Our 2nd son B is 2.5 and is currently OBSESSED with Team Umizoomi. However, Nickelodeon does not make ONE SINGLE Team Umizoomi toy. The best you can do are print-it-yourself iron-ons. Well, "good enough" is rarely good enough for me :P, so I decided to make B some Team Umizoomi stuffed dolls for Christmas. Or stuffed action-figures, since he's a boy? Anyway, I was inspired by
one post I found online and took a starting point from there, but I ended up making all my own patterns and winging it my way as I went.
Before you ask, NO, I WILL NOT MAKE THESE TO SELL. I recommend you don't, either. It would be copyright infringement and if YOU want Nickelodeon coming after you with a lawsuit, be my guest, but I don't. :) I am not responsible for your legal infractions of copyrights. I made these purely for my own son's personal use. I'm posting my process as to how I made them to help any other parents out there who might be in the same boat I'm in, but how you use this information is totally on your shoulders. Personally, I'm going to err on the side of caution. :P
So with all that out of the way, here is my first post in a series of 3 - Bot! I started with him so that I had at least one done if I can't manage to finish all three in time for Christmas. I'll post Geo and Milli as I get to them; for now, Bot is the only one I have done.
What I Used:
- cotton (or cotton/poly) fabric in green and yellow
- fleece in green, yellow, white, black, and blue
- matching threads, of course
- Heat-n-Bond or fabric glue
- a black Sharpie FABRIC marker (not a regular Sharpie)
- a white paint pen
- printouts of my pattern pieces
- batting to stuff him with
- a hand sewing needle
Because I'm such an awesome person, I made sure I had a copy of my pattern before I cut it apart, so I could
share it here. You're welcome. :) We'll just pretend it wasn't because I was worried I'd screw it up the first time and need to be able to print new copies of the pattern pieces. ;) Bot didn't all fit on one page, so there are two pages you will need to print; just print them on standard 8.5 x 11" paper and they should be the right size.
I love my sewing machine and I will do what I can with it whenever possible, but I will warn you up front - this little guy required quite a bit of hand-sewing. I don't consider this an extremely complex project, but I guess I'd "tag" it as requiring an intermediate knowledge of sewing. Mostly I just winged it.
- Start by cutting out two body pieces from your green cotton fabric. You will also want to cut two mouth placement strips and two bottom accent pieces from the blue fleece. Cut one belly screen border from yellow fleece and one belly screen piece from the white fleece. Cut one mouth piece out of black fleece. I used fleece because it doesn't unravel (so I didn't have to hem or stitch over it) and it washes and wears better than felt (and I don't make anything for a child that can't be thrown in the washing machine). You can use whatever you want, but if you use a cotton or something that will fray, you'll need to cut the pieces bigger so you can hem them around the edges first.
- Cut strips of Heat-n-Bond the same size as each of your fleece pieces and adhere them to the back sides of your fleece (it can be hard to tell which is the right side and which is the wrong side of fleece; just pick one, it won't matter). Iron the white belly screen onto the yellow belly screen background piece. Using your pattern pieces as a guide, lay the two blue fleece pieces on top of the RIGHT side of your green body pieces and iron into place. On ONE of the body pieces, also iron on the belly screen. Add the mouth piece to the front (the same piece as the belly screen). You can use Heat-n-Bond for this, but its hard to cut such small pieces. I used a fabric glue to adhere this one.
- Using the eye guide as a starting point, draw eyes on the front piece with the black fabric marker. Just a Note: I ended up putting them a little closer together than what is shown on the pattern; I didn't feel like redrawing the entire pattern JUST to redo the eyes, so you'll have to just adjust manually. :) Use the white paint pen to add the little sparkles to his eyes as accents. You should now have (roughly) this:
- At this point, you may want to run a quick straight stitch around the edges of the belly screens and the blue pieces - it's totally up to you. I got the blue pieces ironed on pretty closely on the edges, so I only stitched around the 2 belly screen pieces, but make your own determination. If you want to add the extra reinforcement of a stitch, now is the time. Once you're done (or if you skip it), place the two body pieces right sides together and stitch around 3/4 of the way. I left a straight piece open on one side.
- Carefully turn the pieces inside out and stuff Bot with batting. I made him pretty tight, but again, this part is according to personal taste. Once you have him stuffed, hand-stitch the opening closed, and the main body section is finished!
- Now you're ready to add arms and legs. Cut from green cotton 4 arm pieces and 4 leg pieces. Cut 4 shoe accents and 4 wrist accents from blue fleece. Cut 4 hand pieces from yellow cotton. Adhere the blue wrist and shoe accents to their green arm and leg counterparts using the same methods as above.
- Place 2 arm pieces right sides together and sew around the outside. I left my opening on one of the long sides of the arms and on the side of the hands, rather than at the wrists, but it's up to you. Turn inside out and stuff, sewing the openings closed when you're finished. Repeat for the other arm/hand.
- Using a hand needle and some thread, hold one arm and one hand together at the wrists. Start your needle through the wrist piece on the arm and run through the opposite side on the hand wrist; wrap around the bottom of the wrist and back through the arm. Repeat down the length of the wrist (and I doubled-back over it all again for good measure). Repeat for the other wrist, then attach to the body using the same technique. Repeat the same for the legs. At this point, your Bot is almost finished! (see the next several pictures for reference)
The very last thing to add is the antenna to his head. This part is a little harder to describe, but hopefully you can figure out how to make something that will work. There aren't pattern pieces for these because I cut them free-hand. Cut one slightly rounded rectangle, kind of like a shallow rainbow, out of green fleece. Cut one long thin yellow strip from cotton. Tie a knot in the center of the yellow cotton strip and fold vertically. Continue to tie knots all the way down until your tabs are too short to tie anymore. Lay in the center of your fleece piece and roll around to make the "dish" part of the antenna. Hand-stitch the bottom together to hold it all in place.
Take another piece of green fleece, preferably the side of the selvedge edge, and cut into a long rectangle. Roll (starting with the selvedge side) into a tight cylinder. Hand-stitch the cone piece you just made to the top end of the cylinder to make the antenna. Hold the completed antenna to the top of Bot (where you want to attach it) and cut the pole piece to your desired length. Hand-stitch the antenna to the top of Bot's head, and you're finished!
