UglyDolls Moxy Stuffed Plush Toy

I recently got my daughter interested in the animated movie UglyDolls and she seemed to like it so I decided to sew her a Moxy doll. I've never sewn a doll before, but though why not! It's fairly straightforward in design as it consists just of a 2-piece body and limbs that are attached in the one seam, but that's all she needs to be.

Maybe she's not perfect (the face stitching is messy, the arms are too long on mine, the other parts too stumpy on mine*) but that's why she's an UglyDoll :) you have to love her just the way she is.

*In Step 2: Pattern I'll talk about how I changed the final pattern style in an attempt to fix my issues mentioned.

**Also, I modeled this after a doll you can buy from Walmart for like $6. So it's probably cheaper to buy it than to make it, but where's the fun in that ;)

Instructable 335

Materials:

• Pink Fleece, about half a yard or so - I used what I had leftover from my Louise Belcher hat so I think it's a little lighter pink but it really doesn't matter
• White Felt or White Fleece - you don't need much of this at all, so I just used felt which I already had
• Black and White Embroidery Floss

Tools:

• Sewing Machine - you could hand sew this, but that would be a pain
• Thread that matches your fleece
• Sewing Needle - for closing up the doll and the embroidery
• Fabric Glue *
• Scissors
• Disappearing Ink Marker - I used this for the embroidery and to trace the design before cutting out
• Sewing Pins
• Pattern - next step

* Be careful that your glue bottle doesn't explode! I think mine was too old and the plastic bottle deteriorated a bit, when I squeezed it, the back end just blew up!

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To start with you need to print the two pattern pages and cut out the pieces. Make sure when you print it, you have "Actual Size", "Choose paper source by PDF page size" and don't print on both sides.

Cut out the pieces.

I also use an exacto knife to cut out the eyes, teeth, and cut the slit of the mouth.

If you'll notice the files pieces aren't exactly like mine in the picture and that's because I did some minor editing after making my doll and seeing how it came out.

The changes include:

• Made smile more pronounced so it's more noticeable when the doll is stuffed (it seemed like she lost her smile after I stuffed her)
• Arms are a tad shorter
• All other pieces (not arms or body) are slightly larger overall
• All other pieces (not arms or body) were made slightly longer where they need to be sewed to the body to give you more seam allowance.

Now that you have your pattern, it's time to cut your pieces.

I DID NOT allow for seam allowances when making the pattern (because I tried to make the doll as big as I could and still print on an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper. So plan for that when tracing and cutting out pieces, you can see I left about .25" around the body. Do this for all the pieces.

(You won't necessarily need extra on the pieces that attach to the body but use your best judgement. )

Also the body should be symetrical so it shouldn't matter what way you trace and cut it.

If you are using a fleece that is the same on both sides, it shouldn't matter which way you cut out the pieces. If your fabric is different on each side, make sure to do half of each of the pieces one way, and flip the pattern piece to do the other half. Meaning, do the body 1 piece one way, and 1 piece the other way; for the arms do 2 one way, and 2 the other way, etc.

Now that you have the body, you need the face pieces. Cut out the two eyes and teeth pieces using felt.

To start the embroidery, use white and black to make the pupils. Mine aren't perfect, but that's okay.

I used two strands of embroidery floss for my stitching.

Once you have the pupils done, you can lightly glue down the eyes and teeth to the body. I used the body pattern to line them up on the piece. Lightly glue the center of all the pieces and that's it. You don't need a lot of glue. The glue is partly to help hold them on, and partly to hold them in place while you stitch them on. Try to keep the glue in the middle because if you get it on the edges you'll have to sew through it and that's hard.

You could probably use a machine, but I wasn't sure how, so I stitched the eyes on by hand. I wanted it to look like there was a dark line around the eyes so I did a tight stitch around. I found it helped if I did spaced stitches (photo 4) first and then went back and filled them in. Also, remember to do the three eyelashes on each eye. You can trace and line these up using the body pattern piece.

Once the eyes are on you need to do the teeth and mouth. I sewed the teth on in the same way with black, but I probably should have used white instead. So if you like it my way, use black, if not, use white.

Lastly, trace the mouth line and stitch that. I went over the mouth two times with the stitches to make it darker.

Now that you have the face done, don't ruin this piece or you're hours of stitching will be wasted!!!

We'll start by sewing up all the limbs!

Match up your pieces so you have 2 hair pieces, 1 strange piece that sticks out of her heat, 2 arms, and 2 legs.

Sew these up.

Turn them inside out.

Stuff them.

I more lightly stuffed the hair and head piece so they wouldn't be too fat, I mostly wanted them stable. And then more fully stuffed the arms and legs.

Now that you have everything you need, it is time to pin everything in place.

Lay down your face piece and line up the limbs. I put tick marks on the head for the head piece and for the legs, but other than that it's fairly easy.

I put the arms on the body right where it meets the head. I also put these sideways with the little finger facing forward. To make sure it's right, pin it down facing in as you see and then just flip it out and make sure it is facing the right way.

For the hair pieces they are on the head right before it meets the body. So almost right next to the arms.

Once everything is pinned and sitting nicely inside the body, go to the next step.

Lay your body back right on top of your front piece that has all the limbs attached.

Carefully line it up and one at a time, remove each of the pins and put it back through all the layers. (there might be a better way to do it, but this is how I did it!)

Add in more pins between the parts till you have pins all around but leave a gap on the body (photo 3) for turning right side out.

Sew all the way around except in the turning spot.

* Make sure you catch all the limbs as you stitch. The first time I stitched this up (with the face piece the wrong way) one of the feet actually didn't catch so I would have had to resew that part anyway.

Now that it is sewn, flip it right side out through the hole you left open.

Hopefully it now looks right and you sewed everything right. (if not you have to pull the stitches out and fix your mistakes, I actually sewed the wrong sides together and spent half an hour pulling out all the stitches and redoing everything :P )

Stuff your doll.

Taking needle and thread, carefully sew the hole shut and try to make the stitches not noticable.

DONE!

Enjoy your Moxy!

Last picture shows me (an adult) holding it to get an idea for size.