Sewing Tuesday: Buur's Festive Jacket.

Hi! This week I'm going to show you how to make a festive red jacket for your teddy or doll. If your toy doesn't look good in red, make it a different colour.

Here's Buur wearing his jacket that I made for him.

He's a bit of a poser.

You will need:

• Two pieces of felt, Buur is quite big, you might need less.
• Some paper.
• A pencil.
• Thread to match your felt.
• Scissors.
• A needle.
• Some pins.
• Oh, and a button if you want one.

Step 1.

Measuring up.

Find a bear of doll that doesn't have a jacket. Buur doesn't have any clothes at all and he looks a bit grumpy about it.

Draw around you toy's top half on your paper, go down to the waist and up the neck to its ears if it has any. 

Draw straight lines across the arm ends and across the bottom and neck.

Here's what mine looked like:

Cut out the shape and fold it in half to check if it's symmetrical. You might need to trim it a bit if it's very wonky. Mine was only a bit wonky so I just trimmed a tiny bit.

Pin your jacket shape to the felt and cut around it. This will be the back of the jacket.

Fold the paper jacket in half and put it on the edge of your felt. Pin it and cut around it. Do this bit twice so you get two half jacket pieces. These are the front pieces.

These are the bits you should have:

Step 2. 

Sewing it together! Check out my GETTING STARTED post over on the top right if you are not sure how sew a certain stitch or if you get stuck.

Pin one front jacket piece on top of the back piece like in the picture below. Sew around the edges that I have drawn along in green. Use over stitch and your matching thread.

Do the same to the other side so that it looks like this:

Turn the jacket inside out so that the stitches and knots are on the inside.

Step 3. 

Decorating.

Have a think about where you want the button, if you want one. Sew it on by going in and out of the holes a few times, using jacket coloured thread. Tie a secure knot to make sure it doesn't fall off. You could add a few other different decorations to the jacket if you like!

Fold down the collar, then you're done!

Buur was very pleased with his jacket. I think I'll make him some trousers next week!

Happy sewing!

Holly.