DIY Rudolph Felt Stuffy
Create this adorable Rudolph Felt Stuffy for the holidays! This cute “shelf stuffy” is perfect for decorating tables, shelves, mantles are more! Download the free sewing pattern to create your own mini Rudolph!
Hello Crafty Friends! It’s the sixth day of my annual series “12 Days of Holiday Crafts” and I’m excited to share this adorable Rudolph felt stuffy! I designed this Rudolph to be what I’m calling a “shelf stuffy”. He’s designed to sit nicely on a table, shelf or mantle looking super cute and spreading Christmas cheer. My daughter has already claimed him and he is happily hanging out on her dresser.
Rudolph is small and only takes a few supplies to create, including felt in four colors, fabric for a scarf, and a little bit of Polyfil stuffing. He measures 6″ tall when sitting and has long legs perfect for hanging over the edge of a shelf.
Rudolph can mostly be machine stitched together. I did hand embroider his cute mouth and I attached his eyes with a few simple hand stitches. While there is nothing overly complicated about making Rudolph, it’s worth mentioning that he is small. This can make sewing simple things on the machine a little trickier. My best advice is to go slow. My little Rudolph has a few imperfections, but I personally love the look of handmade items so I don’t mind at all!
Below is the step-by-step picture tutorial. I tried to be as detailed as possible so you can recreate your own little Rudolph for the holidays. At the end of this post, you’ll find a purple form you can fill out to have my free sewing pattern emailed to you!
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Stuffy
Supplies Needed
- Brown felt – I used Kunin Copper Canyon
- Tan felt
- Dark brown felt
- Red felt
- Holiday flannel fabric
- Polyfil stuffing
- Fabric scissors
- HeatnBond Lite Fusible web interfacing
- Straight pins
- Brown embroidery floss
Cutting the Fabric
Step One: Download the pattern and use the pattern pieces to cut out the brown felt for Rudolph’s body and legs. Trace the pieces onto the wrong side of a piece of brown felt. The seam allowance is included in the pattern pieces.
Step Two: Use fusible interfacing to cut out the rest of the pieces. Some of the pattern pieces have been arranged to be used with fusible interfacing. Lay a sheet of fusible interfacing over the printed pattern, paper side up, and trace the shapes. Bubble-cut around the shapes leaving about 1/8″ space around the traced lines.
Iron these pieces to felt and cut them out directly along the lines. The forehead patch, ears and antlers can be cut from tan felt. The arms can be cut from the same brown felt as Rudolph’s body and the nose from red felt. The rest of the pieces including the eyes and hooves can be cut from dark brown felt.
Create Rudolph’s Face
Step Three: Create Rudolph’s face with a combination of machine and hand stitching. I chose to stitch the head patch and nose in place on with my machine. I used a tan thread that was slightly darker than the tan felt for the patch and red thread for the nose. Next, I used dark brown embroidery floss to hand stitch the eyes in place and add Rudolph’s cute mouth.
Making the Arms and Legs
Step Four: Create Rudolph’s cute arms. The arms are made from two layers of brown felt. This is to help them stand firmly away from Rudolph’s body. Peel away the paper backing from the arm pieces you cut out in Step 2 and iron the arms to another piece of brown felt. Cut the arms out and they are now two layers thick! Iron hooves to the ends of each arm. The last step is to stitch all of the layers together on your machine using dark brown thread. Stitch about 1/8″ away from the edge making sure to go over the hooves to secure them in place.
Step Five: Create Rudolphs legs. The legs are only made of one layer of brown felt so they flop down over a shelf more easily. After ironing the hooves to the bottom edge of the legs, machine stitch along the edges with dark brown thread. Make sure to stitch over the hooves so those layers are attached together.
