Sewing With Kids: Curious Mr. Fox Tutorial
This is a great project to try out with younger kids, and a handy way to use up your scraps of left over fabric. You can encourage your child to come up with their very own character and help them make it into a DIY pattern, by simply drawing it out on a piece of paper, adding the seam allowances, and cutting it out together.
Otherwise, you can also download our Mr. Fox Pattern below.
Materials
For our Mr Fox, we used 1/2 yard of IL019 APRICOT Midweight Linen and a small piece approximately 4″ square of IL019 KRISTA NATURAL Midweight Linen
Tools
Difficulty
Sewing Time
Pattern
You can access FS printable PDF pattern by following this link HERE. All seam allowances are included and are 1/4” (6 mm) unless otherwise specified.
Remember to transfer all the notches and markings onto your fabric.
Steps
- Fold the bottom end of the tail tip under 1/4″ and press. Place with the wrong side down, on top of the right side of one of the tail pieces. Pin in place.
- Topstitch in place with a backstitch or machine stitch 1/8″ from the edge. You can use the embroidery thread or matching sewing thread.
- Add the tail ‘hairs’ by hand sewing with a basic running stitch in the cream embroidery thread.
- To sew the tail together, place the tail pieces right sides together and sew a 1/4″ seam, leaving the short end open. Use a backstitch or running stitch with small stitches if working by hand, using matching sewing thread. Clip the seam allowances around the curves, making sure to not cut your line of sewing.
- Turn right side out and stuff. Do not close the end.
-
Begin embroidery on the main body. On the right side of one of the body pieces, use a running stitch and cream embroidery thread to sew on the hairs of the ears and belly. Using a satin stitch, embroider the eyes.
Optional: Add small squares of fusible interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric behind each eye to stabilize your stitches and help them lay flat.
- Sew the body together. place the body pieces right sides together and pin. Sew a 1/4 seam leaving a gap between the notches. Use a backstitch or running stitch with small stitches if working by hand, using matching sewing thread.
- Clip the seam allowances around the curves, making sure to not cut your line of sewing. Turn right side out carefully. Fill with stuffing.
- Embroider the hands and feet with long stitches using the black embroidery thread, beginning in the ditch of the seam. Using a satin stitch, sew the nose, again starting in the seam ditch.
- Place the open end of the tail inside the opening of the body and pin in place, tucking the seam allowance of the body to the inside. Sew through all layers to close the gap using a neat running stitch in one direction, then back in the other direction sewing over the gaps. this will make your stitches look like a backstitch on both sides.
How to Running Stitch
How to Backstitch
How to Satin stitch
About Author
Lauren Linen
Lauren is a knitting pattern designer and part of the fabrics-store.com pattern team. For a decade, Lauren was a high school Fashion and Art teacher in Australia before relocating to Los Angeles.Leave a comment
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13 Comments
Bethany Thompson
Thank you for this new feature of sewing with kids. My sweet Mama made all my clothes for years on her Singer Featherweight machine. Letting me choose patterns and materials, teaching me how to match thread and trims, giving me scraps to make clothes for my dolls, and encouraging me to learn new stitches led me to not only sew my own clothes, but to make my daughter’s clothes. I’ve had so many interesting creative opportunities and it all started when Mama put a threaded needle and small pieces of fabric in my hands and showed me how to start. Now I’m the one sewing on that almost 75 year old machine!
Lauren Gates
I love this Bethany! Sewing must bring up such wonderful memories with your Mama and its beautiful you can pass on these skills on the same machine to your daughter! Happy sewing. Lauren.
Janet Bockman
This is so cute and I plan to make one for my niece in Alaska who loves foxes! But I am a little confused why there are four eyes on this guy? I will stitch maybe one or at the most two. Very cute though and if this were on Etsy it would cost a small fortune!!
Judith Leland
As a seller of handmade items, I encourage you to think of the amount of time that goes into the making.
I love this pattern! The diy approach is great as I think it might encourage “ownership” of the project, an internal engagement, that will make it more lovely to the maker, than a buying customer.
Scraps make this more cost effective, but the ? tone makes me think more of apricot than autumn gold. Solid colors of linen now costs nearly $12.00 per yard. DMC Pearl cotton in 3 colors would cost about $6. And that is without the time spent in sewing and finishing. Personally I’d guess at least 3 to 5 hours of actual hand work to produce an item to sell. A child with a grandmother/father’s help could be considerably less. The seed of DIY might be planted!
