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Time: 4h00

Very cute little horsie, great gift for a child!
I made this hobby horse as a christmas present for my little niece. My design is pretty girly- you can of course make this a boy-suitable toy by going brown and jeans with the fabric, make it nice and cowboy! Also, gimme a shout if you need templates.

I look forward to seeing your versions!

Posted by Sarah P. from Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany • Published 27th December 2010 • See Sarah P.'s 5 projects »

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Horses

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Ikon K. favorited Hobbyhorse 05 Oct 10:30
WerewolfCas favorited Hobbyhorse 27 Aug 10:12

Step 1
Gather your stuff.
Step 2
Take the big piece of fabric that you want to make the head from, fold it double and iron.

(The ironing is optional but I find I do get much tidier results when I take the trouble to iron beforehand)
Step 3
Take your template and draw around it on the fabric.
Step 4
Do the same with the ears:

- bigger ear pieces from the same fabric as the head (white here)

- slightly smaller ear pieces from your second fabric (pink here)

Make sure you folded those double too so in the end you get

-1 head piece
-2 bigger ear pieces
-2 smaller ear pieces
Step 5
Pin the two layers together...
Step 6
... and cut them out...
Step 7
... so you get this!
Step 8
Now, take out your sewing machine (or curse yourself that you don't have one and do this by hand ;)).

HEAD:
Sew all around the head, leaving open only the neck part.

EARS:
Now take one piece of each size and fabric (one white and one pink piece) and sew them together, leaving open the bottom part.
Step 9
You should now have something like this.

Put these aside for a moment- we'll now make the stick.
Step 10
At the top part of your stick (where the head will be later), make a little dent all around. This will be to fasten the head later, so it doesn't come off when the cowboys and -gals are riding the horse later.
Step 11
Now, to make this toy safe, I decided to give the top of the stick some extra stuffing. We'll make a little pouch full off cotton wool and tie it to the top of the stick.

Take some fabric (any fabric, doesn't have to match the other one as it will be inside the horse and not visible) and draw a circle on it. I used a plate as a template.
Step 12
.. and cut it out.
Step 13
With some strong yarn, stitch all around it as you can see in the photo.
Step 14
Stuff it and pull it together.

You can see I'm extra paranoid so I taped some more cotton wool around the top.
Step 15
Place the little ball on the stick, pull it all the way shut and stitch, pull and twist it in place. Remember, this part doesn't have to look pretty.

Put aside for now.
Step 16
Back to the ears. We don't want them to come out floppy so we're going to put little pieces of cardboard into them so they'll stand upright on the horse's head later.
Step 17
Put the cardbpeard in the ear, fold under the edge and sew it shut. Do the same with the other ear.
Step 18
Attach to horse!

You don't want to rush this part. Take some time to consider where excactly you want the ears as this will determine the expression of your horse.

To make them stand up nice and straight, stitch them in place from both sides.
Step 19
Now for the mane. Take some wool and a big needle and prepare- this is the fumbly part.

Please consider using a cotton wool and not a sheep's. It's just as pretty and no-one had to suffer for it!
Step 20
While you make the mane, close the neck with a safety pin so the cotton wool doesn't fall out.
Step 21
Make alternating stitches: one normal, one a big loop that you hold up with your finger to make sure they're roughly the same length.

This is a bit hard to describe so I made some more pictures of this step.
Step 22
I made rows of about 6-8 locks of hair, spaced about a centimetre apart.
Step 23
I started with the fringe and continued down to the neck.
Step 24
... and the horsie has hair!
Step 25
Now, design your eyes.

Depending on whether you want a more cowboy-y boy horse or a girly unicorn horse, you will need a matching eye. I just googled for pictures of horses and unicorns and doodled until I found something I liked.
Step 26
Cut out the paper template for the eye, place it on the head and lightly (!) mark where it should go. Remember to turn the template around before marking the other eye.
Step 27
Stitch the eye.

I am not terribly talented as far as embroidery is concerned but it's supposed to look hand-made, right? You could probably also draw or paint the eye on if you prefer.
Step 28
Add a button for the eye.
Step 29
Make the nostrils.

I simply stitched some wonky circles, you can just as easily sew on a bit of fabric, or paint them.
Step 30
...
Step 31
Now, fold under the hem of the neck and sew all around.
Step 32
After you have done that, take a needle and some more firm yarn and make some big stitches all around (just like we did earlier with the pouch).
Step 33
Now, put the stick in and stuff the rest of the head.
Step 34
Draw shut and stitch and...
Step 35
.. tadaah! almost done.
Step 36
At this point though, the stick will still be able to turn inside the head. We want it to stay put so wind somemore yarn around the end as firmly as you can. I also used some glue here, just to make sure.
Step 37
Take a short piece of the ribbon you're going to use for the harness and glue it over the end to cover up this rather unpretty part.
Step 38
Now, to conceal this some more we'll make a ribbon from the secondary (pink) fabric. You could safe yourself the trouble by simply buying some matching ribbon, which only occured to me after I was done.

Cut out a long piece of the fabric (about 1m by 4 cm)

For the boy horses, you'll probably want to leave this step out. .
Step 39
Sew it to a long tube, leaving open one of the ends.
Step 40
Turn inside-out. This is very slow-going and annoying. I really should have just bought some ribbon.
Step 41
Take the ribbon you made and make a bow over it and sew in place.
Step 42
Now all we have left to do is the harness.

Take your ribbon and wrap it around the head:

-first over the nose
-then under the chin
-then, leaving a big loop for the child to hang on to, over the mane
Step 43
Sew in place at the sides, we'll cover this up with a button in a minute.
Step 44
... and you're done!
Step 45
Add the button.