Welcome to our delightful plushy crafting adventure, where we’ll show you how to create a charming heart plushy perfect for Valentine’s Day and beyond. What makes this heart plushy extra special is its connection with our Valentine’s Day Teddy Bear tutorial.
This versatile pattern can be used to make not only plushies, but also bag charms, coin purses, and more, making it a must-have addition to your crafting repertoire.
Whether you’re gifting it to a loved one or adding a touch of whimsy to your own accessories, this heart plushy is sure to bring joy and warmth wherever it goes. Join us as we bring this adorable heart plushy to life, one stitch at a time!
Print it on US letter or A4 paper depending on the version you downloaded.
Make sure that the pattern is not resized by checking your print settings. You can check if it was printed properly by measuring the reference found at the bottom of each page.
Securing the pieces of the pattern on the leather
Roughly cut around the different pieces of the heart with an X-acto knife or a pair of scissors.
Secure all the pieces of the pattern to your leather using masking tape.
Punching the stitching holes
Use stitching prongs or a hole punch to punch the stitching holes directly through the paper and the leather.
Use you 7.5mm hole punch to punch-out the extremities of the zipper’s slot.
Cutting-out all the pieces of the plushy
Follow along the edges of printed pattern elements with your pair of scisors or X-acto knife to cut-out all the pieces of the heart.
Painting the heart (optional)
I didn’t have any red leather so I chose to paint some parts of the plushy to obtain the result that I had in mind.
Feel free to express your creativity here! Or shall I say…follow your heart?!
Stitching the zipper
To setup the zipper to the back, apply some contact cement on the flesh side around the edges of the slot.
Apply contact cement to the zipper as well and glue it in place on the back piece. Gently hammer around the perimeter of the slot in order to insure a good bond between the leather and the zipper.
Stitch the zipper in place using a saddle stitch.
Embroidering the heart and stitching it to the front
Embroider the inscription on the heart either using a saddle stitch or a back stitch.
For purely decorative stitches like this I favor the back stitch as it gives a very consistent stitching lines whereas saddle stitching creates slightly slanted thread segments between the holes.
You can then stitch the heart to the front piece.
Stitching the 3 layers of the plushy together
The plushy is stitched with the inside facing out. You will need to stitch 3/4 of the perimeter while leaving an opening in order to turn the heart inside out.
We need to create two compartments, one for the secret pocket at the back and the other to hold the stuffing at the front. This is achieved by treating the partition and the back as a single layer when they are being stitched to the front.
Once you have stitched around 3/4 of the perimeter, turn the heart inside out.
The most difficult part in turning leather pieces like this inside out is to get an initial pinch between your fingers (with your fingers going through the opening, trying to grab the opposite edges from the inside). Once you’ve pinched the edges you can pull them inward, stick a blunt object in the depression created on the flesh side and start gently pushing towards the opening. From then on the hardest part is done. The rest is just a patient game of pushing and pulling but really that first pinch is the crux of it all.
If you intend to use the plushy with the teddy bear, insert two magnets and position them at the top right and left corners.
Add the stuffing to the heart.
The magnets are simply held in place thanks to the pressure of the stuffing around.
Pay attention to the polarity of the magnets, especially in relation to the magnets that you set-up in the teddy bear’s arms. Otherwise your poor teddy will forever be unable to hold on to its heart…
Once the magnets are in place and the stuffing added, finish stitching along the perimeter of the heart.
When I get to that point I switch my default stitching position to having both threads coming out from the top grain side through opposite holes. This way it becomes easy to tension the thread after each stitch and to progressively close the gap between the two edges being stitched together.
Final result
I hope you enjoyed following along this tutorial. Please consider posting a photo of your creation in the comments below. It would mean a lot to me to see my little projects out into the world as you make it your own.
Any feedback/question about this tutorial or project idea that you’d like to see posted here is and always will be more than welcome.
Happy crafting!
Footnotes
The following online content provided some assistance and/or inspiration during the making of this project:
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Tutorial
Heart Plushy
2 hours
Easy
Common for leathercraft
Welcome to our delightful plushy crafting adventure, where we’ll show you how to create a charming heart plushy perfect for Valentine’s Day and beyond. What makes this heart plushy extra special is its connection with our Valentine’s Day Teddy Bear tutorial.