So, in fairness to creators, if you think items are highly priced, consider their costs and procedures.
I doubt Janet was complaining, more likely wishing prices were lower. This year many of us have had lots of extra minutes, but extra work to do…
Precious memories for adult and a lovie for a child, is a profit for your spirit!
Janet Bockman
HELLO JUDITH…
I am really quite annoyed by your comment…you act as though I am a complete know-nothing about this sort of thing. I would like to tell you that I have been creating things my entire life. I sew and also quilt, paint, print, draw, etc etc. etc. and have been doing this for years. I have taught quilt classes and worked in a quilt shop for many years until my personal health issues cut that short. Now I am mostly home-bound but still am luckily able to create and do most of the things here at home that I would like to do.
I am completely aware of the cost of materials for projects! I am completely aware of the time it takes to make things by hand! I just commented that I do not like to pay high prices for things and if I can make something myself that perhaps I saw on Etsy..then that is a good thing. I really don’t appreciate your condescending attitude towards my comment! You do not know me or anything that I do and yet you put your snarky little comment out for me to read.. This is very annoying to me and I don’t like this sort of attitude. Please don’t make assumptions about me or my work, my thoughts, etc. I was MERELY commenting on how much things on Etsy are and if this were on there, it would be a pricey item. I give away most of the things that I create to friends and acquaintences and even people who I have just met and may never see again. I am a generous person and I suppose I could sell things on Etsy myself, but I prefer to give my creations to others to make them happy.
I work with my hands daily and make many many things. I have given away over 100 quilts to charities, friends and family. I come from a long long line of makers and I love to create. It is a soothing healthy thing to do and if I did not have the ability to make things I would be very unhappy indeed. Please DO NOT lecture me on what you believe I need to know, because I already know these things! If I were to sell something on Etsy or elsewhere I would want a fair amount for it, but as I said before, I prefer to GIVE and not sell.
I hope that you will let this matter lie and do not comment on my comments again.
Janet
Masha Karpushina
Janet, to answer your question about the four eyes- why not 🙂 Hope you have making one for your niece or maybe even with her over FaceTime.
Janet Bockman
Hello Masha,
Yes, why not have four eyes…but I just don’t want to do that…haa! My niece does not sew and I do not do FaceTime so I hope to make this for her as she really loves foxes and living up in Alaska, I am sure she sees many of them. She lives way up there in the interior, closer to Siberia than anywhere else. I made her some double sided napkins with fox fabric for her birthday and she loves them. When I saw this fox pop up, I thought that it would be perfect.
Janet Bockman
This is so crazy and has really put a nasty mood over my weekend…which I do not need. Why do people have to be so nosy and put in their comment which I did not ask for?? I was only making a small single comment about how this would be so pricey on Etsy. I don’t have tons of money to purchase pre-made items on Etsy because they are very expensive!! I can make things myself so much cheaper and it means more because I made it myself, not someone else. I have never purchased things like that on Etsy. Good for you if you sell things but I have found in my life that becoming a factory and trying to produce items is time consuming and the pay is not adequate to my effort. Selling items takes ALL THE FUN out of creating for me! I have done it before and it was not very enjoyable.
Just because I made a comment about it would be expensive on Etsy does not indicate that I am clueless and know nothing about how things work!! Yet you jump right in and chastise me for saying that!!
This type of thing is what I really detest about social media and why I stay away from it!! I hate all of it …a person can make one innocuous comment and then someone has to come out of the woodwork to analyze and criticize what you have said!! I do not need this stress and problem in my life…I have enough on my plate dealing with being disabled and all that entails. And SO WHAT if I do not like the four eyes? I can’t be the only person but now I am sure no one else will say so! HAA! I just don’t care for four eyes and plan to stitch less…why is that a big deal??
Thanks so much for making me upset and irritated…just please keep your little comments to yourself and leave me alone!!!
Janet Bockman
This above comment was not supposed to be under this particular comment, I meant it to go under what I had previously written. I am upset and make mistakes when that happens. SO annoyed right now.
corinna oliver
fun …thanks for sharing
always inspiring and helpful
Ann Stephanides
I can’t find the pattern link.
Masha Karpushina
Ann, hello, there is no pattern link, you are meant to draw it out yourself, or with your kids! Have fun!
Ann Stephanides
Ah thank you. I was confused because it says you can download the Mr Fox pattern.
‘Otherwise, you can also download our Mr. Fox Pattern below.’