open up a diverse world of soft, eco-friendly, bright toys that they can not only play with, but also develop with.
The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of toy you will be creating. Photos of felt toys, of which there are many on the Internet, will help you with this.
Please note! For the first time sewing a toy, it is better to choose an option with a small number of small parts, so as not to get confused.
Further work process will strongly depend on the selected pattern. Further we offer a master class on how to sew a toy from felt using the example of creating a volumetric penguin.
To make the toy you will need:
- semi-rigid felt 5 colors: blue, yellow, white, black and pink;
- office scissors;
- synthetic padding;
- pins;
- pencil;
- thin needles with a sharp end;
- threads to match the fabric;
- template with pattern;
- a sheet of white paper.
Please note! If desired, you can use various decorations, such as grosgrain ribbon, beads, buttons to decorate the finished toy.
The master class on cutting and sewing a volumetric penguin consists of the following steps:
- Print out the pattern or place a sheet of white paper on your computer screen and lightly trace the image with a pencil.
- Redraw the template onto a sheet of white paper.
- Separately draw and cut out each pattern piece on paper. First the entire penguin, then the chest, cheeks, nose, paws.
- Then apply the whole pattern to the felt and pin it, and cut it out carefully.
- Repeat the same thing again with a whole pattern, since the toy requires 2 identical parts.
- Attach the pattern of the middle to one whole cut out part, secure with pins and trace the outline with soap or chalk.
- Cut out the middle from white felt, leaving small gaps.
- Now attach the white center to the blue part. Sew along the edge of the cut.
- Mark the place for the eyes and embroider them with black thread.
- Sew on the beak, filled with synthetic padding, and cheeks.
- Now put the two parts of the penguin base together and sew all around the penguin except the bottom.
- Stuff the penguin with padding polyester through the unsewn hole, stuff it tightly so that there are no voids, but not too tightly.
- Cut out 4 paws and sew them together, stuff with padding polyester and sew to the penguin.
Finally, you can decorate the toy with materials at hand.
Homemade toys made of colored felt can be very different. It is not at all difficult to make them with your own hands together with your child. The process of creating such crafts can be very interesting and exciting, especially if you prepare all the patterns and necessary materials in advance.