Making the Ears and Antlers
Step Six: Create the ears and antlers. Both the ears and antlers are made of two layers. For the antlers, peal the paper backing from the antlers you cut out in Step 2 and iron them to another piece of tan felt. Cut out the antlers and they will now be two layers thick! Use tan thread to machine stitch the layers together. I stitched lines down each “prong” of the antlers.
For the ears, repeat the same process but this time iron the ear pieces cut out in Step Two to a piece of brown felt, the same color felt of the reindeer’s body. Cut out the ears around the shapes leaving a bit of space around all three edges so you can see the brown felt from the front of the ears. Stitch the layers together with brown thread.
After the ear layers are stitched together, you can use embroidery floss to stitch the ends of the ears together to curve them slightly. This didn’t really work the way I had hoped on my final Rudolph. If you skip this step you probably won’t notice a difference!
Assembling the Reindeer
Step Seven: It’s time to bring everything together to create Rudolph. Pin all of the pieces into place on the front of Rudolph. The antlers are at the top, positioned slightly off center in either direction. Then come the ears and finally the arms. ** Please note in my picture below I have pinned Rudolph’s arms too high up! After stitching them like this, I realized I had zero room for his cute scarf. SO make sure you leave enough room under Rudolph’s mouth for the scarf, about 1.25″.
When attaching the antlers, ears, arms and legs, make sure they are placed right side to right side and raw edge to raw edge. Meaning, when you flip Rudolph inside out, his parts will be outside his body – but for now they are placed on his body.
Stitch around Rudolph’s front body piece very close to the edge, about 1/8″ away. The goal for this stitching is to secure all of the pieces to the front of Rudolph’s body while also keeping your stitching close to the edge so it will be hidden in your seam allowance.
Step Eight: Stitch Rudulph’s back and front together. Tuck all of the pieces you just stitched. You will need to fold his legs and pin them in place so they do not get caught when you stitch the front and back together.
Pin the back side of Rudolph, right sides together, and stitch around Rudolph’s body 1/4″ away from the sides.
Finish the Bottom of Rudolph
Step Nine: One of the final steps is adding Rudolph’s bottom so he can sit up on his own. While Rudolph is still inside-out, pin the bottom piece of felt (the oval) along the front edge of Rudolph’s body – right sides together. It may help to mark the center points on this bottom piece by folding it in half both ways and marking it. This helped me know what points to stitch from. Stitch just along the front of this edge, 1/4″ away from the edge.
Flip Rudolph inside out and stuff with Poly-fil stuffing. Pin the back of the bottom to the back of Rudolph. Use a small whip stitch and hand sew along this back edge. When finished the front of Rudolph will look more polished than the back. By stitching the back of Rudolph like this we are adding a little lip that helps keep him propped up. Rudolph is meant to sit on a shelf, so the back of his bum won’t be visible!
Add the Scarf!
Step Ten: Add a fabric scarf to finish off Rudolph. Cut a piece of fabric that is about 1″ wide. I followed the buffalo check pattern of my fabric and cut my scarf 7/8″ wide and 25″ long. I was able to wrap my scarf around Rudolph twice before tying it in a knot on the right side. Use a scissors to clip the ends of the fabric so the edges look frayed.
Rudolph is finished and ready to be displayed and enjoyed all season long! This little cutie has already been claimed by my daughter. She tried sneaking him away before I could photograph him! He is currently living in her room so I think I may need to make another to chill with me!
I hope you enjoyed this cozy Christmas wreath! I hope you will continue to join me for the ninth year of my series “12 Days of Holiday Crafts“. I’ll be back tomorrow with day 7 and a new fun DIY holiday craft. In the meantime, you can also visit my Christmas craft page for over 100 DIY holiday craft ideas!
Get the Free Felt Rudolph Stuffy Pattern
Fill out the purple form below with your first name and email address! The free file will be sent straight to your inbox! If you have already filled out the form below, don’t worry – you won’t be added to my list twice! This freebie is for personal use only. I hope you enjoy crafting something special. Please let me know if you have any questions :)
