The Mud Monster - bringing a child's drawing to life

She screamed as she glanced back and saw the terrifying creature rising out of the mud...

I've had my nine year old home sick for the last few days. Desperate to get him away from the TV, I finally convinced him to do some craft. I've seen various blogs posting about making children's drawings come to life in the form of a stuffed toy so we decided to have a go.

I started by getting LJ to draw his design and plan colours etc.

I then gathered my (rather large) stash of scrap fabrics, strings, ribbons, buttons etc. LJ chose the fabrics while I worked out the pattern. He was so particular about the exact colours he wanted, so this took some time. It wasn't difficult to make the pattern. I used a cone shape for the body, a circle gathered into a ball for the head and some brown fleece fused to interfacing for the mud. I drew the arms based on his design. Just remember to add seam allowances. I let LJ do some of the sewing on the machine. Then it was all stuffed and hand stitched together. LJ wasn't keen on hand sewing as it took too long for his liking, so he worked on the details of the design while I did the main construction.

LJ cut out the mud globules, mouth, teeth and debris from felt and fleece (non-fraying fabrics are good). We used a straw covered in grey fabric for the pipe and coloured string for the eyes. All of this was glued on with fabric glue (PVA would also work).


That was it. A very enjoyable couple of hours spent creating a really cool little character. I'm all for getting boys to sew. LJ was very pleased with his efforts. His next question "Mum, can I watch TV now?" Aaaarrgghh!