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Diffeomorphism — So you want to make plushies? A beginner's guide
Published: 2014-01-01 01:23:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 191310; Favourites: 2648; Downloads: 11511
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Description
Phew, finally decided that this was good enough to publish! Only took like 10-20 readings after my initial rough draft.
Anyway, here's a guide I threw together for people who want to sew but have absolutely no idea where to start. I wrote this guide in a way which would've been most helpful to me back in May, when I decided to start sewing but didn't really know much besides mashing pieces of fabric together. Naturally the guide is written from my own perspective and experiences in sewing; ask other plushie makers and they'll have a whole different set of experiences and advice to share.
I tried to make the guide as comprehensive as possible, but one thing I didn't do was include links to resources. The reason for this is that links and videos can become outdated all the time, and part of the process of learning is being able to go out and find these resources. Nonetheless, one of the best resources I can recommend is Metroidhat's site , which gives not only visual instructions on how to do stitches but also some good step-by-step tutorials. I found myself going back there all the time when I was starting out.
If you have any questions, comments, or objections, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message! I wrote this guide to help people out, and I'd love to help out however I can! (Although I can't give my patterns away.) Speaking of which, if I get bored, I might release some sort of guide documenting my pattern-making process. It won't be any time soon but I figure it's something which people are interested in and that I'd like to write about. Be warned though, it's going to involve some pretentious math terminology
That's all. Happy New Year! 2014's gonna be a good year, I can tell.
Edit: Holy crap, 100 favorites already! I had no idea there'd be this big of a response. Thanks guys!
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Comments: 191
How do i open it ;^; i cant figure it out no matter how i try
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This is simpley amazing! I want to learn how to make plushes so much but i'm so overwhelmed on how to start. Its the patterns that have me worried, i want to make my own patterns but im so unsure how to start. This guide helps so much, thank you
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Thank you very much! The first part in which you described why one decide to make a plush instead of buying one is exactly what happened to me (expect for the last paragraph), so it made me laugh really 
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Thank you so much! I have a few plushies I would like to make, so this is very useful! c:
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Thank you for the guide! I've been into sewing for as long as I can remember, and I've already made a few plushies just from drawing templates based off of pictures. They're cute and I'm satisfied with them, but I felt there was room to improve. This guide definitely gave me some new ideas of where I want to go with my work, so thanks again.
Also give that adorable Goodra a hug for me.
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I LOVE YOU. You are so systematic! What a fantastic teacher and fun read!
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Haha I dunno if I'd be a good teacher in real life. Not enough patience 
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Thanks this really helps! You see I'm a beginner plushie maker & I've been having a lot of problems with making a plush of one of my OC's Kokoro. 
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Glad I could help out! Were the problems you were having more about basic sewing techniques, or about getting the patterning right? If it's about the latter you might find some of my other tutorials useful. Or of course if you just feel like experimenting until something sticks, that's one of the best way for beginners to to learn
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It was the patterning, my character is rather hard to make into a plush. I might work on one of my other characters, I do have lots of fabric & string for it. ^^
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Hey there! I'm guessing you're relatively new so I'll let you know before anyone else might react to it, but many plush artists would consider a request in this form rather rude. Quality patterns take a long time to make and are inherently valuable, so asking for not one, but two free patterns without regard to how much work they take is something which some people might be offended by. Not me of course, I don't really care that much, but just a heads up.
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O MY GOSH
I AM SORRY!
),:
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No worries! Just keep it in mind when conversing with others on the site 
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Thanks for this. I might be making plushies eventually.
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I just wanted to thank you for this tutorial. I've been working with my sewing machine for months now and, while I've greatly improved, I still have yet to finish a plush. Why? Well I just can't figure out the dang ladder stitch and thus can't attach final details or, more importantly, the heads! Sometimes I think about giving up but after all this work, I can look at professional plushies and think "Oh, I could totally do that!" This has inspired me even more not to give up! Thank you for that!
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OMFG this is SOOOO helpful!! I just made a very small (and crappy) hand-sewn Carl the cupcake, until i can find my sewing machine this will help when i practice cutting designs on paper, etc!!~
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Thanks so much for this! This was very encouraging.
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I have been ACHING to make OC plushies for my self and one or two friends. I was thinking of commissioning someone but then it would be tedious to try and find someone to have some open and it would cost money (no offense to the commissioners of course). I was considering making some myself. I just had to think about it in the long run. This might help me move forward into making it a reality! Who knows? I'll figure it all out when I get to it <3.
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I'd definitely recommend giving it a go! I love sewing. I took a class in high school that gave me the basics in using a sewing machine but I basically had to start from scratch when I began sewing again this past February. It had been years since I'd touched a machine. But, after months of practice, I've gotten much better. It's a very fun hobby, to me! I have a couple patterns that work quite well and if you want to try any of them just shoot me an email. You can have them for free. Finding a pattern that actually worked was a huge pain to me and I ended up having to edit the patterns I started with after trail and error in sewing them. Anyway, you can do it! Good luck!
