DIY Loopy Luna

Hmmm... I'm not sure what this wee creation should be called.. I have a faint recollection that some people could be calling them taggy toys?? I'm not sure how something changes from a softie to something else with the addition of looped ribbons.. but anyway, I'm calling mine Loopy Luna(r). Cos well, she has loops for hair, and is rather moon like I think.

This is one of the projects I put together in week 38 of my pregnancy. It was really a time of using any craft materials I could find in my house to distract myself as much as possible! This one wasn't Pinterest inspired, rather she is based on a character from an Enid Blyton book "The Far Away Tree". The character is called Moonface. And he is a darling wee character. I wanted to make a wee softie of him for Sophie, for when we read her the book later. Then I received a bunch of cute ribbons in my Christmas parcel from Mum, so I thought, why not add some loopy loops, for baby to grasp on to. And thus, Loopy Luna was born (and he became a she). Its amazing what the pregnant mind can come up with huh?

So... Materials for this project -
- Fabric for the main body of the softie. I used a light weight white cotton, because, well, it was in my box of fabric. But you could use any colour. I liked the white for the moon, but you could make her yellow for the sun, or mix it up with some floral.
- Ribbons. I used 5 different ribbons, 2 wider ribbons, 3 thinner ribbons. I used ones with patterns, but you could combine plain and patterned. I quite like the colour combination of mine, especially since my base fabric was white and I think it needed brightening up.
- Embroidery thread. Now, maybe its because I am from a very Scottish and thrifty family, but I always keep my leftover threads when I do cross stitch projects. So I just used different coordinating colours that I had left over.
- Embroidery hoop - this was super helpful for the embroidery part (duh) and also for making her a good circle shape without using a template.
Oh and I don't know if I could have done this without a sewing machine. I'm gonna say that I may have gone mad trying to hand sew this thing.

How it all went down -

Iron your fabric. It always looks better that way (I didn't until near the end, and it totally made it better).

Place your white fabric into your embroidery hoop. Cut out a square of fabric around the hoop, make the overall size about an inch or two bigger than the embroidery hoop you have. I used my hoop size as a basis for the size of the softie.

Decide what personality you would like your softie to have. I wanted Luna to be lovely and friendly. With happy cheeks. Once you know what you want her to be like, draw it on! I have said many times how bad I am at drawing, but even I managed a smile, some cheeks and some wee eyelashes. If you have a fabric safe pen, you could use that, but I just used an ordinary pencil.

Next is embroidery time.. But don't worry. Its just back stitch, the easiest stitch that can be. I started stitching her eyes, splitting the length of one eyelash into 3 stitches. That set the stage for the size of each stitch. Continue stitching until you finish her face.

Sophie and I stitching Luna's smile.

Trim the edge of the fabric so that the edge runs along the edge of the embroidery hoop (you will end up with a circular piece of fabric the same size as your hoop). Remove the fabric from the hoop. Pin this onto the rest of your fabric, to use it as a template to get another circle the same size. Cut out the second circle.

Once you are happy with her face, you need to organise the ribbons. I decided to do a pattern with five ribbons, repeated each time. I found the easiest way to do it was to think of her circular face as a clock and divided it up roughly that way. To make the loops safe for wee one, make sure you don't make them so long that she could choke or anything. That would not be good. I used 10 cm length ribbons. These are then folded in half, and with the seam allowance, mean that the loops end up being a little over 4 cm long.

So. This part confused me. And I had no instructions, so I will be honest, I did have to seriously work through the baby brain to get this part done. I will try and explain it as clearly as possible.. Lets see.

Lay your fabric down, face side up. Arrange the ribbons around the fabric in the spot you want each one at, and with the spacing you want. Take a piece of ribbon. Double the ribbon over so that it is folded in half. Take a pin and pin it to the edge of the fabric. You want the loop to be laying so that it sits above the face, rather than out way from the face. Continue this the whole way around her face. I used lots of ribbons so this took ages, obviously it will vary with the amount you use.

Now. Using a sewing machine, stitch around the outside circumference of the face. Double back at the start to make sure you don't have any thread pull out. Work slowly to make sure you don't get a pin stuck in the machine, you also don't want to come away from the edge effectively "unlooping" the loops.

Okay, still with me? Take your face, which should now have a bunch of ribbons stitched around the outside, and take the other piece of fabric you have. Line the outer edges up and pin them together, face side inside the package of cloth.

Turn the fabric over, so that the back of the face is facing you. You should be able to see the circular pattern of stitches which are holding in the ribbons (which are on the inside) of the fabric right now.

Start stitching the two layers together, making sure the seam is further into the circle than the seam holding the ribbons in. That is to say, when you turn it the right way in, you want the ribbons to be within a seam, not hanging out higgledypiggledy. You know? Lol this is so hard to explain. I hope it makes sense.

Continue stitching the two layers together until you get to about an inch away from where you started. Double back to make sure your threads don't come loose when you turn it the right way in.

Turn the softie the right way out. Here's how she might look!

Fill your softie lovely and full and chubby, chub out those cheeks!

When you are content with her filling, hand stitch the last wee gap... And she's all done!!

What do you think? Does it make sense? Do you have any questions?
I was so happy with how she turned out, especially since I didn't have a pattern, and I did have some intense baby brain at the time haha. Are you an Enid Blyton fan? What childhood favourite would you make into a softie if you could?