Sewing Tuesday: Hedgehog Spotting kit. Help the Hedgehogs!

Hey everyone!

I read in the news that hedgehogs might be in trouble! People are organising a survey of when hedgehogs are first spotted coming out of hibernation to check that they are OK.
I like hedgehogs so I'll be taking part, have a look here at the story in the news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16616141

I thought a little hedgehog spotting note making kit might be useful to carry around just in case I see one. It has paper and a pencil inside so I can write down when and where it was. It has a ribbon so that I can hang it round my neck. Here it is:

You will need:

• 24cm by 8cm of felt for the main bag. I chose spotty felt as it's a hedgehog spotting kit! Hehe.
• Felt for the hedgehog. Brown and beige.
• A ribbon.
• Three buttons.
• Threads to match your felt, I have red, beige, brown and black thread for the features.
• Needle
• Some pins.
• Scissors.

Step 1.

The hedgehog.

I drew a picture of the hedgehog that was on the news. Here it is. Have a good look at what a hegdehog looks like. You can draw your own picture, google for hedgehog pictures or look in a book if you want to. 

Cut out a hedgehoggy shape from the brown felt, make sure the width of it fits on your bag shape.

                                    

Overlap the nose of the hedgehog shape on to the lighter coloured beige felt and cut round the nose end like this:

                                   

Cut a curve on the other end of the beige felt to make the hedgehog's face.

Put the hedgehog to one side and fold up 10cm of the bottom of your bag felt to make the shape of the bag.

 Pin the hedgehog on to the top layer of felt where you want it to go.

Open out the bag so it's just a felt rectangle again so that you don't sew the bag shut while sewing on your hedgehog! 

Sew a the button for his nose.

Using your drawing or picture to help you, sew a face using tiny stitches. 

Start to sew on the prickles. Sew big stitches in brown going away from the hedgehog's face like in the picture below.

Start putting in some fluffy beige prickles too. He'll have these all over his face.

When you are done with the prickles make sure that the hedgehog is securely sewn on all around his edge.

Step 2.

The bag.

Fold the bag up the 10 cm again so that it looks like this:

Put a pin through both layers where the top layer ends like the picture below. This is a marker pin, you should be able to see it peeking through at the back of your bag.

Turn the bag over, fold your ribbon in half and pin the folded bit to the back of the bag where the marker pin is showing. Open out the bag again in to a rectangle.

You could just stitch the folded ribbon to the felt here, but I like to sew on a button to hide the stitching. 

Turn the bag over and fold up the 10cm from the bottom again making the bag shape. Sew a button on like in the picture below. Only go through the top layer of felt. I will show you how to make the button hole in a moment.

Sew up both sides of the bag using over stitch like in the picture below.

Fold over the closing flap and feel through it to find the button. Draw a line in pencil from one side of the button to the other like this:

Fold the closing flap in half left to right. Snip along the pencil line carefully. There's your button hole! You're done!

Hooray! A spotty hedgehog spotting kit! Tie it round your neck, fill it with paper, a pencil and maybe some sweets to keep you going while you're out spotting hedgehogs. Good luck!

Happy sewing!

Holly.