Embroidering Plushies

Excellent, you want to make your own plushie. There are lots of ways to put eyes and a cutie mark on your ponies; everything from buttons to paint to hand embroidery. I have always found that machine embroidery gives your plushie a professionally made look. on top of that, it is much more durable than other methods.

Embroidery is fun, but it can also be a pain if you don't plan ahead. So let's do some planning. First, some basics about setting up a machine and some of the mechanics and costs of embroidery. Read these first.

Making a new design (digitizing)
Stabilizer and Patches
Basic costs and materials
Recommended Cutie Mark sizes

First up, you need an embroidery machine. I use a SE400 and a PE770 from Brother for most of my embroidery. The fabric is put into a hoop (the grey square clamp that you can see later) and some stabilizer is put on the front and back of the fabric. This keeps the fabric from moving when being embroidered. You also need some thread. I recommend Marathon, though everyone has their own favorites. Sometimes, machines can be temperamental too and not like specific brands of thread. For example, my machine doesn't like Threadart or CTS thread (I think they have the same manufacturer). Both brands break a ton in my machines while Marathon hardly breaks at all. Isacord also works well for me.

Now, on to the setup! First, lay out your material and DO NOT CUT OUT THE PATTERN. I am using Minky for Rainbow Dash, and the grain is running from left to right. Just like a real animal, you want the 'fur' pointed in the right direction (from head to tail). So in the pictures I have taken, the pony's head will be on the left and the tail on the right.

This is the hoop; in this case it is made for a 100mm by 100mm maximum size design. The attachment point to the machine is on the left, and the part at the bottom is the clamp screw. The side with the clamp screw is also the bottom of the design for my machines. Check yours to make sure they match.

This is the hoop set on a piece of 200mm by 200mm 1.5oz tear away stabilizer. I use 2 sheets of this on the back and 1 sheet of water soluble Solvy on the top when I embroider on Minky. AS a note, the 200mm by 200mm also happens to be the minimum piece of fabric you can embroider in a 100mm hoop until you have to resort to not-so-good workarounds that I don't like employing.

Now lay out the pattern, DO NOT CUT IT OUT YET. Center the hoop on where the cutie mark will go. Once you figure out where to put it, measure to the center of where you want the cutie mark and put down some masking tape where the approximate center of the cutie mark needs to go. Then measure, and mark the spot like this. One arrow to the front, one arrow to the top with the bottom right point being the exact center. These are your alignment marks for putting the fabric in the hoop. If I am embroidering your fabric for you (or any other embroiderer for that matter) this is where you stop, fold up the fabric, and send it to get embroidered.

Next up, put the bottom of the hoop and 2 sheets of stabilizer under the fabric, Solvy on top, and use the top piece of the hoop, resting lightly on the fabric, to tell where the center of the design is. The green hatch mark thing is the alignment grid. The goal is to line up the center of the masking tape mark to the center of the hoop grid. In this case, I am a few degrees off. It is pretty much impossible to get this exactly lined up which is why you do not cut out the pattern until after the embroidery is done.

Once lined up, remove the tape and clamp the fabric together. Here you can see the top and bottom of the hoop with the layers in this order form top to bottom: Solvy, Minky, 2 sheets of 1.5oz stabilizer. Now you can put it in the machine.

My Little Pony eye and Cutie Mark size

I get asked quite a bit what the correct eye and cutie mark size is for MLP stuffed animals.  There are honestly a ton of personal preferences and patterns, but in general, these are the sizes that I think work best. They have been tweeked over the past year based on feedback from different designers and makers.

Height is measured from the bottom of the hoof to the top of the head, not including the mane or ears. The size of the cutie mark and eyes is measured by width or height of the design, whichever is hit first when sizing. For example, for a 18" tall pony, the eye should fit in a square that is 101mm in width and height. In general, I round to the nearest 5mm size when I embroider. So an 18" tall pony would get an eye that is 100mm by 100mm.

