The Making of Shelley Sheep

 Have you ever been inspired by a thing, and you just wanted to try and see if you could make what you thought of in your head? Well, I have had this idea in my head, just simmering away for months, every since I made my farm quilt, and those very silly goats. I also have in my stash piece of soft polar fleece that I thought just might work to fulfill that thought in my head. So this past week my friends I put pencil to paper and drew myself some pattern pieces for this funny project. I hope it inspires you to try a silly something project yourselves.

 

This is one of the silly goats that inspired me to try and make this stuffed sheep. I just wanted her three dimensional so badly, I had to try and make something like her, but with changes of course.

This is the 1/4 yard of polar fleece I had to work with. It has been in my stash for years. I can't even remember why I bought it in the first place, so it was high time it got used.

Here is the pattern I came up with, after much scribbling and correcting. Of course I am the type of artist that likes winging it, so things changed as I went along too. I wanted all the pattern pieces to fit on one piece of paper. That didn't exactly work out as you will see.

Here are the pieces all cut out. I started with the face pieces as I felt that was the best way to go. I wasn't sure about whether I had got the head and body to scale, and so was adjusting everything slightly as I went. No one told me polar fleece could be such a pain either. I wanted to sew everything by hand as it was a small project. I am so glad I did! I couldn't imagine trying to sew this on my machine!

All the layered small eye pieces I made from synthetic felt. I didn't want to use my more expensive wool felt for a first attempt project. In the end this was a good choice I think, and a nice way to use up some of my very old synthetic felt stash too. I started with the face and right away decided to change the nose. I had these different sizes of little felt balls, so went with a pink one. The black dots for the eyes are also tiny little balls stitched on, with just one little stitch of white added to give them a glint. Then, I forgot to take pictures of the pink embroidery I did for the line of its mouth, so you'll have to bear with me. I know, it's one of my faults. I get so caught up in what I am doing, I forget to stop and take pictures.

I stuffed the head after sewing the two pieces, right sides together, leaving a small space to turn it inside right. I used some old pillow stuffing from worn out bed pillows, that I had washed and dried and have stuffed in a bag in my closet. Any time I can use up some of that, I am happy. After I had stuffed her head to my liking, I held the gap together and stitched the opening closed with a hidden stitch. This my friends will give you finger cramps, upon your finger cramps. To say nothing of turning your fingers into pin cushions, but I guess one must bleed a little for ones art. lol

In picture number four you can see where I laid out the pink inner ear on top of the outer ear. I stitched the inner ear on first before putting them right sides together and sewing them as I had the head. This time however I did not want the ears stuffed so just turned them inside right and stitched the hole closed.

Then it was time to go through my button jars for a proper set of buttons. I should have done that from the start, but as I said before, I was winging it. Wouldn't you know I couldn't find enough buttons of the right size and color?! Of course I couldn't! So I decided to use some smaller purple buttons for the ears, as I hadn't any in pink. I know it doesn't show here, but it turned out just fine.

The cotton cord I used to attach the ears was also in my stash. The product of a wonderful estate sale find from many years ago. The lady had been a crafter, and had oh so many wonderful embroidery threads and buttons and such, that I was happy to purchase as much of her supplies as I could. I like to think she would have approved of how it is being used.

Once again I forgot to take pictures of the process, which actually for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to demonstrate. It's much the same as stringing bead really, but way more fiddly. You have to thread up the large needle you see at the top of the picture. Put a button on, poke the needle through the one ear, in the place you want it, poke through the head, poke again through the other ear, making sure the ears line up, and put on another button. The buttons were two hole. I pulled the cording through and cut it leaving about two inches of extra cord at each end. Then I repeated the whole process again by threading up another length of cord and going through the other hole in the buttons. I had knotted off with a very loose knot one end of each cord so the sections wouldn't fall off as I was threading it. Then I pulled the cords to the tightness I wanted and tied off the ends, doing a locking knot over the buttons and cutting the leftover cord to shorter lengths. This does take some fiddling and can be a right royal pain to get things lined up right. But the results are great, as well as adorable.

