The Plush It Template. You cut on the dotted lines and sew on the solid lines. If you make your own templates using Adobe Illustrator, you can easily create an instant seam allowance line using the Object/Offset path command. I used Round and 20pt as my settings

Sewing can be as simple or as complex a procedure as you like. A really basic kind of plush is what's called a pillow doll. Much the same way as the pillow you sleep on was created, you get two pieces of fabric (in the case of a pillow, two rectangles) the same size and shape. You then pin those two pieces of fabric together so they are facing in.

This is Frocoli's design when it was sketched out on two pieces of fake fur. Note that the two pieces of fur have the furry sides facing inside and the woven backing of the fur is on the outside. This is a more advanced form of starting your design, in that he's sketched his design freehand on the fabric.

What does that mean?

This means that fabric usually has a right side and a backing. Fake furs the easiest example to use. The furry side is the right side, the side that should be facing in. So once you've cut out your two pieces of fake fur in the same shape, you put the two furry sides together so they are touching and then pin around the outside. this is because once you are finished sewing your piece, you are going to turn out the piece. In other words, turn it inside out. this will mean that the stitches you used to create the piece will be on the inside of the piece, and the viewer won't be able to see them.

Hopefully you can see here that my pins for Decomposing Dave are a few centimetres in from the edge. That's where I sewed my seam. That's a seam allowance of fabric

Seam allowance. When I, and most of the artists were sewing their pieces for the Plush It Show, we cut out two of the template shapes. As we intend to sew along the outline of the template, we leave what's called a seam allowance around the edge of our shapes when cutting it out. what this means is that you can either draw about a 1cm (or more) larger outline of the template onto the fabric and cut along this larger shape, or you cut out your shape leaving a gap between where you cut and the outline. You DO NOT cut on the outline. You need a gap or seam allowance between where you're going to sew (seam) and the edge of the fabric.

So now what? Well now you sew. There's lots of different ways to do this. The simplest way is to do it by hand, with a needle and a thread and just do a straight stitch. The reasons why this can be a useful place to start is you don't need any technology (sewing machines etc) so there's low outlay of funds for you. I also personally find that my hand stitched creations are much 'truer' to the template or drawing I created (they turn out looking much closer to the original shape). Unless you're skilled at using sewing machines, it's much harder to make all the tiny little compensations and changes you do as you hand sew with a sewing machine. But for sheer time saving and efficiency, you can't beat a sewing machine, especially when you find out just how much time you're going to need sewing a piece and how little money plush is sold for!

If you have never sewn before and need help, sewing.org seems to be a good place to look for basic instructions. It's usually something that someone in your family will know how to do, so try them! I use a very basic straight stitch, which is simply the kind of 'over and under' stitch kids are often taught when very young. Using double thread (you thread your cotton through the needle and bring both ends together and knot them = a doubling up of your thread) tends to make your pieces stronger, as does making smaller stitches. You only have to look at the tiny stitches made in commercial plush to see the more stitches equals stronger construction.

Now you have two choices, to sew completely around the whole shape, or to leave a gap. I personally like to sew around the whole piece. I find again, that the shape stays truer. the problem you will note, if you actually do this, is that you now have a shape that is sewn up completely, wrong side out, and now way to turn it inside out.

At this point I usually cut a slit in one side of the piece. This is usually where the mouth will be, or some other kind of detail. In my Gimp Bunnies, it's actually in the back of the piece, there's a little bunny tail sticking out the back of all that vinyl. That was you get a seamless finish to the piece, there's no obvious closing seams.

If you leave a gap in your seam (you stop before sewing the complete outline of the piece) then you can easily turn it inside out, you have a nice handy hole in your seam to do that. But once you've turned the piece inside out and filled it with stuffing of some sort, you'll have to close this.

