Golden Lion Tamarin - Sew Along Part 1

We've released our very first pattern, The Golden Lion Tamarin! 

You may remember this cute little monkey from March Monkey Madness. She was one of the most popular monkeys from the month long celebration so she seemed a fun choice for our first pattern. 

We want making a Squshie to be a great experience so we thought with this 1st pattern it would be fun to do a sew along! Here on the blog we are going to go over all the steps of making the monkey, focusing extra on the parts that our pattern testers found a little tricky. 

We hope you'll join us in the sew along and share pictures of your finished Golden Lion Tamarins with us, so we can in turn share them with everyone on the blog and our social media outlets. Felt monkey cuteness for everyone!

If you purchased the pattern you'll see templates for 3 different sized tamarins: 4 inches, 5 inches, and 10 inches. Print out the pages for the size monkey you want to make. For the sew along, I'll be making the 4 inch tamarin.  Depending on the method you use to cut your felt shapes a writing utensil will be needed to trace the pattern shapes.

To make a felt monkey you're going to need felt! You can find acrylic felt at your local craft store. You'll need 4 colors of felt for this pattern. 

To make the monkey as pictured you'll need the main color (gold), the accent color for the face (smoke), and a little bit of black and white felt for the eyes. 

For the eyes,  I like to use stiffened felt. It is a little harder to sew through, but it makes cutting the itty bitty circles for the eyes easier. 

To sew a monkey thread is a must have.  To make the monkey as pictured you'll need 4 colors of thread that coordinate with your felt choices. 

You'll need good scissors to make your monkey. Scissors with small points are best to cut the tricky bits. The ones in the picture are Fiskars Easy Action Micro-Tip Scissors. They are my absolute favorite scissors. I like them so much I have 2 pairs.

You'll need at least 10 inches at about 1/4 inch wide if you want your monkey to be an ornament. I'm going to use white ribbon. You can find ribbon at your local craft store. 

If you are making the 10 inch monkey, you might want to skip the ribbon.

This is optional, but handy for measuring the ribbon. 

You'll need something to stuff your monkey with if you want him to be plump and squishy. I like to use polyfil, which you can find it at your local craft store. 

 8. Freezer paper

 This is also optional. In the pattern, we mention a couple ways to cut the felt shapes. I think freezer paper is a method to cut felt many people aren't familiar with. It's my favorite method and I think it works really well so we'll be covering it during the sew along.

You can usually find freezer paper at your larger grocery stores. If you are going to use freezer paper you'll also need an iron and ironing board. 

Now that we've got out supplies we're ready to cut out our pieces! The next post will be about how to use the freezer paper to cut your felt shapes.