Frogglin Faffing

Alrighty, so I posted this guy a few days ago and promised I would post the pattern, so here it is, with tute. Gosh I’m lovely.

Making Tenticlo
You will need:

• The Tenticlo Pattern – which you can find right here.
• 2 sheets of felt in the main body colour
• Around half a sheet of felt in the underside colour
• Felt scraps for the eye and mouth
• Marker pen – either an air or water fading one, or a very fine permanent marker
• General sewing notions – needle and scissors
• Embroidery thread
• Polyfill or other toy stuffing
• Stuffing stick, crochet hook, knitting needle or whatever to help push stuffing in
• Beads, sequins, ribbons etc etc – whatever you like to embellish the beastie.

Ready? Let’s go!

Step One: Print and cut out your pattern. It SHOULD print over most of an A4 sheet, you may want to change the size. Make sure the pattern will fit entirely in one felt sheet, it’s just easier.

Step Two:

Lay your patten on one felt sheet and draw around it with your marker. Cut it out, and repeat on the other felt sheet so you have 2 body pieces.
If you’re using permanent marker: Flip the pattern the second time. That will mean you can hide the marker lines inside the stuffie.

Step Three: Take your underbody colour and fold it in half. See the line on the pattern? Line that up with the fold and trace around the tentacles.  You should end up with something like this:

Keeping the fold folded, cut around the line. You’ll end up with a mirror image tentacle dealio, which is exactly what you want.

Now you have 2 body pieces, and 1 underbody piece.

Making them rock out is optional.

Step Four: Eyeball time! Cut a circle out of your felt scrap. I used white, but whatever. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle, but should be a bit smaller than the end of the eyestalk.

I also cut a smaller circle to enclose under the big circle, this is to give the eye some dimension. Optional!

Sew the eye ball into place. I’ve used blanket stitch, but any stitch you like will do.  In the photo above you can also see the fabric marker that would not photograph for the earlier shot I wanted to put in. Curse you fabric marker!

Step Five: Finish your eyeball!

Add an iris or three, this is a monster after all, and if you like, a pupil. I’ve used a button, but you could use felt. You could embroider it. Do what you like, I’m not your mother.

Ahem.

Step Six: Getting mouthy.
Cut a mouthy sort of a shape from felt, and sew it on where you like it best. I went for a smile, but you could easily make a frowny monster, or a shouting one or a shocked one or…

Step Seven: Pretty Little Monster!
Embellish your pieces to your hearts content. I went for a simple texture sort of finish, with circles cut out from the scraps left after I cut the bodies. It doesn’t show up so good in the photo, but it made Tenticlo sort of nubbly and interesting.

For the underbody, I cut circles in the same colour as the underbody, and snipped a hole in them to make little donut shapes which I sewed on.

These are just suggestions – go as mad as you like. Sequins would look awesome if you can be bothered, but you could embroider, paint, use beads etc etc. Since you don’t have to turn the toy out once you’ve sewn it, you can be as elaborate as you like.

REMEMBER! You will have to turn one body piece over before embellishment, otherwise all your hard work will be hidden inside the toy.

Step Eight: Sewing the little suckers.

Fold your underbody piece in half, embellished side inside the fold. Line it up to one of the body pieces wrong sides (unembellished sides) together.

Pin the underbody piece at the folds – this is going to mark where you start and finish sewing for this section. You can also pin the tentacles if you like. If you find at this point your shapes don’t match at any place, just trim off the extra so you have a nice edge.

With embroidery thread, sew around your matched up tentacles from one pin to the other. I’ve used more blanket stitch, but whipstitch or whatever will be fine.

Step Nine

Fold the underbody in half again, and place the other body piece on top of the sandwich. Sew around the second set of tentacles.

Do not be alarmed if a miniature border collie joins you for this step, they know a lot about sewing felt and whatever lands on your workspace is only there to help (and also to have tummy rubs).

Step Ten: Get stuffed.

You may find you need to wiggle your stuffing stick around in the tentacles first to separate the felt.  Using small bits of stuffing at a time, stuff the tentacles firmly. They need to be firm or Tenticlo will not stand up, which would make Tenticlo sad.

You will now have your very own alien autopsy.

Step Eleven: Sew, a needle pulling thread.

Pinch the felt above the end of your stitching together and start sewing up the sides of Tenticlo – doesn’t matter which side.  You may find at this point that your felt body pieces no longer match – the stuffing in the base can woodge them a bit. You can gently pull your felt back to match at the edges.

It’s easier to stuff the arms as you go! Once you’ve done one side of the arms, being stuffing as you close the other side. Trust me, otherwise you’ll spend a year trying to poke stuffing into them, weeping and wishing me dead. No one wants that – stuff as you go.

Finish your sewing at the shoulders, the base of the eyestalk. Stuff the body firmly. You should now have something like this:

Step Twelve: Are we there yet?

Almost! Sew up one side of the neck, and around the eyeball. Stuff the eyeball and add stuffing to the neck as you sew down to the other shoulder. Make sure the neck is firmly stuffed so it won’t go all floppy at the wrong moment.

Once you have the neck fully stuffed, close off the gap and finish your thread.

BEHOLD! Tenticlo!

Fin!

I hope that was good, was it good? I hope so. If you happen to make a Tenticlo, I’d love to see him. Or her. Leave a link in the comments so I can take a peek

Remember, colours and embellishments are all up to you, so go wild and make Tenticlo your very own. Have fun with him! Or her.