Want to make your own version of The Great Serpent of Ronka!? Download + print the template files and follow the instructions below. It’s a very simple plush to make but please comment if something in unclear and I’ll do my best to improve the instructions. I’ve aimed it towards super beginners so if you’ve made a soft toy before you can probably disregard most of it!
Materials
- Minky or fleece:
- Orange (I used Shannon Plush – Mango)
- Brown/Tan (I used Shannon Plush – Taupe. Cappuccino is very similar)
- A small amount of pink (I used Shannon Plush – Coral)
- Self adhesive white felt for teeth (or normal fleece/felt, fabric glue, and a steady hand)
- 1 pair of black plastic safety eyes – 10mm
- Polyfibre stuffing. Old pillowcase stuffing will do if you don’t have this already.
- Sewing needle, beige thread, ideally pins to keep everything in place while you sew
- (optional) Have an embroidery machine? DragonsGarden has kindly shared the embroidery files for their alteration of this pattern. Download the embroidery files and additional instructions here. Ignore the plastic eyes, pink minky and white felt if you go down this route, as well as any instructions later that involve cutting a hole for the mouth, etc. If you’re using an embroidered face you’ll need to do these steps first before the instructions below.
Instructions
1. Cut out your fabric pieces. Line on the template is the sewing line, so leave a 10mm seam around all pieces. The shapes for the sides all look very similar so label them if needed.
2. Sew together the side and front stripes, so you now have three big body pieces
3. Cut your mouth hole (leaving a seam here too!) and sew in the pink mouth. This can be fiddly to get all the seams lined up and the mouth taut (I’ll add pictures soon)
4. Now sew all three body pieces together. I started at the top of the head – attached both sides to the front, then sewed up the back. Remember to leave a small gap somewhere inconspicuous so you can turn the whole plush inside out.
One of the trickiest bits is to get all the stripes lined up as you sew. You have more control over this if you’re hand sewing. Whether you’re hand or machine sewing, pin the pieces together first carefully matching up the stripes.
5. Position the eyes, cut two very small holes and push through.
6. Stuff that chonk. Really stuff him – as much as you can get in. Use something long like a paintbrush handle to push it all the way in. If he’s lumpy, or the top of the head is still pointy instead of round, there’s still room for more stuffing.
7. Sew up the hole so the body is complete. Sew, stuff and attach tail. Add sticky teeth.
8. SCREE!
14 Comments
I am not completely sure how to cut the mouth hole like do I completely cut it or how should I leave a seam to put in the mouth? If I completely cut it wouldn’t the stitching be showing?
Leave a seam for both mouth and mouth hole. I will update the tutorial to make this clearer (hopefully with pictures)
Heya 🙂
first of all, thank you for the pattern! <3
I'm currently maing one for my husband (who actually has the minion, and then will have two while I have none xD), but I have zero experience with making plushies.. So I'm having trouble with two parts: how to I sew in the pink mouth? Do I cut right to the border on the light-colored fabric and then somehow sew it on? Because I can't see how to turn the fabric inside out, so I'm a bit lost there.. Also I'm not sure where the long-ish piece (template page 2, bottom right, below the mouth) goes, I guess it's for the tail?
Anyhow, any help would be greatly appreciated, so I can finish this one (before I make a better one once I finally find the correct fabric (I only found felt-like fabric, nothing even close to the colors I need in a fabric like what you used)).
Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
Best wishes from Germany <3
Leave a seam for both mouth and mouth hole. I will update the tutorial to make this clearer (hopefully with pictures). The long piece is the last part of the body – it didn’t all fit on the one page. I’ll update the download too to make this more obvious.
My kids are incredibly grateful to you. They all love the Great Serpent!
Thank you so much for the template! I am a beginner plushie maker and wondered if you had any tips for fitting the mouth piece? Also, is your original bean scaled up at all from the template? I tried a test run of hand-sewing the mouth piece into the mouth hole and it…sort of worked, but the wrong side looks like a nightmare. I wondered if the pattern was intended to be scaled up a bit so that the hole wasn’t so small. Or maybe snipping shallow notches into the curve would help? I’ll fiddle with it more, but figured I’d ask.
Leave a seam allowance on both pieces, and clip both here and there to the seam line. This will allow you to turn up the seam allowance and sew the pink mouth in. This is what I did, at least.
Any thoughts to adding pictures about the mouth. The instructions are a bit difficult to follow on that part.
I made this for my husband for Christmas, but it didn’t turn out the same shape as yours, unfortunately. It turned out a lot taller and skinnier. Is the template provided the same as the one you used for your chonk?
Could you please clarify which way the stretch is going for the cut pieces? I’ve cut one and put it together, but the shape of the plush isn’t as round and plump as in the photos.. The mouth also doesn’t look as wide, even though I cut a pink piece out with seams & attached it to the face. It’s still very narrow and tear drop shaped and not very triangular like in your photos. Appreciate any advice you could provide! Thank you. 🙂
Hey,
wonderful plushie you have set up here! And as the others I’m grateful about the pattern and all but somehow it feels like, especially the font part doesnt have the right sizes like on the pictures, the mouth hole on your pictures is wider at the bottom. Overall the Front part seems to be a lot wider than the pattern shows, i would really appreciate if you could check them again..
Hopefully you can help me out here since im mid crafting it for my girlfriends birthay.
The recommended material is Shannon plush which has little stretch up/down but a lot of stretch from side to side. When you stuff the body it will fill out to the correct proportions.
Omg you are the best human! Thank you for this pattern. I’ve never sewn before and he came out FANTASTIC!
https://imgur.com/a/iZlEbCd
I made this first one the adventurer serpent. The hat and bandana fabric are from Hobby Lobby
Love love love!
Hey fantastic template, I will be first trying this one out in felt, as im a beginner and i dont really wanna waste that plush fabric right away.
seems and measurements look like the biggest challaenge for me, but ima give this a go and let you know how it works out. ^^
heck ill even post a photo for you. to show you my 1st attempt ^^
Honestly though, thank you for sharing these downloads of the template for home use. ^^