Sewing Tuesday: Beaver Pencil Topper

Beavers are back in Britain! Up until Thursday people thought that beavers were gone from the English countryside but somebody found a beaver in the wild! Here's how to make a beaver pencil topper in celebration of this wonderful discovery. Beavers build dams out of wood - they chew through it with their teeth. Here she is chewing my pencil. Hooray!

You will need:

• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Light brown felt
• Dark brown felt
• White felt
• Two beads
• Matching thread
• Needle
• Pins

Step 1.

• Draw a head, a muzzle, a body, some teeth and a tail shape on to your paper.

It should look something like this.

Step 2.

• Cut these out and place them on to your felt. 

The head and body go on the light brown felt, and the tail and muzzle go on the dark felt. The teeth go on the white felt.

Step 3.

• Draw around the shapes. 
• Cut out two heads and two bodies, one tail, one muzzle and one pair of teeth. 

Here's what you should have.

Step 4.

• Cut a slit in the felt muzzle for the teeth. 
• Poke the teeth through. 

Here's what it looks like from the back.

Here's what it looks like from the front.

Step 5. 

Check the GETTING STARTED post at the top right if you aren't sure how to sew. Use your drawings as guidance for where the lines go.

• Embroider eye shapes onto the head. Sew a bead into the middle of each eye.
• Embroider the front paws on to the front body. 
• Embroider the crissy-crossy lines on to the tail. 
• Embroider a nose and lips onto the muzzle. Make sure you sew the teeth on while you're doing this.

Step 6.

• Pin the back body to the front body, trapping the tail between the two. 
• Pin the muzzle onto the head.

Step 7.

• Sew around the muzzle, attaching it to the head.

Step 8. 

• Sew around the body using over stitch. Put a bit of stuffing or cotton wool inside the body if you like. 
• Poke the pencil into the slit behind the teeth to check that it fits. If it doesn't, widen the slit slightly by carefully snipping the edge of the slit.

Step 9.

• Pin the decorated head piece to the front of the body and the back head piece on to the back.

 Step 10.

• Sew around the head with over stitch.

I wasn't quite happy with my beaver's eyes, so I sewed lots of stitches over the top of the beads to look like eyelids. It made her look a bit less crazy.

Done!

Happy sewing.

Holly