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Yeah I tried sewing once lol. Wasn't all the great at it but I tried at least XD. One of these days I will learn to use the sewing machine mom has. If I practice enough I might even use the serger. But I don't even know if you can use that for making plushies and the like. and I wish we had a home ec class of some kind when I was in high school. Pfffft NOPE. LAUSD could not afford it or didn't care. Anyway, thanks for the reply! Would love to message when I get the time :3. SInce I cannot finish projects for the life of me weeeeeh. But I will try!! No doubt about that! I have concepts of how my OC and muse plushies will be made for fun and for my own liking. Maybe I should post them here who knows.
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Reading this guide makes me want to actually try and make one..! I've been looking around trying to find someone to commission to make a plushie of my characters, but I don't even have enough money. Thank you for making this guide, it's very helpful.
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Well, just returned from an anime convention and won some sewing equipment from some contest judges, and I decided to try plushie making a few weeks ago. Ended up spending the rest of my spending money on some fabric and a sewing kit. Your guide reminded me of how I felt about cosplay making lolz. Figured if I can improve in that, I can improve in plushie making. Also used to hand sew bags together and fix comforters when I was younger, so at least the sewing part won't be completely new. Gonna start tomorrow, so wish me luck XD
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Well thanks to this guide and seeing thousands of really bad Pokémon collectors plushies on ebay I'm also going to try making plushies. I'm going to start off with felt though and from what I've seen it can make plushies look bad 
Thank you so much for the supporting words that anyone can learn to do this, I have a bad track record of wanting to learn things and then giving up because "I'm too old to learn"
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Admittedly I'm not a big fan of felt myself, but that's mostly because I'm accustomed to fabrics like minky which is definitely a high end fabric. If you intend to use minky in the future, I'd honestly start out using fleece rather than felt; both are cheap, but felt, from what I understand, has very little stretch, whereas fleece has a lot of stretch and is a little bit closer to using minky, which has a medium-high degree of stretch when stuffed. That being said, if felt is the only thing available, then by all means go for it! Train yourself on the basics and go from there. For the record, Plush Addict is a very good minky vendor in the UK, should you ever decide to want to purchase any; they also sell polar fleece and stuff, although idk if it's cheaper to buy in a store (£6.35/meter is definitely way more than I pay for fleece here in the US).
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Thank you so much for the link! I actually asked around my town and there is a fabric place (long walk but oh well) on the outskirts. I will most likely be buying from that site though! I was wondering if you know of any forums to do with plush making and sewing? I've googled but only found dead threads and forums from 2008.
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There's a pretty active Facebook group called Plush Artists United which is very active right now and includes plush artists of all levels, including some of the best plush artists out there; I feel like that's probably the most active plush community out there right now.
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Ah awesome thankyou! Just sent a request
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this is a good read i want to make a plushy from minky of a pony OC of mine
i have touched a thread before xD
i once tried to make a pony cube which ended decently ( picture below )
i also made the cubes for some other OC's of mine but never finshed them ( i think i should )
( first is human second and third dog like and the last dragoneque xD )
but yeah this was a good read i learned something from this ouo
all tho i havent done embroidering before i can do felt eyes/cutie mark
and if i may ask do you know a good pony sewing pattern ?
i think i can fiddle around with the legs since my oc has the hooves in view ( like big mac )
and he has a female head so if you know a good male/female sewing pattern please show me XD
i have seen a lot of them and not all make sense or the end result doenst look how i thought it would ( some have pictures that show the end result )
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Hm, I'm not familiar too many pony patterns out there; I know Voodoo-Tiki has a few, but I haven't found any others since I've never needed to use a pony pattern. I'm sure a few people out there are probably selling patterns for download, but I couldn't tell you where to find them
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I love you!
Love your approach, your point of view, your words... You love what you do, and you want to share this love with us... Thank you!!!
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Glad I could help
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you are the best person alive for making this xD thank you alot
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"...Who have never touched a spool of thread in their lives."
me: PERFECT!
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Oh my God. Thank you so much for making this, this is really helpful. I have been wanting to make plushies for a while now, but I have been discouraged since I totally suck at sewing, or at least used to. I actually successfully made a sock monkey a little while ago, never thought that would happen, seeing as I broke 3 sewing machines in my 7th grade sewing class and 2 in 8th grade (on the last one I broke, I just not-so-casually moved seats and waited for somebody else to report it to the teacher...she knew I did it XD). I think I have buried talent somewhere, it's just taking a lot of blood and tears to get there.
Anyway, I think this guide will help save me a couple ounces of blood and tears. Adding you to my watch so I can keep seeing more adorable plushies
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Thanks!
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Of course
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I've favourited this to look at over and over again. I want to learn these things so I can make my own Marionette plush from Fnaf 2. I can't find any patterns for Marionette, so I'll have to make my own. Which will be tough. But I believe with enough practice I can make my Marionette plushie. I'll study the details of Marionette carefully so I can make it as good as it can be for a beginner. Reason I'm doing this is because there are no Marionette plushes for sale. Your guide should really help me make this plushie!
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thank you very much!!! so helpfull!
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Is ok If I share this in my fan page in facebook? ^^ is really cool!
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Sure, no problem! If someone with your skill level thinks it's worth sharing then I'm pretty happy
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www.facebook.com/ChibiPets?ref… thanks!
Thanks for your kind words too
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~Hugs so much an gives much love~ you - have made my day~! I 've been searching for something on how to do decent plushes and felt like I was doing bad but I'm so happy this has been shown to me~! <3
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Glad I could help! Even if this tutorial didn't provide too much specific pattern advice
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