Height in inches	Height in milimeters	eye size in mm	cutie mark in mm
1	25	6	6
2	51	11	13
3	76	17	19
4	102	22	25
5	127	28	32
6	152	34	38
7	178	39	45
8	203	45	51
9	229	50	57
10	254	56	64
11	279	62	70
12	305	67	76
13	330	73	83
14	356	78	89
15	381	84	95
16	406	89	102
17	432	95	108
18	457	101	114
19	483	106	121
20	508	112	127
21	533	117	133
22	559	123	140
23	584	129	146
24	610	134	152
25	635	140	159
26	660	145	165
27	686	151	172
28	711	157	178
29	737	162	184
30	762	168	191
31	787	173	197
32	813	179	203
33	838	184	210
34	864	190	216
35	889	196	222
36	914	201	229
37	940	207	235
38	965	212	241
39	991	218	248
40	1016	224	254
41	1041	229	260
42	1067	235	267
43	1092	240	273
44	1118	246	279
45	1143	252	286
46	1168	257	292
47	1194	263	299
48	1219	268	305

Lyra Plushie Kit - Make your own Plushie

Kit is available here: ethepony.ecrater.com

I have gotten a ton of requests to embroider eyes and cutie marks for folks who want a MLP plushie.  Sadly, a lot of the detail on embroidering eyes and cutie marks is lost when I try to make a patch out of them.  The only option while keeping quality is to embroider directly on the fabric.  If you didn’t have an embroidery machine, that meant sending me the fabric, I would embroider it, and then mail it back.  That back and forth took about a month, and shipping cost was very high. I have been working on different solutions with a few goals in mind.  The goals I had in mind were:

Realistic - The solution had to look like a MLP pony and be 'On Model'. They definitely had to be better than the new TRU plushes that frighten small children.
High quality - The solution had to be high quality.  Quality is in the details, so the details have to be wonderfully made.
Huggable - The solution had to be cuddly and soft.
Durable - The solution had to be able to take abuse and rough play.  Kids (and sometimes adults) are rough with their toys.
Inexpensive - The solution had to be easy to afford so that everyone can make MLP plushies.  My specific goal was under $50 total.
Fast - Turn around time of less than a week so that folks don't have to wait.
Easy - the solution had to be as easy as possible for the buyer.  Preferably a ‘one stop shop’

Pretty much everything I came up with failed several of those requirements, especially the inexpensive one.  Shipping fabric around several times is not the best use of money.  Then, about 2 weeks ago I was in a fabric store that I had not been to before.  I was just wondering around when I came across a few bolts of high quality polar fleece.  I stared at one of them for a while before I figured out why it had caught my attention.  It was Lyra’s body color.  That color is insanely hard to find, and here was 20 square yards that I ran across on accident. That fleece had to come home with me, and the idea was born.  A MLP Plushie Kit.

My goal was to be under $50 for a MLP plushie, so I sat down and figured out just what materials would be needed, how much they would cost, and how to get them to someone for the cheapest way possible.  I pared the list down to only those things that are harder to find, and put them all into the kit.  When I was done, I ended up with a cost well BELOW my goal; only 38 bucks.  Even a pony like Rainbow Dash with a bazillion colors would end up under $50.

The Lyra Plushie Kit is designed to give you nearly everything you need to make a Lyra plushie.  The kit comes with huggable soft polar fleece in the right colors that has been embroidered with Lyra’s eyes and cutie marks for a professional look.  The embroidery sizing is based upon Valley Violet’s MLP pony pattern, which makes a pony at around ten inches tall.  The eyes and cutie marks are each 65mm tall (about 2.5 inches).  The embroidery itself is designed to be durable, and is overlocked at several points.  This means that if something happens and some of the thread is cut (say, on a ceiling fan as you toss Lyra across the room) the embroidery won’t completely unravel. The black and tan grid that can be seen in the pictures are each one inch squares for reference by the way.

The main body of Lyra is made from mint polar fleece, and pieces of medium green and white polar fleece are supplied to make Lyra’s mane and tail. Polar fleece is soft, warm, and doesn't shed little bits all over like Minky or other microfiber fleece. This makes it a good fit for a plushie that will get hugged, and not necessary put in a display case on a shelf.

