Little Llama Softie Sew a Long - Making the Blanket

Welcome back to the Little Llama sew a long!  A little reminder about the giveaway, etc. and then we'll get to sewing the llama, we'll be finishing up LittleLlama today!

I will choose a random winner from Instagram and a random winner from Facebook who has posted a picture of their llama or llama in progress. Each winner will receive a 50.00 Jennifer Jangles gift certificate. The hashtag to use is #littlellamasoftie  You can tag me on Instagram as well. For Facebook, you can tag me or post your photo to my Jennifer Jangles page. You can post as many different photos that you would like.

#littlellamasoftie

I will announce the winners on July 28th (2017) so if you can't sew day to day with us, this will give you time to finish up.

As we sew, if you have questions, you can ask them here in the comments and then when I answer, everyone will benefit from seeing the answer as well. And by all means, leave me a comment to let me know how your little friend is coming along.

Let's get started! There are so many ways to sew the llamas blanket, I can't wait to see what you come up with. This Little Llama is the llama on the pattern cover. It's got ric rac and felt balls for trim.

This Little Llama is the llama on the pattern cover. It's got ric rac and felt balls for trim.

Boho Llama here, has a felt feather medallion, velvet ribbon, and I used a vintage feedsack fabric for her blanket. 

Clever Llama has tassels on her blanket and of course felt glasses. You can print the pattern here. Cut them from felt and tack stitch them on to here face.

Outdoor-sy Llama has a flannel plaid blanket with pom pom trim. 

The steps are the same for any of the blankets, you will just sew more or less trim on than the original Little Llama.

Cut two pieces of fabric measuring 5” x 9”. 

                                            

On one of the pieces, pin the trim. Pin two pieces going the length of the blanket and two pieces going with the width of the blanket. Make sure that the outer edges of the trim is at least 1/4” in from the raw edges. Top stitch these in place.

Place the right sides together of the two blanket pieces. Stitch around the outside, leaving a 3” opening for turning. Clip the corners and turn right side out. Press and hand stitch the opening closed.

Stitch the felt balls to the four corners of the blanket. Stitch tassels along the bottom, add a medallion, have fun with those embellishments. I have a Pinterest board dedicated to embellishments if you need some inspiration.

Keep posting those llama photos. I hope that you had fun and maybe learned something new. I will pick the winners on Friday the 28th and let you know who they are.

If you want to email me a picture of your llama it's info@jenniferjangles.com

Have a great day,
Jennifer

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Little Llama Softie Sew a Long - Sewing the Body

Welcome back to the Little Llama sew a long!  A little reminder about the giveaway, etc. and then we'll get to sewing the llama, were going to make BIG progress today.

I will choose a random winner from Instagram and a random winner from Facebook who has posted a picture of their llama or llama in progress. Each winner will receive a 50.00 Jennifer Jangles gift certificate. The hashtag to use is #littlellamasoftie  You can tag me on Instagram as well. For Facebook, you can tag me or post your photo to my Jennifer Jangles page. You can post as many different photos that you would like.

#littlellamasoftie

I will announce the winners on July 28th (2017) so if you can't sew day to day with us, this will give you time to finish up.

As we sew, if you have questions, you can ask them here in the comments and then when I answer, everyone will benefit from seeing the answer as well. And by all means, leave me a comment to let me know how your little friend is coming along.

Let's get started! Today is the sewing of the body, were going to make a lot of progress today.

First up is ears and tail. Start by pinning the two tail pieces together with right sides facing. Next, align an outer ear fabric with an inner ear fabric. Pin with the right side of the fabric together and repeat for the second set of ear pieces. If you are using faux fur for your llama, do your best to tuck the fur into the center of the pieces as you pin. This will result in a fluffier tail and ears.

Sew, using a 1/4" seam allowance around all three pieces. Leave the straight edge un-sewn on the three pieces. Clip the curves and turn the pieces so the right sides are out. If you're curious about clipping, here is a video I made a while back on the subject.

And here is another video about turning small pieces, you might find it helpful as well.

Place the body fabric onto your work surface. Place the paper piece on top and align the edges. Place a pin into the fabric, at the edge of each leg marking. 

Now remove the paper and place two legs onto the llama body in between the pins. Take note, that the legs have a flair on one side, use the paper pattern to guid you on placement. 

Once you have the right sides facing and aligned with the sides, pin along the legs.

