Felt Bunnies

I got the pattern for these bunnies from 'The Cute Book'. They are really easy to make. The instructions say to hand sew it all together but I machine stitched mine. The larger one was going to be for a toddler so I wanted it to be strong.

I photocopied the patterns from the book and then enlarged it by 200% for the small bunnies. For the larger bunny I just free-handed it bigger when I cut the pieces out. I stuck the pattern pieces onto cardboard and then cut them all out. That way I can re-use them.
Tip: I save bits of cardboard from packaging, boxes etc and put them in my sewing room to re-use for making templates.

I traced the pattern pieces on to felt and cut them out. The instructions say to glue the legs, arms and ears to the dress & head but I just pinned them. I used the small buttonhole stitch on my machine to stitch around the dress and head leaving an opening for stuffing. Then I stuffed the two pieces and buttonhole stitched the openings closed. The stuffing makes it a little difficult on the machine but if you stretch the opening out, pin it and hold it stretched while you sew the ends meet up. For the small bunnies I just sewed the head to the front of the dress. But I didn't like the look from the back.

For the larger bunny I cut the dress slightly longer at the top and slipped it into the head opening. Then I sewed it together. The head is a little floppy though so I sewed a couple of hearts onto the neck and that stabilised it a little better.

The felt I used was just cheap craft felt. I think proper felted wool would be a lot nicer, fluffier and softer if you are making them as toys. I'm going to get some real wool felt and see how that turns out. I'll have to enlarge the pattern again though as they are still too small.

Here they are ...