The first toys appeared in those distant times when our ancestors still lived in caves. Initially, these were various kinds of rattles that helped mothers calm their crying babies. But figurines of animals and people were originally created as tribal totems, as well as idols and guardians of the hearth, which ancient people worshiped. And only much later they began to be made for the entertainment of children. Today in stores you can find an incredible variety of dolls, cars, airplanes, etc. However, nothing will please your child as much as those toys that he and his mother made. If you have a little free time, you can, for example, make soft toys with your own hands from fabric.
What you will need
To make toys with your own hands from fabric, you will need:
- needles;
- multi-colored threads;
- yarn;
- ready-made “eyes” or buttons to imitate them;
- scissors;
- sewing machine;
- foam rubber, wool, plastic granules and other materials for stuffing.
You will also need scraps of fabric different types and sizes.
Gingerbread Man
Do you want to make a craft to entertain your baby for the first time? As a fabric toy for beginners, we can recommend the gingerbread man from the well-known fairy tale. She has the simplest pattern, which can be seen below.
Any thick woolen fabric, such as light brown drape, is suitable for this craft. Cut out two identical parts according to the pattern. Then on the first one they draw a smile and circles that will represent buttons. Carefully cut out excess fabric along the marked lines. Using the same pattern, make a lining from white dense fabric or a layer of padding polyester. The lining is placed on the wrong side of the back piece, and the face piece is placed on top, with the front side facing out. Take a thick white thread. Connect all the parts along the edge with a buttonhole stitch. Small black circles are glued onto the “whites” of the eyes as pupils. A bow tie is made from a piece of checkered fabric. A piece of ribbon folded in half is sewn to the top of the gingerbread man's head so that the toy can be hung on the Christmas tree or above the baby's crib.
Fleece caterpillar: what you need
Do-it-yourself toys are made from fabric in a variety of ways. For example, you can easily make a caterpillar out of green fleece.
For this you will also need:
- synthetic padding and padding polyester;
- white fleece;
- copper wire in rubber braid;
- green threads;
- 2 beads;
- black floss threads.
How to make a “Caterpillar” from fleece: master class
To make such a toy with your own hands from fabric you need:
- fold the fleece lengthwise;
As you can see, fabric toy patterns can be very simple. However, there are also very complex options, consisting of dozens of parts.
"Horse": preparation
Today it is not difficult to find any patterns for fabric toys. For example, below is an option for a toy in the shape of a horse.
Before you start making it, you need to make a mane and tail. To do this, you will need yarn that matches the color of the fabric from which the horse is sewn. You also need any piece of braid or a thin strip of fray-proof fabric.
For the tail, take 10-15 pieces of yarn with a length equal to the length of the part for the toy’s leg, and tie it into a knot at one end. As for the mane, apply a piece of braid to the pattern of the horse’s head detail and “circle” the neck almost to the base. Sew pieces of yarn to it along the entire length to form a mane.
We sew a blue “Horse” with a tail and mane
The pattern for such a craft is enlarged to the required size and printed on a printer. Then:
- each detail is applied to the fabric, for example, with chalk or a special marker, as many times as indicated on the pattern;
- sew on both parts, from which the body should be made, the places of darts;
- sew together the details of the legs and ears;
- connect the two halves of the body, placing the tail and mane in the right places.
Now all that remains is to fill the insides of the toy with synthetic fluff. You should also make buttons from fabric with your own hands, using a pattern of parts in the form of discs. With their help, as well as using a rope hinge, already stuffed leg parts are attached to the body. Then they draw a rock and stick beady eyes on the horse’s head.
Doll
And finally, a very easy to make rag doll. From time immemorial, such toys have been made by Russian peasant women for their daughters. In order for your little one to have a doll in a rustic style, you should:
- cut a circle from white or light beige fabric;
- sew it along the edge and pull it together to make a bag;
- fill it with synthetic fluff;
- draw a face on the resulting “head”;
- from multi-colored scraps and pieces of lace they sew a dress in the style of a Russian costume with sleeves and gathered at the neck;
- sew on the head;
- cut out a triangle from a bright scrap and tie it like a scarf on a doll’s head.
