Monkey Toy

Stitch your little monkey an adorable soft toy that will keep them entertained for hours. This plush companion by Corinne Bradd is perfect for play dates and nap time. His fun features include a spiral tail, contrasting body and felt face. Your child will treasure their fabric friend, so why not stitch it in their favourite colours?

Essentials

Cotton prints, two fat quarters

Felt, 10cm square

Toy filling

Embroidery thread, black

Black buttons, 8mm, two

Dimensions List

23cm x 35cm

Sew a monkey

Download the templates from the tab above. Draw around the body template onto the reverse of lighter print fabric, taking care to centralise any print for best results. Mark the head, tail and limb positions. Cut out two body pieces, adding a 5mm seam allowance. Fold the darker print fabric in half, draw around and cut out two heads, two tails, four arms, four ears and four legs. Roughly cut around the main outline of the tail, avoiding the spiral as this will be cut out properly later.
With right sides together, sew the two pairs of ear pieces, leaving the flat edge open. Clip the curves and turn right side out. Stuff lightly with toy filling and tack across the open end. Lay the ears onto the right side of one head piece, so the straight section falls within the seam allowance. Pin the second head piece on top, right side down. Sew around the head, leaving the neck open. Clip the curves and turn right sides out so that the ears extend from either side of the head. Firmly stuff the head.
Pin the arms, legs and tail pieces with right sides together. Sew along the guide lines, leaving the flat ends open on each piece. Stitch along the spiral outline for the tail, then cut out 5mm from the sewing line. Clip the curves, and turn out the pieces. Use a blunt ended knitting needle to push out the ends completely. Firmly stuff all the limbs and hold the stuffing in place with a couple of tacking stitches.
Pin the body pieces right sides together and stitch between the limb positioning marks. Fold in the fabric at the gaps and tack to create hemmed holes in the body before clipping the curves and turning out through the head hole. Fit the legs into the hemmed holes at the bottom of the body and oversew all around to hold them in place, taking care not to stitch through both layers of fabric at the top of the leg. Remove any tacking stitches and insert more stuffing if necessary through the tail hole. Fix the tail and arms into position in the same way, adding extra stuffing to the tops of the limbs before filling the whole body piece through the neck hole.
Pin and oversew the head to the neck as for the limbs. Before stitching the last 2cm of the seam, add more stuffing to ensure the head doesn’t flop on the neck. Complete the neck seam.
Cut a face shape from coloured felt and mark the position of the eyes, nose and mouth with a soft pencil. Embroider the features with black thread and stitch small buttons on as eyes. Pin the felt to the head and oversew all around, adding a little filling beneath it to pad out the face before finishing the seam.