William the Whale

Updated: May 16

April brings a fun month for the Island Batik Ambassadors. Each Ambassador chose a pattern and made an animal or (person) from Funky Friends Factory. I chose William the Whale. I decided to use three Island Batik fabrics (Aruba, Pool and Pumpkin Spice - Cheerios Smore).

First, you cut out your pattern pieces and glue them to cardstock. Then, you cut the pieces out on the lines. I used a black pigma pen to trace the shapes onto my fabrics.

I am definitely 3-D challenged when it comes to making plush animals and bags, so the step-by-step photo instructions provided by Funky Friends Factory were very helpful to me.

Second, you make the flippers; you stuff them with polyester fill, but you want them to still lay flat.

I used a hole punch and punched a hole in William's blowhole, eye and cheek positions on the pattern piece. I then put the pattern piece on my fabric pieces and marked each hole with a black dot so that I would know where to put his eyes, two blowholes and two cheeks.

Next, you sew the top of his body together and add his top tail.

This is where you add the craft eyes. I used my hole punch to punch a hole in the black dots that I marked on the fabric. I cut two small pieces of black felt and put them behind the plastic eyes, so that they would be firm and not move about.

He's looking at me!

Now you sew the throat to the tummy piece and add the bottom tail. You need to leave an opening in his tummy in order to turn him right side out.

Then we pin the flippers on and keep them tucked inside so they don't get caught in your seams.

William is coming along quite nicely! Soon he will be able to join his pod.

You pin the top of his body to the bottom of his body all the way around. You take your time and sew a 1/4" all the way around his body. Extra sewing in the seam is used to reinforce both flipper areas.

I used Aurifil 50 weight (#5005) and Schmetz 70/10 Microtex needle. Of course, I always use my Oliso iron, too!

You carefully turn him right side out now. Next, you pin around the tail to keep it flat and sew a stitching line around the inner border of the tail.

The time has come to stuff William! William needed quite a bit of fill.

I sewed his tummy up and glued on his two blowholes and cheeks.

At this point, I saw my dog eyeing my whale, thinking that it was a new toy for him.

Wow, that wasn't so bad! I have a Lion and a Dolphin pattern from Funky Friends Factory too. Maybe, soon I can try my hand at sewing one of those. After all, the creator of the Funky Friends patterns has amazing tutorials to make so many fun and innovative plush toys.

Be sure to check out the other Ambassadors April projects, because they are all so darn adorable!

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs

Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting

Megan Best ~ BestQuilter

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio

Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts

Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts

Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

Kim Jamieson-Hirst ~ Chatterbox Quilts

Victoria Johnson ~ Forever Quilting for You