Wish this was a better picture, but I think you can see the tie-off attachment. One thing I must say here is that if you are going to use fleece, that is thin and has a stretch as this stuff did. Make sure that the stretchy part of the fleece runs the direction you want the pattern to stretch. I was so glad I noticed, it had a lot of vertical stretch, and not much horizontal stretch, so I made sure I cut out my pieces accordingly. Thus the sheep face and its body and legs don't go wonky in all directions.
 

Here we are at the body, which aside from taking some time to sew, because of that self same stretch, was fairly simple. The cutting the hole in the head to stuff in the neck of the body, was not so easy and was really a challenge. Of course I had to remove some of the stuffing I had stuffed the head with to make room for the neck. This was a challenge that took some care. I had to figure just where I wanted the neck to go through and then make sure I didn't clip to large of a hole. I snipped a tiny hole first and clipped it larger using a small "X" cut. I think it might have been easier using a non-stretchy fabric, but then again it might have been harder, because it wouldn't have the give?! I think this was the hardest part of the whole process. Holding the head on the neck and trying to get it to stay in place while I did tiny hidden stitches to hold it on. It was too fiddly to pin in place to help hold it, so I had to just soldier on doing the best I could. If it all looked a bit wonky, I decided that would just be part of its charm.

As luck would have it, the selvage edge of the fleece was just what I wanted for the tail, so I whip stitched up a length of it, turned and twisted it into the shape I wanted, and sewed it to the body. This was before I had attached the body to the head, tho I don't think it would have mattered that much one way or another.

 

This picture shows the scrap piece I decided to use to change how I put the body together. It is that triangular looking piece of fleece at the top left next to the hoof pattern pieces. The other thing not shown, is the small pinch dart I took in the back of the body to help situate the tail. (I don't think that dart is actually really needed.) If I tried this again, I might try doing without it, to see what happens. The scrap piece I cut into a rounded shape just a quarter of an inch larger than the hole at the bottom of the sheep. I did this because I wanted it to be able to sit by itself better. I could have just stitched it straight across in a semi-straight line, but just felt I would like it better with a rounded out bottom. I am really glad I did, as it works just the way I wanted it to.

Here is the change to the bottom of the sheep, that I said above. If I had just sewn the two pieces together as I first planned, it would have been rounded like its nose. I thought it best to treat it more like a bowling pin so it could sit. Here we see I have jumped forward again and have the upper legs attached. This was done in the same way as the ears, just a bit fiddlier because the legs were stuffed.

 

The other change I made which you will see above in the pattern, is that the bottom legs were much longer than the front legs. I have seen this done on some stuffed toys so thought it might work for me here. But after putting on the front legs, I didn't like how the bottom legs looked long, so I shortened them up before sewing them together. I also round off the shoulders of the legs instead of having them squared off, when I first drew them. I think it makes for a much cuter stuffed animal and much more stream-lined, and goes well with the button attachments. Here I am starting the legs. I cut black felt over-pieces for the hooves. I first stitched them down in black across the straight line, across the legs. Then whip stitched the rest of the felt hoof down to the fleece all around the edge. I put the right sides together, making sure the straight lines of their upper hooves matched, and stitched them together leaving a gap for stuffing, as I had done the body and the head. I will say turning these things right side out and getting those hoof points out was a right royal pain, but a dull pointed pencil worked wonders. I have pointed tools for this but of course couldn't find them, when I needed them the most. Even a chopstick will work for this, if you haven't the tools.

All I had left was to stuff the legs, finish stitching up the holes, put it all together and Shelley the silly sheep was done! I was so happy to finally have her done. My fingers were poked, pinched, and painful, but it was so worth it. At first Shelley just lay there, not sure exactly what to do next?!

 

Then she sat up and threw her ears up in astonishment, because I was laughing at just how cute she had turned out. For a moment I thought I had made a Jack Rabbit, but no, those pointy little hooves said otherwise!

Here she is, as cute as can be, waiting to meet the stuffed sock monsters that she will be sitting with on my low dresser. Would that I could have her on my bed, but that I think might lead to crushing results. So for now she resides on my dresser at the foot of the bed, where I can greet her and the sock monsters, as well as all of my other funny family of stuffed friends.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, and that it at least inspires laughter if nothing else. I had fun making this silly sheep, and tho she was a challenge at times, still I think she was worth it! I couldn't help smiling and laughing the whole time I was making her. I hope you all have a very wonderful day. May God bless you, and may we bless one another!