That's it, your Marusya or Anyuta is ready! You can make a smaller friend or a smaller daughter doll for her in the same way.
Now you know what simple fabric toys you can easily make yourself using scraps cut from old clothes, and you can please your kids with interesting crafts.
A caterpillar made of fabric, I will show and tell you how to make this interesting and later even funny craft. You will need more attention and imagination. This is certainly not where step-by-step photo instructions are the main thing. But also try to understand the method of creating a caterpillar.
The craft is called a funny caterpillar.
1. Pieces of fabric different color(no preference) cut in circle. The quantity depends on the intended length of the track. Each circle needs to be made a little larger than the previous one. Also cut out one oblong piece of fabric for the ponytail.
2. Pull the fabric along the edge and stuff it with cotton wool. Both fabric circles and tail.
3. Collect the resulting balls onto one strong thread; the “head” ball can be much larger than the body, and make an elongated tail at the end.
4. Gather a thin strip of fabric onto a needle and sew it onto the back (for fluffiness). I took the orange material.
5. Eyes - do as you wish. For decoration, I sewed more pieces of fur around the eyes.
6. Using the “” method, crochet several multi-colored balls for the legs. You can also attach unique eyes and make a mouth.
7.
Tie thick strong threads between the body balls and secure the leg balls to them.
Now your caterpillar will have fun running around in colorful slippers.
Now kids can play with this caterpillar or it can decorate your collection.
Master class “Caterpillar” using waste materials
Author: Elena Ivanovna Samokhina, additional education teacher, MBUDO “Palace” children's creativity", the city of Kursk.
Purpose: the master class is intended for children up to school age and primary school, parents, educators, additional education teachers, teachers.
Description: The “Caterpillar” craft is a clear example of the second life of old things. A great way for parents to keep their kids creative. Stimulates curiosity, interest and respect for nature. The craft is very easy to make and does not require material costs. Good as a toy for playing outdoors. It can be a kind of simulator for the development of fine motor skills in children.
Target: Organization of children's leisure time using the example of making a “Caterpillar” craft using waste material.
Tasks:
- develop visual-figurative thinking, curiosity, observation;
- promote cooperation between children and parents, their emotional and psychological rapprochement;
- to form a humane attitude towards the surrounding nature;
- develop fine motor skills.
The task facing parents is to select from the huge number of impressions that a child can receive with benefit for his development, those that are most accessible to him by age. As for observations of nature and its inhabitants, you should try to make the moments to which children’s attention is drawn bright and imaginative in order to interest them. It is appropriate to use poems, songs on the topic, Interesting Facts about the object of observation. Since children of preschool and primary school age are characterized by visual and imaginative thinking, a simple craft will consolidate the results of observations. And the joint process of making a toy with your own hands will bring a lot of joy to both children and adults. We made such toys in the summer with our granddaughter.
Here's the caterpillar. You do not like?
Yes, she is not famous for her beauty.
Yes, unsightly in appearance.
Always crawling
And he eats so intensely,
As her appetite dictates.
But she is a lovely beauty,
Languishing, he hides for the time being,
To finally see the light.
Everyone admires the butterfly
And they are trying to find out from her
Transformation secret
(Zaitseva R.)
A caterpillar is a butterfly larva that hatches from an egg. She, unlike her parent, has a very unattractive appearance. The caterpillar is a malicious pest and it lives on living plants, eating their leaves. However, it should be remembered that many trees produce significantly more leaves than necessary. Approximately every fourth sheet is, as it were, a spare sheet. Therefore, under normal conditions, insects do not cause significant damage to plants. But due to their vital activity, 1 hectare of forest receives up to 400 kg of fertilizer - evenly dispersed droppings. In addition, the caterpillar is a special treat for birds.
To make a caterpillar, we will need:
Materials and tools:
An old shirt or turtleneck with sleeves;
Newspapers;
Plastic or paper eyes for toys;
Accessories for decoration according to availability: sequins, buttons, ribbons, etc.
