Lady bug

Hello everyone!!

I hope you all are fine and enjoying your life to the fullest because, there is no tomorrow, just "NOW" ! :P Stole my friend's status but yeah its true. So whatever plans you have in your mind, do them right now, express yourself and just enjoy every moment!

Okay okay that was way too philosophical, but anyways lets move on to today's project! You know till now I have worked with paper but I never got a chance to work with fabric and I desperately wanted to do something with all the fabric that I had. So I yesterday when I was googling, it just clicked me, why not make a soft toy or you might say a mini mini soft toy. And here is the result :D 

So now lets get to work!

Materials required:

• 2 different colored fabrics
• Pair of scissors
• Sewing kit
• Cotton
• Buttons or googly eyes for eyes (whichever you may prefer)
• Fabric glue

Step 1: Okay first of all make sure that your fabric is nice and flat so its easy to cut and draw. You can iron it if necessary. Now I have used black color for the base and pink for body. You know if you have a polka dot cloth, then its best for the body but I didn't have so I had to paint the dots.

 Now for body you will need 4 petal shapes as shown below. Now before cutting make sure to leave some seam space for sewing. My petals are 6 cm long and 6.5 cm wide.

Step 2: Cut 4 semicircles (1.5 cm radius) from base material for ears and a circle of 4 cm radius for the base. And a small rectangle for making the tac.

Step 3: Put the two ear semicircle with right side facing each other and sew only the curve part. Repeat for other pair. And turn them inside out.
If you don't want the ears then its okay don't add them just like I did in the red one.

Step 4: Fold the tac as shown in figure. Use the scissor handle to level it if necessary and sew only the open length part.

Step 5: Now for the main body as you can see I have marked a boundary of 1 cm for sewing  for ease. Put the two petals together , right side facing each other and sew only one curve as I have shown. Now repeat it with other petals making a chain and don't forget to add ears (on two sides of same petal). You can use office pins to hold your fabric in place. Just leave the last curve open , i.e. don't join the the last two edges. You will get something as shown below.

leave 1 cm seam space

sew only one curve as shown

adding next petal to the chain

adding the ear, see how its placed with curve inside

eras are placed on two side of same petal

result of step 5

Step 6: Now sew the base with the bottom of petals as shown , beginning from one open side till the end. Add the tac on the opposite side of the ears. 

see that the eras and tac are opposite to each other

Step 7: After finishing the base , sew that open curve but leave a little gap at the end.

Turn the fabric inside out.

Step 8: Stuff it and close the open edge. You won't believe how much cotton this ladybug will eat :P

Step 9: Paint the face and spots and place the eyes and wooppiieee your own stuffed toy is ready :D

Isn't it cute?? You can use it as a key-chain, or just hang it on your bags or it will also look cute just lying on your desk.   

I had also made these owl ones few months back. Tutorial for those are easily available on Google. :)

Go on and make your own lady bug and remember there are no boundaries to imagination ;)

love

kruti :)