Make Your Own Soft Toys was originally published in 2010 under the title Sew It, Stuff It and with this cover:
Photo by Laura Howard.
The new title and cover photo are more appealing, I think. They’re cleaner and more to the point. This is purely a project book. For the cover price of $21.95 you get 25 patterns for toys to sew, complete with two large pull-out sheets of full-sized templates.
Every sewing book should include pull-out pages of full-sized templates. Very few do, and it's even rarer among softie books. It's expensive to produce. This book is a gem for the template pages alone.
Several of the patterns are quite simple – really just an outline traced onto fabric, sewn together, and stuffed, with glued on embellishments. The dinosaur, bunny, pony, and dog fall into this category. This isn't a bad thing. They’re sweet and approachable and would be fun to tackle with a child helper.
Three-legged dino.
I love the aesthetic of the owl on the cover, and I think it’s representative of the kinds of toys you’ll find inside. Most of the projects combine different sorts of fabrics including felt, woven cotton, and wool. They're fairly straightforward in design but with charming touches like the messy-on-purpose embroidery stitches on the cover owl's belly.
Isn't this elephant darling? I love him so much.
I’m partial to flip dolls because, let’s face it, flip dolls are really cool, and you get two flip doll patterns in Make Your Own Soft Toys. The first is for the classic fairy tale pairing of a hen and a fox. I made this one. Take a look!
Hello hen.
Let's flip!
I love the way this doll is assembled. Figuring out how to put together a flip doll can kinda blow your mind, but this one is all laid out flat until the very end, and the skirt is machine sewn into the seam between the two bodies. This construction technique is excellent and I’ll definitely use it in my own design work in the future. That’s the main reason I read and sew from softie books – I learn so many new things with each experience.
The other flip doll is two girls. Both are smiling, but if I were to make them I would most certainly make one an evil witch. Along with the topsy turvy dolls, you’ll get five other doll patterns, including a mermaid. Some dolls have easy-to-make clothes and a few have yarn hair (with yarn hair instructions at the back).
This one reminds me of Alicia Paulson's dolls.
Every pattern is accompanied by really useful, well-drawn illustrations made by Kate Simunek. I would hire her in a minute to illustrate a book or pattern of mine. Her style is both fun and informative at once and her drawings enhance this book tremendously.
The final chapter in Make Your Own Soft Toy is a techniques chapter. I’m a techniques chapter junkie and will always devour them (even if it’s to reject a particular technique!). I love Rob Merrett’s method explained here called “pre-stitched line guide for neat closures.” Once you mark where the opening on a toy will be, you run a row of machine stitches on the stitching line (in from the seam allowance) on both pieces of fabric. Later, once the toy is stuffed, ladder stitch along those lines for a neat closure that perfectly aligns with the rest of the toy. Brilliant!
Rob Merrett is a seemingly elusive guy. I searched extensively for a way to connect with him online, but to no avail and CICO Books didn’t respond to my request for information. We get a tiny glimpse into his personality in the introduction when he talks about how his mother would curl his sister’s dolls’ hair, but’s that’s about it. You’re not buying a lifestyle brand here, just a pattern book.
I think Make Your Own Soft Toys is a great deal if you’re interested in sewing softies and dolls. Considering that most PDF patterns are $7-$10 a piece, there’s a lot of value here. I’m glad I paid for it and I would recommend it to you.
Make Your Own Soft Toys is 112 pages plus pull-out template sheets. It was published by CICO Books, an imprint of Ryland Peters & Small, in 2013 and retails for $21.95. You can find it on Amazon or Amazon UK or in your local bookstore, which is where I found mine.
wow great review! this book seems quite extensive in details, patterns, construction, etc. similar to your book with all its extensive details and patterns and how to’s 🙂
Thanks, Kim. This book is a keeper.
I need to google and find the best way to enlarge templates, because the one toy book I own asks you to enlarge them, leaving me to swear and squint at my copier as I try to get all the pieces blown up.
This looks like a fun book! The stitch line technique is something I will definitely try; my closures could use tidying for sure. Thanks for the review!
Thanks for the review. I’ve always been really drawn to softie making books and this one looks like a great one to add to the collection. The cover still looks like it’s made it the ’80s though. It must be the orange colour… I’m not a fan of drawn instructions and illustrations as well, but the projects look super cute. I’m adding it to my wish list!
Yes, enlarging templates is totally beyond me too. I can’t do it at home as I have only letter size paper as most people do. I took it to the Library and no one could do it there either. One person messed around for hours and produced a copy but I have no idea what they did and nor do they. I also get confused when it says enlarge by 200% does it mean it should be 3 times the size or 2 times? Works in reverse too – when it says enlarge by 2 times or worse 1.25 times. The more I think about it the more confused I get. I tend not to make things from books if I have to mess about with the patterns. My maths just isn’t up to it.
It just takes a little simple math! For reducing a pattern, you divide. So if you have a pattern with a width of 5 inches and would like it to be two inches across, 2/5 = 0,4 (40%). If you want to enlarge, say a pattern that’s 6 inches across and you want to make it 14, 14/6 = 2.33 (233%).
That’s a helpful formula, Lew. I can enlarge templates on my home printer, but I have to keep moving them around to get pieces of each one, then glue it all together. I end up wasting a lot of ink and paper and it take time! I love this book for the full-sized templates.
The drawn illustrations in this book are really well done. I think even if you’re not generally a fan of illustrations and prefer photos, you’ll find these to be really useful.
Oh yeah, I detest glue. I got a cheap overhead projector at a craft store a while back just for enlarging patterns. It was about $20, literally just a light bulb and a lens in a plastic shell, but it works decently.
Thank you for this review Abby! This book has been on my buy list for some time.
I hesitated as I was unsure what else was in the book other than the dolls which were featured in an English magazine I spotted one day in a newsagent.
I made 10 or 12 of the dolls and still have a few .. they went to charity and were given away. I should have a pic on my facebook page if you are interested in seeing them ?
Thanks for your blog and posts and patterns .. appreciated and enjoyed!
Oh that’s cool, Susan! I didn’t know some of these pattern appeared in a magazine as well. I’d love to see what you made! Will you email me a link?
Interesting that the author is elusive…in this day and age of “build your platform! build your platform!” it’s fascinating that the author wasn’t compelled to create one after the fact…even if he didn’t have one to begin with. It seems that having an online presence is important to publishing at present.
Maybe the author is an employee for CICO…or a pseudonym. Who knows – maybe Stephen King has a softie side and doesn’t want to be discovered this way. 🙂
That’s so funny! I totally wondered if it was a pen name, too. It is odd in the day and age to not have any online presence, not even a Facebook page, but here it is.
Rob Merrett does have some presence. He designs/ed baby clothes and I have seen an apron book as well in English and German. Am sure I have also seen knitting patterns by him in English (UK) craft magazines, which is where I found the pattern I have a couple of years ago.
Hi Susan,
Yes, I know that Rob has written several other books and has designed patterns for several magazines as well, but he doesn’t have a website, Facebook page, Instagram account, or Twitter account, or e-newsletter. I was searching for a place to connect with him, see what he’s working on now, and talk with him about his work.
Dear Ms. Glassenberg,
Thanks for this post.
Please would you advise. With no sewing experience, is this book still useful for me?
Hope you’re having a beautiful day!
Yes, I think it’s suitable for beginners.