Scissors;
Glue
Stages of work
Stage 1. Preparation of materials
Cut off the sleeve from the turtleneck.
You need to cut off all the seams along the edge of the shoulder, trim them so that you get a “pipe” blank.
Cut out a rectangle approximately 20-25cm from the back or front of the turtleneck. We cut it into strips 3-4 cm wide. These are the future paws.
Now cut the strips in half. It turned out a bit too much, but there’s no need to throw it away just yet. The remaining strips can be useful for another craft.
Stage 2. Making a caterpillar
Now we collect one end of the sleeve into a bun and tie it into two knots. We roll up a ball of newspaper and send it inside the sleeve.
We form 3-6 such lumps, depending on the length and elasticity of the sleeve.
For the head, you can make a larger lump; a caterpillar with such a head will be more expressive.
Insert a wad of newspaper and gather the edge of the sleeve so that the knot is on the top of the head and the legs are on the stomach. When the knot is tied, you need to trim the cut with scissors, removing all excess. You will get such a cute “forelock”.
Now you need to add more legs, tying each rope separately and making a knot at each end. The more legs, the more training for children's fingers.
Stage 3. Decor
If there are plastic eyes, glue them with glue. But you can print paper ones, there is a huge selection of them on the Internet.
You can sew or glue buttons cut from old clothes. You can decorate using the available materials: sequins, beads, buttons, ribbons, various decorative elements.
And so that our caterpillar doesn’t get bored, we’ll make her friends Pupsa and Vupsa. They are a little different, brighter and more shaggy. The beauty of this craft is that the caterpillars are different, not similar friend they look like each other and somehow subtly resemble the owners of the blouses and shirts they were made from. Children intuitively feel the positive energy emitted by these simple toys made from old things of family and friends. Such non-standard toys become favorites and remain a vivid childhood memory.
Well, now let’s get to the lawn immediately!
It's fun to sunbathe and crawl with friends!
At the end of the master class, I would like to quote poems by a wonderful poet, which tell us all that there are no trifles in raising a child.
Queen caterpillar
(Eduard Asadov)
-Look! Look how beautiful she is! -
The boy looks joyfully at his mother.-
Queen caterpillar! Do you really like it?
Let's feed her and protect her!
Indeed, like an ancient queen,
Akin to mysterious tales,
On a red-sided apple in the shade
The golden caterpillar was shining.
But the woman exclaimed: “Empty!”
And she laughed: - Oh, my cricket!
Ready to protect living things everywhere.
It's a pest, you fool!
At four years old you have to be a man!
Think about it. You see: right here
She will crawl in and spoil the core,
And the apple - at least throw it away then!
No, this is not good for you and me.
Now we'll see what kind of hero you are. –
She shook a caterpillar from a branch:
- Come on, smash it with your foot!
And the boy, putting on an angry face,
And secretly suppressing nausea,
Stepped my foot onto the warm, living
Pearly golden beauty...
- This is nice! Good girl, I praise you! –
And he, trying to end kindness,
He cried out with his leg brutally raised:
- Throw more! I'll crush the other one!
Mother has been in the world against evil since ancient times.
But how was it not clear to this one,
That saved the core of the apple,
But I lost something in the boy...
