I found a frog in our fuchsia plant! It was a real frog, but he must have hopped away as he wasn't there any more this morning. So, I decided to make my own frog, here's how to make a felt frog of your very own.
You will need:
- Two different colour of felt, about 15cm by 15 cm, any colours you like.
- Thread to match your felt.
- A pencil.
- Two buttons, any colour you like.
- A needle.
- Two pins.
- A ruler.
- Some paper.
- Some stuffing.
- Oh and a two pence piece. It needs to belong to the frog for keeps, so use one of your own or make sure whoever it belongs to knows they can't have it back!
Draw an egg shape on your paper about how big you'd like your frog to end up.
Cut this out and fold it in half to check it's symmetrical, if not, trim it until it is.
It should look like this:
Pin this egg to the two layers of coloured felt. You need one egg of each colour.
Cut around the egg and take out the pin so you end up with two felt eggs like the picture below. Put them to one side.
I practised drawing frog-like legs on what was left of my paper until I was confident enough to draw them straight on to the felt. You might be great at drawing frog-like legs so you might not need to practise.
You need two long legs for the back legs and two short ones for the front. Don't worry if they're a little wobbly, that's part of their charm.
Cut carefully along your lines, this is quite fiddly so keep calm and go slowly, ask for help if you need to. Hey, they look cute!
Assembling the body.
Place the legs on to one of the egg shapes like in the picture below. The two short ones near the point of the egg, the longer ones at the roundy end.
Make sure you leave a little bit sticking out like I have.
Pop your other egg shape on top and pin it carefully so you don't knock the legs out of place. Felt is quite good at sticking to itself so the legs shouldn't move too much.
It's ready to sew!
Before you start, there's one important thing to remember. Leave the bottom end of the frog open, don't sew up the bottom of the frog! This is very important.
Tip of the week!
You might run out of thread as you sew around your frog. Don't let your thread get shorter than about 5cm, like mine in the picture below. I use my middle finger as a guide length. You'll need to tie a knot here to secure your stitches and get more thread to carry on with.
It's so tempting to carry on sewing to the end so you don't have to tie a knot and re-thread the needle, especially when you have only a tiny bit left to sew. Don't do it! If you don't have enough thread to tie a knot at the end, all of your stitches may come undone! It's just not worth it.
Back to the frog!
Here's what it should look like sewn up:
Take out the pins and gently turn the frog inside out. Be careful not to pull the little legs as you do this, they might come off!
Once your frog is turned the right way, stuff it full of stuffing. The legs should be on the outside now like in the picture below.
Now you need the two pence piece. Tuck it in to the bottom of the frog, flat, underneath the stuffing. You can just see mine peeping out below. Sew up the hole with over stitch.
The two pence piece helps balance the frog and keep it sitting upright. Ooh, nearly finished!
This is what you should have now:
Q: I say, I say, I say, what do you call a frog with no eyes?
A: No eyed frog...
Hmm I guess that joke only works with deer.
For the frog's spots, draw as many as you would like on to your felt and cut them out. I've made my spots a different shade of green to the body, you can do what ever colour you like.
If you want a circle around your frog's eye like I have, make sure one spot is bigger than your button.
Sew a button on to the eye spot.
Sew the other button on to the pointy face end of the frog like this:
Glue on the spot with the eye attached opposite the other eye.
Arrange the other spots in a way that makes you happy. Glue them down. Fold the back legs like in the picture below and squeeze the fold between your fingers to crease it, this is called 'finger pressing'.
And that's it! Take your frog out for a spin in the garden. Where would he live? What would he eat? Make him a girlfriend!
My frogs live in the herb pot. Here they are at home!
I'd love to see your frog! You can show me by uploading here : http://www.flickr.com/groups/sewingtuesday/