ANATOMY OF A PLUSHIE

WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF A PLUSHIE?

 

MAIN BODY

1. SIDE PANELS (2)

2. NOSE GUSSET (1)
3. BELLY GUSSET (1)
4. CHIN GUSSET (1)
5. BASE PANEL (1)

LEGS
6. OUTER ARMS (2)
7. INNER ARMS (2)
8. FOOT PADS (4)

DECORATIVE ELEMENTS
9. CREST/MANE (1)
10. CLAWS (4)
11. EYES (2)
12. MOUTH/TONGUE (1)

 

 

 When designing your creature, it helps to think of a plushie as a series of 2-D pieces stitched together to form a 3-D object.  

 

THE BODY: This is the main piece of your creature.  In this case, it is composed of 2 mirror-image side panels and one belly panel, or "gusset," which are joined together to create a sort of pyramid shape.  This pyramid is sewn onto a base panel that helps maintain the overall shape of the plushie.

 

GUSSETS: A gusset is basically a tapered panel (frequently sort of a diamond or ovoid-shape) that gives your object increasing volume in a specified area, and then decreases it again.  By tapering at corners, you are able to decrease the diameter of a section at will.  This is helpful in forming necks and tails.  For this creature, I have a belly gusset and nose gusset.  In many cases, I would also have a chin gusset, to round out the face and then decrease the chin into the neck, but in this particular case I have included the chin gusset as the pointy top of my belly panel.

 

LEGS: The legs are basically an inner and outer panel that are sewn together to create a tube.  This tube is then sewn to a foot pad, which can be round/triangular/whatever.  The shape of the foot pad helps determine the shape of the overall leg. In case of the green dragon, the small arms end in round foot pads, while the hind legs have more definition by ending in large, triangular foot pads.

LEG PANELS: The outer leg panels are frequently part of the side panels, so there is no obvious leg seam to draw the eye.  But sometimes it can be helpful to have the leg panels be separate pieces, as with the green dragon's arms.  This can give you more flexibility in placement of legs later, when assembling your plushie.  If you are using different colors for the sides and belly, you might want to have 2 pieces of fabric to make up your legs, so that the inner leg can match the belly.  If the leg is all one color, you can just use one piece of fabric to make the tube, as long as you are fine with incorporating the single seam into your design.

 

DECORATIVE ELEMENTS:  These are not necessary for the structure of the plushie, but they help create an identity for your creature.  You can simply use a contrasting color or texture in certain panels of your little guy.  Or you can add actual decorations, like:
 

RIDGED CREST: You can sew a crest/mane/wings/etc. into the spine seam that joins your two side panels (or any seam, really, but this one is simplest, because it is basically a straight line).

CLAWS: Give your creature some flare with toenails!  If different pairs of legs are different sizes, do something different with each pair.  With the green dragon, the hind legs were so much thicker than the "arms,"  I felt it would be appropriate to make the hind claws correspondingly large.


 

EYES: I like to sew eyes onto my creature when the body is almost complete, so that I have more of a sense of what kind of eyes would go best with the finished product.  I have a pouch of patchwork eyes that I constantly make so that I can play around with my color, size and shape options.  You can also sew on beads for a different kind of eyes or pupils.

MOUTH: Why not have something coming out of your creature's mouth?  Even if you don't want to add an actually opening maw, you can sew lips and teeth onto your plushie, or have a serpentine tongue or flame coming out of its mouth, just by adding a scrap of forked fabric to the nose seam...

 

DESIGN TIPS:

1. Remember: You will always have to allow an extra 1/4 to 1/2 inch edge to your fabric, for your sturdy seams.  If you do not allow for this, parts of your plushie will come out elongated or smaller than you intended.

2. If you ever get confused when cutting fabric for your plushie, remember that you can cut out paper shapes--or scraps of fabric--and tape or stitch them together to get an idea of the finished product.

3. When in doubt, remember that you can always cut down a piece of fabric to create a narrower shape, over and over if necessary, in order to create a silhouette that you're happy with. But in order to make a section bigger (make a leg or neck wider, etc.), you would need to cut a new, larger panel to replace the one you are fixing or add another gusset (or other panel of fabric) to your piece to increase the overall surface area and volume of your creature.  You can always do this, but you will need to incorporate the extra seams into your overall design...Which leads to:

4. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Any "mistakes" or "repairs" are actually "experimental design elements" or "features!"