Make a Soft Toy EVE From the Film WALL-E

If you've fallen in love with the film WALL-E but making a WALL-E robot is too complicated for you, why not make a soft toy EVE, it's actually really easy and my kids loved it (and they're all boys). EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) is the gorgeous, iPod like super advanced robot that comes to Earth 700 years after humans have left it so that it could be tidied up by robots like WALL-E. This model can be made very simply with no arms or with arms if you fancy making a couple of button holes and sewing on some buttons.

This instructable will supply a good quality picture of EVE's face and her plant icon, but if you want you can go to the EVE project on dadcando where you can download a printable version that is suitable for ink jet printing straight on to white cotton to make it even easier.

You can use a glue gun instead of a sewing machine, but a sewing machine does give you the best results.

what you'll need:

• White cotton (old pillow case or bed sheet is ok)
• Two white shirt buttons
• White thread
• Soft toy stuffing (although you can use a few carrier bags at a push)
• A small piece of stiff fabric interlining
• Sewing machine (ideally, but glue gun also a possibility)

First draw out your EVE on a sheet of plain white cotton. The ideal size is about the area of a piece of A4 or US Letter sized paper. The curves you use will make EVE appear slightly fatter, but then when you stuff the toy this will reduce the width as some of th material has to be used up for the depth. EVE is conical, but this simple pattern will make a very credible toy (when stuffed) because the shape fills out nicely.

This is not difficult, because EVE is a very simple shape. The only trouble you might have is with the leaf icon, but I have attached a high quality picture that I drew from a frame grab of a high resolution trailer.

If you want you can draw out EVE in pencil and then embroider the face eyes and flower icon, or you can download the printable from dadcando, which will allow you to print the EVE sewing pattern directly on to your fabric.

If you've never used a sewing machine before and you can borrow one, this is a good project to start on, because it is so simple. For the same reason it is also an excellent project to get one of your children going on sewing (boy or girl... and if you don't think it's a MAN thing... come on, my brother made his wife's wedding dress, now how cool is that?).

Any how, even if you don't have a sewing machine you could always use a glue gun, it sticks material really well, just remember that it won't wash that well!

SO... you place the drawn face of EVE facing inward with another piece of plain white cotton and then you sew the two together, making sure to keep the sewing line curves nice and even. go slowly so that you can see what you are doing.

medium stitch all the way round leaving a gap of about 5cm (2inches) to allow you to turn EVE right way out when you're done.

Using a sharp pair of scissors, trim round the sewing, about 5mm out from the seam.

Now turn EVE right way out and smooth her out. You might like to iron the material flat at this point, just to keep it nice and flat.

Using soft toy stuffing, foam crumble or even old white carrier bags (bit crinkly but basically fairly soft and ok), stuff the toy until you have a nice firm rounded shape.

Using a needle and thread carefully sew the seam gap shut as neatly as possible (the red thread is shown in this picture only for reference, in reality you will be using WHITE thread).

At this point you can stop if you want. EVE doesn't really need arms, and if you don't feel up to making arms you can leave her like this. A perfectly good toy to play with.

HOWEVER, if you want to put arms on, and they are really easy to put on, then at this point you sew on two buttons just about in line with the bottom of the face at the side right over the seam.

Repeat the first 4 steps of the project, but this time making the arms. Draw them following the templates provided, or ink jet print them out using the templates on dadcando. Obviously make two arm shapes.

Draw on the fingers and the button hole making sure that you measure it against the button you sewed on to the body earlier.

The outline of the image shown is the sewing line, and the arms should be trimmed back to about 5mm from this, just like the body and then turned right side out. The outline with dotted rule is for the stiff interlining. For this you should cut out the lining exactly to this size.

The interlining can be a piece of light weight white card if you want, although it will not stand up to chewing or washing. Alternatively use the proper dress makers lining fabric.

If you cut the interlining stiffener out accurately , you should be able to wiggle it in through the seam gap you have left. Once it is in, smooth out the material to make sure the seam is straight. Then stuff the arms with only a little stuffing on the top side only. The result should be that one side of the arms is relatively flat and the other has got a gentle curve.

Firstly, neatly sew the arm closed (with white thread) and then sew the fingers and the button hole. Most modern sewing machines have a button hole function. If not then a button hole is just two strips of satin stitch about 1mm apart with a wider bit of satin stitch at each end. If you can't make a button hole using the sewing machine, paint a strip of Elmers glue or PVA where you want the button hole to be on both sides of the material, put cling film or carrier bag plastic round the arm over the glue and clamp it down until it is dry, then slit carefully with a craft knife. The glue should stop the material fraying. when dry, cut a button hole in the middle of the glued strip.

If you are using the button hole function of your sewing machine for the first time, you'll find that most machines have very simple instructions on how to make a button hole somewhere on them. Once you have sewn the hole edging all the way round, you have to actually make the hole. This is easily made using a sharp craft knife or scalpel. Take care to only slit the fabric and not cut through the stitching round the hole at the sides of hole or at the ends.

To sew the fingers, just sew with the sewing machine in straight lines over the finger lines that you drew earlier. Sew straight through the stuffing and the interlining so that you get a slightly quilted effect.

Repeat for other arm.

Attaching arms at this stage is probably the easiest bit of the project, just poke the buttons through the button holes! If you want to embellish EVE, then why not try a bit of embroidery for the eyes. You can do this at the end, but it would probably be neater if you did it before you sewed it all together. If you have printed out EVE using the ink jet pattern, then you can paint the face darker using markers or fabric paint and even paint the flower icon in using light green GLOW IN THE DARK paint.

And there you have it, all that remains is for you to wrestle it off your kids for 2 minutes so you can take a picture and post it up online so that we can all see how you got on!