Small Fry & Co. : Love Birds -No Sew Sweater Penguins

Before Christmas I got the following comment on one of my snowman posts:

Coffee Fueled MamaNov 25, 2011 12:02 PM

Too cute...maybe penguins next? (I'm slightly obsessed with penguins, as my husband will tell you)

Stephanie
creationsalamode.blogspot.com

At first when I read it I thought, "penguins would be so cute" but I had no idea how I would even make one. Then the other day I was at the thrift store thumbing through the sweater rack (which is laden with tacky sweaters just waiting to be cut up) and I found a black one. I decided, "if I can turn a white sweater into a snowman then why not turn a black one into a penguin." So I did just that and these where the end result:

For this project you will need:

1 black sweater (at least size large). I made these from the body of the sweater because mine had short sleeves. You could easily make these from the sleeve of a long sleeved sweater.

1 t-shirt

white felt

orange felt

2 small black buttons or flat beads for eyes

stuffing

wheat or rice to make a weight in the bottom

glue gun

Begin by laying out your sweater flat. (this is to show you what mine looked like)

In this picture I had cut off the front of the sweater to make my first penguin. So now this is what is left from the back of the sweater (just so you aren't confused). Cut up along the side seams to the armpits, then follow the seam along the sleeve up to almost the neck of the sweater and across the top (precision is not important).

This is how it should look:

With the wrong side facing up, fold one side in towards the middle. Run a bead of glue down the straight edge.

Fold the other side over and press to glue together. On the upper angled part run a bead of glue again along one side and fold the other side over. This part is at an awkward angle and is hard to glue but the "ugliness" will be inside so not to worry.

Lastly run a bead of glue along the bottom and press to hold together.

Turn the whole thing right side out once the glue is all set. To create a weight in the bottom fill a small sandwich bag with wheat, rice, corn or beans.

Place the weight in the tube first and then fill with stuffing. Don't over stuff it. Lumps and bumps makes it look cuter. Fill up to about 2 inches from the top.

Run glue around the inside top and pinch together and hold until firm.

Tie off the penguins head with a piece of yarn. This can be adjusted as you dress your penguin.

To make the "girly" scarf cut a circle from the t-shirt.

Cut it into a spiral like this. Stretch this out into a long strip. Fold in half and cut to make 2 strips. Tie these around the penguins neck. The boy scarf is made from one long straight strip.

To form the hat cut a strip of fabric (7-9 inches) wide by about 12 inches long. Wrap it around the penguins head to see just how big it has to be to fit snug.

With right side up, fold each side in towards the middle and glue where they overlap. Turn right side out when glue is firm.

Place hat on penguins head, and tie off the top with a piece of string or extra t-shirt material.

Here is how she will look so far:

Using the pattern provided (cut face and belly a quarter inch bigger than the pattern prints), cut out the face and tummy pieces from white felt. Glue onto penguin with hot glue.