- Fabrics in any colors you like. It can be cotton, corduroy, velvet - in general, any of these fabrics. Suede or natural / artificial leather (optional) - for the eyes Holofiber Stick for turning parts inside out (from the Tilda set, for example) Scissors Pins Vanishing marker / pencil / chalk Thread and needle PVA glue and brush (optional) Acrylic paint(optional) Time - approximately 5 hours
- head height 9.5 cm body height 10.5 cm (center) small circle diameter 8.5 cm small circle diameter 12.5 cm
When we decided what size we want the caterpillar to be, we cut out all the parts: 
Selecting fabrics: after several experiments, I decided for myself that it is best to select fabrics in calm shades, pastel, and of course, so that they are not from the category of red body, blue head, yellow circles: And start from what color the head will be - I I sewed a pink caterpillar in the summer, chose beautiful fabrics for the body and circles, everything was great. And naturally, everything seemed to fit well; for the head I took a pink plain fabric. As a result, I ended up with a caterpillar that looks sooooo much like a piglet 
Here in the photo I have a tool - something similar to a compass, only instead of a pencil it has a blade - a very convenient thing for cutting out circles from fabric of various diameters. I used it to cut out all the circles. But if you don’t have such a thing, it’s okay, you can get by with ordinary scissors. This is already, as they say, I'm showing off. To cut out the remaining parts, I use ordinary scissors, and not any curly ones. I have curly ones with teeth, everyone says that they are simply necessary when cutting out parts with rounded parts. But I don’t use them, everything is cut out well for me anyway. And then no folds form after turning the parts inside out. 
We fold the fabrics we use for the head, body, circles, nose and horns in half and use a disappearing marker to transfer our paper details onto the fabric. We pin it together with pins and sew it on a machine, leaving an opening at the bottom of the parts for subsequent turning and stuffing with holofiber. By the way, I sewed my first caterpillar by hand, then I didn’t have sewing machine. So if someone doesn't have a sewing machine, that's no reason not to sew a caterpillar. When sewing on a machine, I use a stitch length of 1.8 mm. 
Now we have received the parts of the caterpillar. By the way, about quantity: - head - 1 piece torso - 6 pieces large circles - 5 pieces small circles - 3 pieces horns - 2 pieces nose - 1 piece
We cut out all our details. Be very careful with the horns - the parts are quite small and the machine stitches inside the horns are very close to each other - the main thing is not to cut through them with scissors. 
The next item that I have presented here is optional and you can do it or you can refuse it. I coated the edges of the holes through which the head, torso, nose and horns need to be turned out with a mixture of PVA glue and water (1:1 ratio). When turned inside out and stuffed with holofiber, the edges of the fabric crumble and become shaggy, to a greater or lesser extent. To prevent this from happening, it is better to strengthen these edges. Previously, I bought a special solution from the Plym brand for this, but a small tube is quite expensive, and since I already sew a lot and process a lot of edges (especially when sewing dogs), this was already a very expensive pleasure. So I got out of the situation using PVA glue and water. 
This thing takes about an hour to dry. You can speed up the process with a hairdryer. I did not process the edges of the circles. They only need to be turned out, so their edges do not have time to crumble. 
Now we turn out all the parts using a thin stick - I still have one from the Tilda set. This stick is especially indispensable when turning out horns. They are so small that you can’t do without it. When I made the caterpillar for the first time, I didn’t have such a stick yet, and no matter what I used, I suffered terribly, ruining several of the horns - they were crawling along the seams. The main thing is not to rush and try not to pierce the fabric with this stick (I also did this several times). 
We also turn the circles inside out and sew them with a hidden seam. 
When the hole is sewn up, without breaking the thread, we begin to assemble our circle. We do this using a “forward needle” seam, just then, when we have gone through the entire circle, we gather the fabric and fasten it. 
These are the wrinkled circles we got 
Now we begin to fill parts of the caterpillar with holofiber. I like to stuff my toys very tightly. Some people like toys, on the contrary, to be softer. Here you decide for yourself what to do. Again, you need to be careful with the horns. Take small pieces of holofiber, and do not push through large pieces with difficulty at once - the fabric may crawl away from the seam area. 
This is how the bells turned out: 
But they are already sewn up with a hidden seam: 
And here are the parts that will later appear on the caterpillar's head. I cut out the eyes from suede in two colors - dark green and beige. 
And again, using a hidden seam, sew on the nose. Above it, using glue, we attach the eyes on the top of the horns. I use Moment glue, gel. 
