Zebra Softie

Recently I have been playing with felt a lot (another cute softie post will be following this one as soon as it's recipient receives it) and I decided to make stuffed animals for the kids in my life this Christmas. I asked my sister-in-law what my two nieces favorite animals were and she told me kitties, puppies and one of them likes zebras! I had already tried my hand at a very simple cat but was rather intimidated at the idea of making a zebra. I'm not sure what scared me because it turned out not to be very hard at all. A trip to the Wal-mart fabric department made this project a lot easier. I bought a 1/4 yard of zebra print felt for $2 and still have plenty left over for other projects. The also sell zebra print felt sheets but you get more for your money if you buy it this way. To make your own zebra softie you will need:

Zebra felt - how much depends on how big you want to make it
Coordinating felt scraps or yarn for the mane, tail and ears- I used hot pink
Black felt for eyes, nose and feet
Scissors
Needle and coordinating thread
Paper and pencil
Hot glue gun - you can hand sew the whole thing but I prefer to glue some parts down

First, I made a pattern. I just drew a very simple horse shape cut it out. Then I pinned it to my felt and cut out two of them. Make sure to flip the pattern over so that you have zebra print on both sides.

To make the feet I pinned the pattern to the edge of the black felt and the cut it out so I had a little black half circle. I repeated this twice with both feet.

Then I cut out two very small circles for eyes and two very small ovals for nostrils out of the black felt. I also cut out two very small pink triangles for the ears. For the mane and tail I cut out pink rectangles. To make the mane I cut thick slits down one of the long sides, not going all the way through. For the tail I cut thinner slits almost the length of the rectangle. In the future I will use yarn as I think that will be a little stronger. Here are all of the pieces:

And here is how they are, hot glued down:

To attach the mane and tail I flipped one side over and hot glued them down as well. I rolled the tail piece and glued it before gluing it to the zebra.

All that was left was to stitch the two pieces together and stuff it! My daughter fell in love with this one so I decided to let her have it and make my niece a slightly bigger one with yarn for the mane and tail.

It would also be cute with a little pink bow tied around it's neck! What was your favorite stuffed animal as a kid?