Here’s another old post of mine that a lot of people seemed to enjoy so I transferred it from my old personal blog to The Quirky Mom Next Door. It was before I really sewed much but I had a lot of fun making it and I thought it turned out pretty cute for a very first try!
I asked if anyone had an suggestions and a friend linked me to a blog about making an elf which I never read or used, just glanced at the pictures and said “I can make an elf!!”
I shall attempt to walk you through how I made Elf at a friend’s request, but there aren’t many pictures of the process which makes it harder to explain. It wasn’t too difficult to make and since I just did everything the way that it seemed easiest to me, I’m sure you could do the same.
You’ll need:
A sewing needle and/or machine, and thread
Fabric, anything stretchy is easiest for the body
Buttons or something else for eyes
Fluff, beans, or maybe rice for the filling
Bells for the shoes (optional)
- First I found a stretchy tan-colored shirt that I was getting rid of and drew my own elf pattern of a head, torso, and arms. Then I cut that out with the fabric folded over so it had two equal sides.
- Wal-Mart was carrying small pieces of fabric for $1.25 so I grabbed a green one to use for the hat. I just drew a little triangle and folded over the fabric like before, and cut that out.
- I sewed two white buttons on for the eyes and then used to little green buttons for the iris of the eye. I pinned everything beforehand because I seem to have a habit of managing to sew everything crooked. Then I sewed on a little piece of brown fabric in the shape of a smile. I realized that something was missing and I was using a pink Snuggie that my husband bought me for Christmas last year when I looked down and thought “PERFECT!” then I cut two circles from my Snuggie and made little rosey cheeks for the elf. Yep, that’s how I do things…
- I turned the fabric all inside out and using my sewing machine for a tighter binding, I sewed both of the arms together. Then I turned them inside out, stuffed them, and sort of tucked them inside the tummy so they wouldn’t get in the way when I sewed it. I wanted to stuff the arms separately because I figured that it would be difficult to stuff them after I’d sewn all of the edges of the body first.
- Then I sewed the rest of the body, hand-sewed the hat onto his head, stuffed pillow fluff (from a pillow we’re no longer using) inside, and pulled the fabric from the front of his belly down to his back and sewed them together.
- I drew two very long legs in the stretchy fabric and sewed them inside-out, then right-sided them and stuffed them just like the body. I pinched the top of the leg and sewed it to the very edge of the belly to help it sit up better. (The bottom of the legs were left open until the shoe step.)
- Because my daughter started hurrying me to finish up, I just cut out a shirt shape, threw it on Elf, and sewed it from the outside. I don’t really suggest doing that because it doesn’t look as good, I would do the inside-out thing because everything seems to look better that way.
- I drew two elf shoes but they ended up being too small to stuff because my green fabric wasn’t stretchy so if you’re not using a stretchy material for your shoes, make them big! I drew the shoes three times before I decided that they were big enough, then of course, repeated the turn inside out, sew, and stuff. I didn’t stuff the heel of the shoes because I twisted the ends of his legs and stuffed them inside, then hand-sewed the shoe to the little clump of leg inside.
- Last but not least, I sewed the jingling bells on the ends of his shoes. I don’t need to tell you how to do that, I think. 🙂
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