And here is the face ready: 
Now that we have all the parts of the caterpillar ready, we can “play” with alternating parts of the body and circles. For the body I used 2 fabrics, 3 pieces of each. In the end, I arranged them one after the other. Also see how best to place the circles between them. The only thing I can recommend is that it is best to use a small circle between the head and body, it does not look like a frill. And now that all the parts are in place, we take a long needle and thread, for example floss, and assemble our caterpillar like beads. Starting from the butt, we go to the head, and then back to the butt. I usually secure the knots with Moment glue for reliability. 
And here is our caterpillar: 
Good luck with your creativity! _______________________________________________ By sewing such a miracle for a gift, you can also surprise your hero of the occasion. Look how funny the caterpillar is! Her body is similar to the coloring, like on a children's toy yo-yo, and wriggles funny. The toy is full of charm and charm, and the kids will undoubtedly love it.
Making such a caterpillar is very simple. We can say that the work is monotonous. You simply cut out the parts, sew everything together in pairs, fill it with any filling and join it by hand, as if you were folding a yo-yo from chintz circles, which will then stretch and become the real body of the caterpillar. The dimensions of the toy are impressive - about 65 cm in length and 20 cm in height!
You will need:
twill cotton ribbon - 10 mm wide; threads, needle; light green fabric in small circles – (60 cm and maximum width); “gypsy” needle; blue fabric - for the mustache and nose; floss (silk) – white, red, black; wool felt – black, white; adhesive interlining; filler – padding polyester or padding polyester; a small circle of fabric with a pattern - a pattern for a small yo-yo is attached; large circles of fabric with a pattern – 15 pcs. (patterns for large yo-yo circles are included).
We sew the caterpillar:
1. Copy the caterpillar patterns onto polyethylene: head, antennae, body, pupils, nose and outer eyes. Cut them out.
2. Fold the fabric into circles in half with the right side in the middle. Trace the torso pattern six times and the head pattern once. Do not cut - first you need to sew the parts along the contours.
3. Fold the blue fabric like this and trace the mustache template on it twice and the nose template once. Sew along the outline.
4. Iron the interlining onto the wrong sides of scraps of different felt. Transfer all the eye patterns onto them, then cut them out.
5. Sew the body parts along the lines marked on the patterns. So sew the head part yourself.
6. Sew the antennae along the marked lines, leaving the straight ends unsewn. Sew the nose piece.
7. Now all the parts can be cut out, departing from the edges by 8 mm. Make small holes in all the pieces (where indicated on the patterns) and turn them out.
8. Fill the head tightly with the stuffing and sew up the hole. Then fill the nose and torso the same way.
9. Fill the antennae with filler, tucking the edges into the middle, and then sew them to the caterpillar’s head.
10. Sew the nose to the muzzle. In this case, the hole should be inside the side of the part. Sew the nose in a circle.
11. Remove the paper layers from the details of the pupils and eyes and iron them to the head. Sew the eyes with white floss (buttonhole stitch). Sew on the pupils using black floss. And embroider the mouth with red thread.
12. To make yo-yo circles, place fabric circles face down on a table. Fold the outer edge of the circle 8 mm, and use a “forward needle” seam to hem the lapel (the stitches should be middle length). Do not fasten the thread at the end, but pull its end and gather the fabric like an accordion. Tie a knot. Repeat the same steps with the remaining large circles and the small one.
13. Using a marker, mark all the parts with the marks indicated on the pattern. At this point you need to stretch a twill ribbon.
14. Thread the ribbon through the gypsy needle and pull it through the first section of the track twice, starting from the right side. Then string three circles on the yo-yo. Thread the ribbon through the second section and string three circles again.
15. String all sections like this and alternate them with circles.
16. When you pull the ribbon through the last section, pull it back (in the opposite direction) through all the sections at once. Pull the torso as tightly as possible and tie the end of the tape in a knot.
17. Sew a small circle to the last section to hide the knot.
18. Sew the head to the opposite section with a blind stitch, hiding the place where the asparagus ribbon goes.
The adorable caterpillar is ready! Look at her inquisitive face and funny body. She wants to go on an unforgettable trip with your baby as soon as possible!
