' Sew Elsie the bat!

Hello everyone!

Have a good start into the new week and have fun with a little tutorial for a two-winged fall friend! Halloween is just around the corner, so we really think you should meet the little bat girl Elsie! Actually it´s "Eloise", she ´s named after her great-grandmother, but her parents decided to call her Elsie until she finally grows into that big name "Eloise". Elsie is a fun little bat girl and she tried her best to look cute for you all - notice the little embellishments she put on her wing! Unfortunately Elsie did only find one of her favorite crocheted stockings, she is a really wild little bat.

If you want to make your very own bat friends to meet our Elsie girl you will need some supplies!

Here is what you need to make a little bat:

fur fabric (if you don´t have any, don´t worry - you can take fleece, felt, knit or just plain cotton fabric as well!)
some fabric scraps for the legs
felt for the face, ears and wings
embroidery floss
crochet trim, optionally (or any other ribbon or trim you like)
bakers twine, optionally (or embroidery floss)
stuffing


print out the template

Start with cutting out all the pieces. We will need two body pieces from fur (I already included a quarter inch seam allowance, so you don´t need to worry about that!), one face, two wings plus two additional pieces of felt that are slightly bigger than the wings, two strips of fabric measuring 6.5 x 2.5", two ears and again two additional pieces of felt that are slightly bigger than the ears.

First we will embroider the eyes and mouth to the face (as usual i took three strands of embroidery floss).

If you want to add little embellishments on the wings, embroider them now. I decided to go with two little crosses stitched up in bakers twine on one wing. 
Place the face onto the front body piece and sew around it close to the edge.

Take one of the wings and layer it on one of the bigger felt pieces you just cut. Secure with a few pins and sew all the way around it, close to the edge of the wing. Now cut the wing out, but don´t cut into your seam. Repeat this for the second wing.
In the same manner as we just did the wings we will also make the ears.

For the legs we will turn the two strips of fabric into two pieces of bias tape. If you don´t know how to make your own bias tape, please hop to this blog post here and have a look, it is really easy. 
Take the bias tape and stitch along both long ends as well as one short end. Tie a knot into the end with the stitching (I do the stitching on the short end so it won´t fray). Repeat for the second leg. Optionally you can attach some crocheted trim or ribbon or any other fun little trimmings.

Time to layer all the pieces where we want them. Position the ears on the top of the body, the wings on each side of the face and the legs on the bottom of the body. Make sure your body front looks up at you and the pieces are all pointing inwards, their edges in one line with the body edges.

Cover with the body back piece, wrong side up, right side down facing the right side of the body front. Secure all your pieces with pins so they won´t slip away when you start sewing around the body. Start at one side of the body and sew around it, but please keep in mind that you need to leave an opening (mine was bout 2.5 inches) to turn the body right side out.

Turn the bat right side out, stuff and hand-stitch the opening closed. Tadaa - you just completed your very own little Halloween bat!

If you use our tutorial to make little bats please share a photo - we would love to see them!

We hope you enjoyed our tutorial and that you will be back here on Wednesday!