Stuffed Balloon Animal Toy

This stuffed toy is incredibly simple to make and can be made into any animal you desire, just like real balloon animals. You will need a long and narrow piece of fabric, you can use up any leftover fabric. For stuffing, you can buy special toy stuffing or recycle old pillows. Aside from that you only need a ruler, scissors, needle and thread or fabric glue.

To make the same animal, you will need 160cm long and 17cm wide fabric (not including 1cm borders for stitches). This is a formula to calculate how wide your piece of fabric should be if you have different length of fabric, you can scale up or down. You can also change the width completely and make a thinner looking animal. I wanted mine to be thick and cuddly, so I used a wider piece of fabric.

I'm using recycled skirt material, 25cm wide and 160cm long. I used black thread to show the stitching, but ideally you should use a matching thread.

Fold the fabric in half (inside out) and use a ruler to mark 8.5cm border through the entire length. Use pins or extra needles to secure it. Stitch it with a sewing machine, needle and thread or fabric glue. Cut off any excess fabric. Turn the tube inside out.

Use a runner stitch to stitch one end, leave about 1cm excess fabric, so it looks like a balloon mouth piece. Tighten the stitches to close the end of the tube and run the needle through the fabric to secure it. Make a loop of you want the segments to be more pronounced.

Roll the tube like a very long stocking and fill with stuffing. I'm making 12cm segments for all legs and the abdomen, slightly shorter segments for the tail, neck and mouth and extra small for ears. Once your first segment is filled, shape it and move it around so it's smooth, not lumpy. Separate the segment by making a loop, tighten it and secure the thread. Continue for all segments.

Sequence should be like this: tail, back leg, back leg, abdomen, front leg, front leg, neck, ear, ear, mouth.

Once your animal sausage is made, assemble it piece by piece and use thread and needle to attach appropriate segments to each other. Maneuver the pieces so the seam is hidden out of view.

Correct the positions of all segments once the animal is assembled, to make sure all joints are securely stitched and the toy can stand on its own.