Say hello to our Sweet Softies friend, Eggy Pop. We dare you to look at Eggy for any length of time without smiling. Nubby chenille combines with smooth, retro-inspired cotton for a sweet and soft vintage look, like a treasured stuffed toy you might discover in Grandma’s attic. Darling Eggy is irresistibly squeezable for Easter or any time you need an egg-ceptionally sweet stuffable.

Eggy would be best as a pal for younger children and young-at-heart adults. We don’t recommend him for babies because of his button eyes. Even with just those button eyes and the little beak making up his face, Eggy is full of personality. Part of the look is created by the way the lines of chenille come together at the center of his face on intersecting diagonals.

There’s a free pattern download below for all the shaped pieces. Surprisingly, most of the body is constructed from simple rectangles. As with all our popular stuffable patterns, be careful to print at full size and assemble as needed, according to the arrows on the pattern pieces and our instructions.

Although our supply list below gives the elements needed to make an Eggy just like ours, the amount of fabric is quite small. If you’d like to use your own collection of fabric scraps, you go right ahead; Eggy would love to know he has friends with different outfits.

Chenille is a woven cotton and so cuts and sews similarly to quilting cotton, but fleece does have a few unique characteristics. If you’ve not worked much with it before, you’ll find it quite easy, plus the nap hides any little bobbles in your seams. If you’d like a few additional tips and tricks, check out our full tutorial on Sewing with Plush Fabric.

In the photo above, you’ll see Eggy sitting with his slightly chubbier cousin, Eggbert – who was an earlier prototype. Eggy Pop is the best representation of the slimmer finished shape of the pattern. Eggbert obviously has been sneaking into the chocolate Easter eggs a little too frequently, but is an option by cutting the main shapes just a bit larger.

When seated, Eggy Pop is approximately 8″ tall.

Sewing Tools You Need

• Sewing Machine and standard presser foot

Fabric and Other Supplies

• ¼ yard of 44″+ wide cotton chenille in a striped pattern for the upper body; we used natural white
• ¼ yard of 44″+ wide quilting weight cotton for the lower body; we recommend a petite print
• ¼ yard of 44″+ wide soft fleece for the wings, legs, beak, and top knot; we used solid fleece in a light tan
• Small bag of polyester fiberfill
• ½ cup small dry beans (optional)
• 2 small round black buttons for the eyes; they should be round shank buttons, not two or four-hole buttons
• All purpose thread to match all fabrics and the buttons
• Sharp scissors
• Iron and ironing board
• Pressing cloth for working with the fleece
• See-through ruler
• Fabric pencil or marking pen or chalk
• Seam gauge
• Seam ripper
• Hand sewing needle
• Large safety pin
• Straight pins

Getting Started and Pattern Download

1. Download and print our TWO pattern sheets, which have been bundled into ONE PDF to make the download easier.
   IMPORTANT: You must print this PDF file at 100%. DO NOT SCALE to fit the page. The pages should be printed horizontally (landscape). There is a scale box on each page so you can make sure your printout is correct.
2. Cut out the pattern pieces along the solid lines: legs, top knot, body, base, beak, feet/hands. Set aside.
3. Cut four 4″ x 6″ rectangles from the chenille.
4. Cut four 4″ x 4″ squares from the cotton.
5. Pin the base pattern piece to the remaining cotton and cut out this piece using the pattern.
6. Cut two 3½” x 9″ rectangles from the fleece.
7. Pin the top knot pattern piece, the legs pattern piece and the beak pattern piece to the remaining fleece and cut out all three pieces, using the patterns.
   NOTE: Remember, the fleece is basically a knit fabric, so it will not fray. It will shed like mad at first, but once it stops shedding, it will be stable. The strip for the top knot and the square for the beak are cut to size with no seam allowance and no finished edges.

At Your Sewing Machine & Ironing Board

Body and beak

1. Collect the four rectangles of chenille and the four squares of cotton and match them up into four sets of two – one chenille and one cotton.
2. Pin each set together along one 4″ side and stitch together, using a ½” seam allowance. As you can see in the photo below, you are aligning the smaller cotton square with one corner of the larger chenille rectangle.
   
3. Press all seam allowances open and flat.
4. Place the body pattern piece on the right side of the sewn two-piece set, aligning the horizontal line on the pattern piece with the sewn line. Pin in place and cut out along the solid line.
   
