Angel Birds

The kids all really enjoyed this past Christmas, especially the decorations.  We go all out with decorating the house, which is very festive, even if it is not the most glamorous display.  W has always had fun with the decorating, but this was the first Christmas that the little ones noticed.  One thing that they especially loved was the nativity scenes.  They both love them, but little D really loves the angel.  He calls them birds, because they have wings.  The twins had the Little People Nativity to play with and a larger (think half the size of D and M) Precious Moments one to look at and talk about.  The playing, singing, talking about nativities went on daily in our house until the end of January.  The rest of the decorations had long been packed away, but the babies just loved to have the nativities out.
So, I waited until the little ones were with their dad, and I packed up the nativities that were left.  I want them to be a special Christmas item, so yearlong nativity play wasn't going to make that happen.  After the twins came home, D went looking for his bird to carry around.  He was quite distraught to find it gone.  The more tired he became, the more tragic it all was to him.  So, instead of giving in and unpacking the nativities, I did what had to be done...   I made the babies their own Angel Birds to play with year round!
I began by making a pattern of sorts.  I have not ever made stuffed dolls before, so this was all new to me.  I thought that aiming for the shape of a gingerbread woman would work for the body.  I folded the paper in half to draw and cut out my pattern.  I ended up liking it, except for the flat head.

I decided to use fleece that I already had to make the angel birds, pink for M and blue for D.  I traced the pattern onto the fleece that was doubled and cut out both pieces at the same time.  I also used the cutting time to round out the flat head on my angel bird.

Then, I should have pinned it together before sewing, but I really didn't want to stay up all night making the angel birds, so I just lined up the edges as I sewed.  The right side of the fabric is facing in on both pieces when you sew them together.  Leave about a 2 inch portion unsewn for flipping the angel bird right side out and to stuff it.

I stuffed the angel birds pretty firm poly fill, so they would hold up to toddler love.  Then, I hand stitched the opening closed as neatly as I could when approaching the middle of the night.

For the wings, I traced the bottom of a circular strawberry basket.  It was about the same size as an ice cream bucket.  What circle to trace is just a matter of how large you want the wings to be.  Again, I traced it on double fleece and cut out both layers at once.  I do wish that I had used a disappearing ink marker, but used a Sharpie.  This meant trimming the tracing off the edges of one circle.

Then, the sewing of the wings.  I did not do this very technically.  I started at the bottom of the circle edge and just bunched the circle and stitched away at it, by hand.  I did do it in little increments and checked often to see that I was bunching somewhat evenly and that the wings would end in a normal wing position.

The faces were added with Sharpie.  I did practice first on a scrap, which I highly recommend.

Then the hair had to be added.  Like I said earlier, I have never made stuffed dolls before.  So, I have never had to add hair to a doll before.  This step included a Google search, reading several tutorials, and then hacking them into something that I felt was doing for me.  The following steps made one angel worth of hair for me.  Basically, I fold a piece of printer paper in half.  I used my angel bird to measure how long I wanted the hair to be.  I cut a bunch of yarn to slightly longer than the desired length, then laid in in the folded paper, trying to get it close together but not overlapping.  Then, I sewed several "parts" into the hair with my machine.  The paper is supposedly needed to keep the yarn from jamming the machine.  Then, carefully remove the paper from around the yarn.  Yay!  You now have doll hair.  If this step makes no sense, please Google "how to make doll hair" and see if the tutorials help any.

I then hand stitched it down the center seam of the hair to where I wanted it on the angels.  Most of the tutorials encourage stitching several seams on the head, but I am not after any doll making awards, just happy kids.  Then, the angel needs a haircut to even up the lengths.

Then, the Angel Birds were done, just waiting on D and M to love them!