Stufed bunny rabbit

Stuffed Bunny Rabbit Sewing Pattern by Caroline Lefebvre

This downloadable PDF sewing pattern by independent designer Caroline Lefebvre guides you through creating an adorable plush stuffed bunny rabbit toy. Rated at an intermediate difficulty level, this pattern is a rewarding project for sewists who are comfortable with basic machine sewing and some hand stitching. The finished bunny makes a charming handmade gift, nursery decoration, or soft toy for children.

What You Are Making

The pattern produces a three-dimensional stuffed plush bunny rabbit with a fully constructed body, a separately assembled head, two arms, two legs, a pair of lined ears in contrasting fabric, and a gathered fabric tail. The head and body are sewn as distinct components and then hand-joined, giving the bunny a sculptural, doll-like quality. The face is finished with hand embroidery for the eyes, nose, and mouth, adding expressive character to the finished toy.

Materials Required

• Main fabric: 1/2 yard or a fat quarter of medium-weight fabric. Designer Caroline Lefebvre recommends polar fleece or cotton fleece as preferred choices for stuffed toys, as these do not fray and simplify construction.
• Contrasting fabric: A 5-inch by 9-inch piece for the inner ears, creating a two-tone ear detail.
• Polyfill stuffing for filling the body, head, arms, legs, and tail.
• Embroidery thread for hand-stitching the facial features.
• Matching sewing thread for machine and hand sewing.

Tools Needed

• Sewing machine
• Hand sewing needle and embroidery needle
• Fabric pen or marker for tracing pattern pieces
• Scissors and pins

Pattern Pieces and Cutting

The PDF pattern pieces are printed at 100% scale and include a 1/4-inch seam allowance throughout. The pattern includes the following pieces: Body, Front Head, Back Head, Arms (cut twice), Ears (cut from both main and contrasting fabric), and Tail. Fabric is folded face-to-face for most pieces, with alignment marks labeled A, B, and C on the pattern to ensure precise matching during assembly.

Sewing Techniques Used

This pattern employs a range of intermediate sewing techniques across both machine and hand sewing:

• Machine sewing with seam allowances: All major body parts — the body, front head, arms, and ears — are machine sewn with the included 1/4-inch seam allowance.
• Fabric-appropriate ear construction: The pattern thoughtfully provides two methods for sewing the ears depending on your chosen fabric. For non-fraying fabrics such as fleece or knit, the ear pieces are placed back-to-back, sewn on the front side, and seam allowances are trimmed to approximately 1/8 inch. For woven fabrics that fray, the pieces are placed front-to-front, sewn on the reverse, and then turned right side out.
• Notching curves: Small notches are cut between the legs after sewing to allow the curved seams to turn smoothly and lie flat without puckering.
• Turning and stuffing: Arms and legs are stuffed to approximately 3/4 inch from the top before being incorporated into the body assembly, ensuring clean, well-shaped limbs.
• Gathered pouch technique for the tail: The tail is formed by hand stitching with a double thread around the fabric circle, pulling the thread to gather it into a pouch shape, stuffing it, and then drawing the thread closed and knotting it securely before sewing it onto the body.
• Head-to-body assembly using alignment marks: The back head is joined to the front head by aligning marked points B and C, with the ears folded inside the back head piece before s