5. Repeat to cut the other three body sections for a total of four sections.
6. Find the beak fabric piece. Fold it in half, corner to corner, to form the beak shape. Place it along the edge of one body piece. The bottom edge should be about ½” up from the center seam line with the end of the beak pointing in towards the middle of the egg.
   
7. Pin the beak in place and then hand or machine baste in place.
8. Match this body piece with another body piece, right sides together, sandwiching the beak between the layers. Pin, making sure the seam lines of the two pieces line up exactly.
9. Stitch together, using a ¼” seam allowance.
   
10. Match up the remaining two body pieces, right sides together. Pin, again making sure the seam lines of the two pieces line up exactly.
    

Legs, hands and feet

1. Fold the fleece leg piece in half, pin, and stitch the long sides together, using a ¼” seam allowance. This will create a long tube open on both ends.
2. Clip a large safety pin to one end, feed it back in on itself, and pull the pin through the other end to turn the tube right side out.
   
   
3. Cut the tube in half to make two legs.
   
4. Place the two 3½” x 9″ rectangles of fleece right sides together. Pin the hands/feet pattern on top of these two layers, toward one end but with at least ½” – ¾” of space all around it.
   NOTE: Fleece can be hard to work with, and it’s downright maddening if you’re trying handle itty-bitty pieces, such as Eggy’s hands and feet. Instead, you’re going to stitch around the pattern piece first and then cut it out.
5. Stitch around the pattern piece, approximately ¼” from the pattern itself.
   
6. Remove from your machine, remove the paper pattern piece, trim approximately ¼” out from the stitching, and clip the curves to make turning easier… but, be careful not to clip through your stitching.
7. Repeat three more times, moving the pattern piece to a ‘clean area’ of the fleece each time. You should end up with two hands and two feet.
8. Turn the hands and feet right sides out. A pencil with an eraser is helpful for turning such small pieces.
   
9. Take all four pieces back to the swing machine and topstitch two short (about 1″) lines from the outer curved edge of each towards the raw open end. These are Eggy’s ‘fingers and toes.’
   
10. Set Eggy’s two feet aside for now. They will be sewn onto the legs by hand later.
11. Find the FRONT body piece of Eggy (the one with his beak). Lay it flat on your work surface, right side facing up.
12. Cut the 9″ strip of top knot fleece into three 2″ bits. Pin these three little strips to the very top of the front body piece for his top knot feathers. Hand or machine baste in place.
13. Pin the hands to each side of the front body piece, referring to the photo for placement. Hand or machine baste in place.
14. Pin and stitch the legs to the bottom edge of the body, referring to the photo below for placement. Pinch the tops of the legs flat and roll the tubes so the seam is centered at the back of each. When pinning the legs in place, the smooth side is the right side to be placed against the right side of the cotton, which means the seam side is facing up as in the photo below. Hand or machine baste in place.
    
15. With the legs folded up, pin the bottom edge of the front body piece to the front edge of the base fabric piece. This fabric piece is a diamond shape; position one corner in line with the front seam of the body.
16. Using a ¼” seam allowance, stitch through all layers just along the front sides of the base (that’s one half of the base piece).
    
17. Tucking the legs, hands and top knot to the inside the egg, pin the back of Eggy to the front of Eggy and stitch around the sides, capturing the hands and top knot in the seam, but leaving the base open for turning and stuffing.
    
    

Finishing

1. Turn Eggy right side out and pull out his top knot feathers, hands, and legs.
2. Thread a hand sewing needle with thread to match the fleece.
3. Find Eggy’s feet. Tuck the raw edge of one leg inside the back of one foot, making sure his feet are pointing up! Also tuck in any remaining raw edges on the back of the foot. Pin in place if necessary.The fleece is nice and plush and will cover up all necessary tucking and stitching. Hand stitch Eggy’s foot securely in place.
4. Repeat for his other foot.
   
5. Turn Eggy upside down and stuff firmly with the polyester fiberfill.
   
   NOTE: You can fill the last inch or so with small dried beans for extra weight; this will help him sit up more securely.
6. Re-thread your hand sewing needle with thread to match the cotton.
7. Hand stitch the remaining half of the base closed with a small slip/ladder stitch.
   
   
   
8. Re-thread your hand sewing needle with black thread and sew on Eggy’s eyes. They are about ¼” above and ¼” to either side of the top of his beak.
9. Trim up his top knot feathers as needed to create a floppy look.