I like this little toy design - I've made four of them now, for various babies born in the last couple of years. The first two I made for Christmas 2013, and didn't ever get around to writing up, because I made SO much that winter. So this time round, I made sure I got some photos as I was working on these two happy little clouds.
You start with four cute cloud shapes cut from squidgeable, soft, white fleece and some rainbow coloured ribbons with various textures and patterns. And a couple of other ribbons for the hanging tags.
Hand stitch some friendly looking faces...
... and then position and pin the ribbons. This bit make my brain squint somewhat, because I struggle to imagine how it's going to end up once it's sewed and turned through.
Can you see why that would fox my poor pregnant brain? My spatial visualising skills aren't strong at the best of times and this just looks WRONG. But it's not!
Then you stitch around, with a short stitch length, to ensure it's not going to come apart at the seams. I do a double line of stitching long the ribbon edge to make sure the ribbons don't pull out when they are tugged and chewed.
Then, so that the curved edges sit nicely when it's turned through, you have to cut little snips inwards, perpendicular to the stitching, to release the tension.
You should probably aim not to do THAT, either. Sigh.
It's also important to not sew the WHOLE way around the cloud, otherwise turning it inside out to stuff will prove challenging, to say the least. The final step is to stuff and invisibly hand-stitch the bit you left.
You're going to have to imagine how cute these little guys looks once stuffed, because disappointingly, I forgot to take one final photo! I really should make one for MY baby. I made Little R a round ragtag toy when he was little, but a bit too late for him to REALLY benefit from it. And clouds are cuter, I think!