Toddler Animal faces - pattern 1032

These costumes have a great comfy body shape, but the fun is in the faces. Let me show you how I worked them out.


First I needed to get a workable versatile hood pattern.  This style of animal costume as a very loose hood, but it has to drape just right.


I like using felt as my "muslin" when working on something that will be sewn in fleece.

---

So, here is my first attempt with corrections and then my final version.

Next, I get out my oval template to see what size ovals I want to try for eyes.

Then I keep cutting out different sized eyes and noses and whiskers, until I'm happy with he results,

lay tracing paper over to make a final pattern.

I wanted the puppy face to have a three dimensional snoot. Here is one of my trial faces on the felt mock up hood.

You can see I went through multiple attempts on my way to the snoot that made me happy!

The snoot is a completely separate thing, sewn like a tiny pillow.

It is turned and stuffed through an opening on the back side,

hand sewn in place on the hood ...

with a little embroidery thread line added for definition.

Finished puppy face.

The penguin beak was done in a similar fashion. Here is my trial face on the felt hood.

And the final face while it is still lying flat.

Now, the unicorn face needed a whole new pattern to suggest a horse muzzle, although the hood lining pattern remained the same.

I created nostrils with double folded pieces of fleece.  I made an exact pattern for this. It is not just a square or rectangle.

This is what it looks like after the face seams are sewn.

The muzzle needed something to fill it out, but I couldn't just shove some stuffing in there, it is too large and loose a space. The whole face is backed with batting and I created a pattern piece for rectangles of batting that are tacked to the seam allowances of the face seams ...

to create a suggested baby horse face.

And, I know this isn't face related, but just wanted to show the fun back detail of the unicorn.


BTW ... Simplicity posted a 3 minute Youtube video of ME in my studio ...


Check it out ... CLICK HERE