This versatile pattern can be used to make not only plushies, but also bag charms, coin purses, and more, making it a must-have addition to your crafting repertoire.
Whether you’re gifting it to a loved one or adding a touch of whimsy to your own accessories, this heart plushy is sure to bring joy and warmth wherever it goes. Join us as we bring this adorable heart plushy to life, one stitch at a time!
Requirements
Skills
Tools
Bill of Materials
Pattern
Heart Plushy Pattern
Free!Walk-through
Printing the pattern
You can get the pattern here if you haven’t already.
Print it on US letter or A4 paper depending on the version you downloaded.
Make sure that the pattern is not resized by checking your print settings. You can check if it was printed properly by measuring the reference found at the bottom of each page.
Securing the pieces of the pattern on the leather
Roughly cut around the different pieces of the heart with an X-acto knife or a pair of scissors.
Secure all the pieces of the pattern to your leather using masking tape.
Punching the stitching holes
Use stitching prongs or a hole punch to punch the stitching holes directly through the paper and the leather.
Use you 7.5mm hole punch to punch-out the extremities of the zipper’s slot.
Cutting-out all the pieces of the plushy
Follow along the edges of printed pattern elements with your pair of scisors or X-acto knife to cut-out all the pieces of the heart.
Painting the heart (optional)
I didn’t have any red leather so I chose to paint some parts of the plushy to obtain the result that I had in mind.
Feel free to express your creativity here! Or shall I say…follow your heart?!
Stitching the zipper
To setup the zipper to the back, apply some contact cement on the flesh side around the edges of the slot.
Apply contact cement to the zipper as well and glue it in place on the back piece. Gently hammer around the perimeter of the slot in order to insure a good bond between the leather and the zipper.
Stitch the zipper in place using a saddle stitch.
Embroidering the heart and stitching it to the front
Embroider the inscription on the heart either using a saddle stitch or a back stitch.
For purely decorative stitches like this I favor the back stitch as it gives a very consistent stitching lines whereas saddle stitching creates slightly slanted thread segments between the holes.
You can then stitch the heart to the front piece.
Stitching the 3 layers of the plushy together
The plushy is stitched with the inside facing out. You will need to stitch 3/4 of the perimeter while leaving an opening in order to turn the heart inside out.
We need to create two compartments, one for the secret pocket at the back and the other to hold the stuffing at the front. This is achieved by treating the partition and the back as a single layer when they are being stitched to the front.
Once you have stitched around 3/4 of the perimeter, turn the heart inside out.
The most difficult part in turning leather pieces like this inside out is to get an initial pinch between your fingers (with your fingers going through the opening, trying to grab the opposite edges from the inside). Once you’ve pinched the edges you can pull them inward, stick a blunt object in the depression created on the flesh side and start gently pushing towards the opening. From then on the hardest part is done. The rest is just a patient game of pushing and pulling but really that first pinch is the crux of it all.
If you intend to use the plushy with the teddy bear, insert two magnets and position them at the top right and left corners.
Add the stuffing to the heart.
The magnets are simply held in place thanks to the pressure of the stuffing around.
Pay attention to the polarity of the magnets, especially in relation to the magnets that you set-up in the teddy bear’s arms. Otherwise your poor teddy will forever be unable to hold on to its heart…
Once the magnets are in place and the stuffing added, finish stitching along the perimeter of the heart.
When I get to that point I switch my default stitching position to having both threads coming out from the top grain side through opposite holes. This way it becomes easy to tension the thread after each stitch and to progressively close the gap between the two edges being stitched together.
Final result
I hope you enjoyed following along this tutorial. Please consider posting a photo of your creation in the comments below. It would mean a lot to me to see my little projects out into the world as you make it your own.
Any feedback/question about this tutorial or project idea that you’d like to see posted here is and always will be more than welcome.
Happy crafting!
Footnotes
The following online content provided some assistance and/or inspiration during the making of this project: