Felt Penguin Ornament (or softie) Tutorial

Here’s a tutorial for a cute little felt penguin toy or ornament perfect for Christmas (or just for winter fun)

Finished measurements: Each penguin is roughly 3″ tall so they don’t take much in the way of supplies.

New to sewing with felt? Check out my tips here.

Supplies to make one felt penguin:

1/4 of one sheet of black felt for body and wings
Scraps of white felt for belly, and eyes
Scraps of orange felt for beak and feet
Black embroidery floss
Ribbon (if making it an ornament)
Thread and needle (could also use a sewing machine for some of it)
Fabric glue (optional); I use Fabri-Tac
The template that you can download here

For the felt I prefer wool blend felt sheets but the Eco-fi sheets are ok in a pinch (they don’t pill as much as the craft sheets of felt from the dollar store but aren’t nearly as durable as the wool blend)

Instructions:

(This explains how to make the ornament version, just leave off the ribbon if you want a little toy instead).

1. Cut out all pieces. 2 body, 1 belly, 1 pair eyes, 1 beak, 2 feet, 10″ piece ribbon (not pictured)

2. Stitch belly to one body piece, lining up bottom of belly with straight edge of body. The bottom edge doesn’t need to be stitched.

3. Place eyes about 1/4″ above belly, stitch in place.

4. Using black thread make small stitches to create pupils, do a french knot or I did tiny x’s here.

5. Line beak up against bottom of eyes and overlapping belly. Glue or stitch in place.

6. Make knot in ribbon, place so that knot is above the top of head and loop pointing down. Lay feet right sides together so that bottom straight edge of foot is flush with bottom of body. Lay second body piece overtop.

8. Starting on one side, whipstitch (or sew with your machine 1/8″ from edge) all around body leaving a 1 inch gap for turning.

9. Turn right side out. Lightly stuff and whipstitch opening closed.

10. Stitch wings on. Start about 3/8″ down from top, stitch around top and ending on other side, 3/8″ from top. (Where to stitch is highlighted in red).