Now you will do the same for the remaining body piece and two legs. You'll want to flip the paper pattern piece over to align it to the second body piece. Once you have those legs pinned on, take both body pieces to the sewing machine and sew across the legs.

Now were ready for the ears. Use that paper pattern piece again to place the ears where they need to be. Once you have them arranged, remove the paper.

Next, flip the ears onto the body fabric facing down. The ear linings should be down on to the face.

Pin in place. Now follow the same steps to pin the tail onto the body where it needs to be. Were getting close to having a llama!

Place the right sides together of the llama bodies.

I like to start by aligning the legs and pinning around them. Continue around the body, pinning everywhere but across the straight part of the back.

If you are using a Minky fabric or something slippery, use lots of pins. Take them out just before they are about to go under the presser foot, this will keep your fabric from moving around.

Remember to tuck the fur in before pinning if necessary. 

Sew around the outer edge all of the way around the body and legs, leaving the back open for stuffing. Once you have the body sewn, clip around all of the curves and corners. Turn right side out. Fill with fiberfill. Here's a video I made on filling with fiberfill you might find helpful for the llama.

Fill your llama with fiberfill and hand stitch the opening closed. With the opening on the llamas back, it will be hidden by the blanket. That way if you're not the best at hand stitching, you don't have to worry.

Were going to finish this llama up tomorrow with the blanket.

I hope you are having fun,

Jennifer

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Little Llama Softie Sew a Long - The Face

Welcome back to the Little Llama sew a long!I hope you were able to get everything cut out, ready for sewing.  A little reminder about the giveaway, etc. and then we'll get to sewing the face.

I will choose a random winner from Instagram and a random winner from Facebook who has posted a picture of their llama or llama in progress. Each winner will receive a 50.00 Jennifer Jangles gift certificate. The hashtag to use is #littlellamasoftie  You can tag me on Instagram as well. For Facebook, you can tag me or post your photo to my Jennifer Jangles page. You can post as many different photos that you would like.

#littlellamasoftie

I will announce the winners on July 28th (2017) so if you can't sew day to day with us, this will give you time to finish up.

As we sew, if you have questions, you can ask them here in the comments and then when I answer, everyone will benefit from seeing the answer as well. And by all means, leave me a comment to let me know how your little friend is coming along.

Let's get started! Today we will be stitching the nose and mouth, sewing it to the body fabric, and sewing the eyes onto the body as well. We are going to jump right in with a video. I came up with an easy way to transfer the nose and mouth lines to the felt. If you don't have a dissolvable pen, don't worry a thin pencil line will work the same. 

If you don't like this method, you can use transfer paper or water dissovable paper to transfer your stitch lines as well.

Okay, so the marks are on the felt, now it's time to embroider the marks. Here's a video of the back stitch, which is what I use to stitch the mouth.  

Once everything is stitch with floss, it's time to get the snout onto the body.

I might be lazy or efficient, I'm going to go with efficient here :) Instead of marking the fabric with where the snout goes, I have a little trick. Place the fabric on your work surface and place the paper piece on top, align all of the edges. Now peel back the paper a bit and place the felt onto the body fabric. Arrange it so the felt lines up with the snout markings on the paper. In the photo above you can see the felt is placed where it needs to go and we didn't have to transfer any markings. Woohoo. 

                                         

Pin around the felt to secure the piece on to the body.

Top stitch around the outer edge of the felt using your sewing machine. I usually stitch in about 1/8" from the edge.

Now it's time to hand stitch the eyes on. I use the same method as I did with arranging the felt onto the body. This time, once the paper is on top of the body piece, I push two pins in where the eyes are. You can peel back the paper a little and place the eye beads where they belong.

Now you can also play around with where you want the eyes and put them wherever you feel, that's the fun of making your own softies, you can give them personality.

If you don't have beads or you are giving the llama to a small child then small felt circles would work just as well for eyes. Sew the eyes on and we are finished for the day. Tomorrow we will be sewing the llama together. 

Send me your llama photos at info@jenniferjangles.com

I hope you're having fun,

Jennifer

Need another project?
What about one of these? See more here.

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Little Llama Softie Sew a Long - Cutting the Pieces

Welcome to the Little Llama sew a long! I am blown away by all of the excitement of the sew a long. This is going to be fun. So a little reminder about the giveaway, etc. and then we'll get to cutting out the fabrics.