2 bobbins of thread that contain about 120 yards of thread each are also included so you can sew your plush together.  120 yards is enough for about 5 plushies, so you can test to your heart’s content. The thread is 40 weight polyester and is color matched to the mint fleece. As all seams are sewn inside the body and none is visible, the color isn’t all that important for most of the plush.  The exception is the hand sewing required on the plush’s head.  The thread comes on 2 bobbins, one is size L, one is size 15.  This is equivalent to Brother SA155 and SA156 bobbins.  About 99% of home machines use one of these 2 bobbin sizes.  That means you can use one bobbin as a bobbin, and the other bobbin for the top thread.  Most machines have a vertical feed that will take a bobbin for the top thread.  In some cases, a spool pin or something like it may be supplied with the machine to support a vertical feed from a bobbin.  Check your machine manual to see if it supports this type of feed.  Do not use a bobbin for the top thread on a horizontal fed machine, and do not use it if your machine recommends against it.  I have never had a problem with it on any sewing machine, but you know your machine best.

What you get:
Mint Polar Fleece - 58” wide by 12” tall, and embroidered
Medium Green Polar Fleece - 29” wide by 12” tall
White Polar Fleece - 29” wide by 12” tall
One class 15 bobbin with 120 yards of mint thread
One class L bobbin with 120 yards of mint thread

What you don’t get, but will need:
Sewing Machine (or lots of patience)
Marker
hand needle
Pins
Polyfill – Nearly every Wal-Mart caries this
Pony Pattern
    http://valleyviolet.deviantart.com/
    http://www.etsy.com/shop/valleyviolet
    Or nearly any pattern where the end result is a pony roughly 10 inches tall.

The fabric is huggable soft polar fleece.  The mint fleece (Lyra’s body) is 58 inches wide by 12 inches tall.  For Lyra’s mane and tail, one piece of medium green and one piece of white is supplied, each at 12” tall by 29” wide.  The sizes I have listed here are approximate, and may be plus or minus several inches.  There is almost twice as much material as needed to make a Lyra plushie so you have lots of testing material.

Valley Violet’s MLP pony pattern is pretty popular, and there are lots of modifications to it that folks have done.  One common modification is making the pony sides from 1 piece of fabric instead of two.  The embroidered cutie mark locations support either one or two piece pony sides.

Hints:
The cutie marks and eyes are directional.  This means there is a left and a right for both.  When you cut them out, make sure you cut them out on the correct side.  Measure twice cut once!

Make sure to sew the ‘wrong side’ together.  When you make a plush, you sew it inside out then turn it right side out at the end.  That means the embroidery will be on the INSIDE of the pony when you are actually sewing it.

I suggest not using the embroidered pieces for your first pony.  Getting the eye placement just right can be time consuming.  If the eyes are not lined up, your pony may look weird.  Well, with the exception of Derpy.  Pinning the pattern to the fleece then holding it up to a strong light can help you see how the embroidery lays out against the pattern.  Once cut, it is all but impossible to fix, so take your time.

Tested with sewing machine needle sizes 11, 12 and 14.

Plushies Coming Up

Sorry that I haven't posted any designs in a little while, I haven't had time to upload the files and do the writeups of them.  They will be coming shortly, along with a bunch of different sets of plushie eyes (Derpy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, Twilight, & Lyra).

So far, I have embroidered designs for a few different My Little Pony plushie makers like Hoppip, but I haven't made my own. Well, I am going to try making a MLP one, hopefully next week.  I am not positive who I will do, but for the first one, I will do somepony with an easy mane, and probably a female earth pony so I don't have the horn or wings to deal with.  I'm thinking of doing Applebloom, but not sure yet.

I just ordered a pattern to make a plushie.  Know what the best part is?  YOU CAN GET A PATTERN.  RIGHT HERE.  For $15, you get a physical pattern, and for $20, you get a physical pattern and a PDF so you can make more patterns for your own use.   The ponies above were made with the pattern.

Valley Violet is the one who made the pattern.  She put lots of time into making it look awesome and in writing the instructions, so you should totally get one.  Right now.