The decision as to which way to go is really an aesthetic thing. Shawnimals uses his closing seams as a focus in his work

You can see the little stitches down the bottom of this little Pocket Dollop? If you use a blanket stitch to close your piece up (more about that in a minute) then you declare to all and everyone that this piece is handmade, that the artist( himself in this case), made these stitches and completed this piece. It's all part of that handmade aesthetic. To be blunt, few plush makers can rival the sophistication of what's being produced commerically, so why try? There is a charm and appeal that handmade has, that no commerical product can rival, so by using a stitch like this, you're out and proud about your handmade-ness.

Or, if you make more complicated pieces and don't want to 'clutter' the piece with an obvious seam, use a blind stitch. Off to sewing.org again if you don't know what one of those is!

So, stuffing!

Stuffing is simply the materials you use to fill your plush. Plush is in a lot of ways like a 'stuffed drawing'. You start out with flat surfaces, you attach them to each other, but it's not until you begin stuffing the piece, does it become 3-D. This can be part of the difficulties of making plush. Unlike vinyl, where you can start with wax, clay, or some other modelling material, and you're able to see the form as it develops, sewing is a little less easy to control. each time you turn a piece inside out and stuff it, you get to see if it all actually worked! Sometimes even shapes that look like they should work and are not too different from things that you've made before successfully just look bad when they're stuffed. Isn't that fun!

The types of materials you can use are varied. Poly fill, a spun polyester (i think?) filament that looks a lot like clumps of wool and can be found in most craft shops is often used. Eco fill is being touted a lot in the community, it's not available where I am, so I'm pretty ignorant about it. it you want that beanie type fill, like Beanie Babies have, you can buy small plastic beads that are used to fill toys from bear making suppliers. Some people use strips of old fabric, cotton wool. Basically it's something softish to be stuffed inside your toy.

The way you stuff toys is either a simple of difficult task, depending on your own personal prejudices. I have seen a lot of bear artists who have quite specific ways of stuffing toys, to get more subtleties out of their forms. There are even tools to help you stuff. My advice is this, stuff the piece, don't use scissors to help as they tend to pierce the fabric and play around with the fill. little fine parts of a piece, like fingers for instance, often have to be stuffed first, they will be too difficult to stuff once you've got most of the body sorted. rolling up small balls of poly fill and setting them into the fingers or whatever will often make sure they are stuffed properly. You have to also be a little careful about overstuffing a piece. lumpy toys with uneven surfaces because they have had stuffing shoved into them until bursting point isn't pretty. but you can use this technique to create form if you like. the template at the beginning of this post comes out pretty flat, the usual softly rounded surface you get with most pillow dolls. If you wad up some fill and slide it to the center of the face of the template and then stuff it quite hard, you can create a pointy nose type form in the face. Experiment, see what works for you.

Stuffing don'ts.

Don't stuff til straining point and split your seams

No lumpy toys ( I hate that!)

Don't under stuff. Floppy limbs are good if they are part of a design, but not because you didn't stuff it properly

Watch your stuffing around any sharp angles in the design. If you have arms that come out of the body on say a 45 degree angle, you'll often get some creasing in your toy around this joint. stuffing fairly hard around here will give your piece a more smooth Designer Vinyl look to it

Stuffing Advice

Some fabrics have a bit of stretch in them and are much better for making plush. they stretch with the fill and make your piece look a lot smoother and more appealing. Shawnimals and Ugly Dolls tend to use fabrics like polar fleece. It's soft, it's knitted (knits tend to take forms a lot better than woven fabrics) and has a little stretch to it. Fake fur has a bit of stretch, as do lycras, stretch vinyl etc. Too much stretch (polyester lycra is often too stretchy for plush) can totally distort and ruin your form.

Finishing off your form

As I said beforehand, you either make an obvious closing seam, like the Pocket Dollops, using a blanket stitch or an overhand stitch or you use a blind stitch to close the seam so it looks like there was no closing seam there. Or you hide your closing seams like I do, behind the mouths or whatever else you sew on top of your piece!

Well, that's the basics. But right now, you'll only have a blank shape, much like a blank Munny or Qee. What do you do now with it? Well, next post will be about how to create the character you designed on the piece using a range of strategies...