I will choose a random winner from Instagram and a random winner from Facebook who has posted a picture of their llama or llama in progress. Each winner will receive a 50.00 Jennifer Jangles gift certificate. The hashtag to use is #littlellamasoftie  You can tag me on Instagram as well. For Facebook, you can tag me or post your photo to my Jennifer Jangles page. You can post as many different photos that you would like.

#littlellamasoftie

I will announce the winners on July 28th (2017) so if you can't sew day to day with us, this will give you time to finish up.

As we sew, if you have questions, you can ask them here in the comments and then when I answer, everyone will benefit from seeing the answer as well. And by all means, leave me a comment to let me know how your little friend is coming along.

Let's get started! Today we are going to cut out all of the pieces. 

First, you are going to want to cut out all of the paper pattern pieces. You can cut exactly on the line or loosely around the lines, it doesn't matter.

You will need 2 body pieces cut out with right sides facing, 2 ears with right sides facing, and 2 tail pieces with right sides facing cut from the main body fabric. If you are using a quilting cotton or a minky fabric, you can place two layers of fabric together and cut the two layers together. You want to make sure that the right sides of the fabric are together or the back side of the fabric are facing. The ensure that you get to "mirrored" fabric pieces. If you are cutting a thinker fur, keep reading before you cut. You can see how I arranged my pieces above, those two smaller pieces fit perfectly over the back of the llama to conserve fabric.

Pin the paper pieces through both of the layers of fabric. Cut the pieces out on the black outer line.

If you are using a heavier faux fur or something with a nap. You'll want to cut one layer at a time. Before laying out the pieces think about which way you will want the fabric to lie once it is sewn. For the llama body I want the fabric nap to run down. You can see it in the above photo.

Pin the piece in place. You're ready to cut. Heres a short little video showing how I cut fur to keep as much of it on your softie as you can. Plus it helps keep the fur off your sewing room floor.

            

Now that you have the first side cut,  you'll need to cut a second side. Flip your paper pattern piece over so the writing side is facing the front side of your fabric. This way you will get the mirrored piece.

For the tail, I decided to have the fur go up and off of it. Cut two tail pieces just as you dd the body pieces.

And last, are the ear pieces, they need to be mirror pieces as well, but these will be the two ear backs.

You will need to cut one snout from felt. That's easy, right?

From quilting cotton, you need to cut two sets of legs and 1 set of ears. You'll do this just as we did the quilting cotton body pieces above with the right sides together. This will make it so you end up with 4 leg pieces total.

Okay! So lets recap what you should have cut out for the llama...

___ 2 body pieces

___ 2 ear pieces from the body fabric

___ 2 tail pieces

___ 2 ear pieces from the inner ear fabric

___ 2 sets of legs from the leg fabric

___ 1 snout from felt

I hope that is manageable for today, I can't wait to see what fabrics you have chosen to sew your #littlellamasoftie from. I will be looking for your photos.

See you back here tomorrow and we'll start sewing.

Have a great day,

Jennifer

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Little Llama Softie Sew a Long Starting July 17th

Hello! Will you join in the fun wth me? I'm going to be sewing up some Llamas next week. Starting on Monday the 17th, I will take you through step by step of sewing the Little Llama Softie Pattern.

It's an easy to sew softie and I want to encourage some of the more timid sewists to join in on the fun. If you've been sewing for awhile, it will be fun to see your Llamas as well. How will you dress yours?

Outdoor-sy Llama

I filmed a few short videos for tips on cutting fur, embroidery, and more. We'll break the process down over three days. If you miss a day or can't start with the rest of us, you'll be able to jump in at anytime. 

Boho Llama

And to entice you even more, if you haven't already decided, we'll have a hashtag for Instagram or you can post on my Facebook page your work in process or your finished softie. I will randomly choose a winner from Instagram and a winner from Facebook to each win a 50.00 Jennifer Jangles gift certificate. 

Clever Llama

Have I convinced you to sew a long? We'll start on Monday the 17th so you have time to get your pattern if you don't already have it and your supplies. I'll have the Llama glasses pattern for you next week as well.)

                                             

The pattern can be found here, if you don't already have it.

Here a supply list so you can gather up your fabrics before the 17th.

Here are the fabric groupings I chose for the Llamas above. I am so looking forward to this, I hope you can join the fun!

              

I'll be back on Monday with the first steps, see you then,

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