Smiling Sun Ribbon Tag Baby Toy

-This post may contain affiliate links-

Today I am joining Underground Crafter and Hooked for Life to share a baby sewing pattern as part of their year long 2021 Baby Sew Along. Each month, on the second Thursday of the month, they share a new sewing or quilting pattern for baby, and if you participate in the sew along you can win prizes at the end of the year. And today it is my turn to join in the fun. 

I wanted to make something that would be a quick project, easy enough for a beginning sewist. I thought it would be fun to make a toy or softie of some kind, but I didn't want it to be too complicated of a shape, or have a bunch of pieces that needed to be sewn together. So I decided on a little smiling sun softie. 

The main part of the softie is a stuffed circle made out of fleece so it is nice and cuddly. The ribbon loops around the outside make the rays of the sun, as well as giving baby something to grab ahold of and play with. 

The face is a combination of embroidery and felt. Any time you are making something to be used by a baby you need to make sure that it is as safe as possible, so you want to make sure everything is very secure. This is why I chose to embroider the face versus using buttons, iron on, or something else that would have to be sewn on or attached to the fabric. You don't want there to be any possibility that baby could pull the eyes off. The ribbon loops are stitched in multiple times to make sure they are nice and secure as well. 

How to Sew a Smiling Sun Ribbon Tag Baby Toy

You will need:

• Yellow Fleece (or other fabric)
• assorted ribbons in yellow, orange, and/or white
• embroidery floss in black and pink
• embroidery needle
• small piece of pink felt
• coordinating thread 
• sewing machine
• pins
• scissors

Instructions:

To begin you will need a circle pattern, you can download and print the pattern here:

The Smiling Sun Ribbon Tag Toy Pattern

Or you can use a round object, like a plate or bowl, to trace a circle onto your fabric. My circles were 7 inches. 

Cut 2 circles out of yellow fabric.

Cut the ribbon into several short pieces. I wanted mine to not be all the same length so I cut 4 different lengths (1 for each color of ribbon): 3", 3.5", 4", and 4.5". (You will be folding the ribbons in half, plus there will be a seam allowance on each side, so keep this in mind when determining the length you cut the ribbons)

The number of ribbons is kind of up to you, depending on the size of your circle and how close together you want the ribbons. I had four ribbons, 2 orange, 1 yellow, and 1 white. I cut 3 of each of the orange and yellow, and 4 of the white, for a total of 13 pieces. 

Set the ribbons and one circle aside, we will come back to this in a minute. 

Now it is time to embroider the face. I added a face to the pattern if you want to have something to trace or follow, but I just freehanded 2 closed eyes and a mouth on mine. I used a backstitch with 3 strands of black embroidery floss to stitch on the eyes and mouth. 

For the cheeks, cut 2 small circles of pink felt. Then stitch onto the face using a running stitch and 3 strands of pink embroidery floss. 

Now set that circle with the finished face aside, and grab your back circle and ribbons. 

Arrange the ribbons around the circle so that you are happy with the spacing and the spread of the colors. 

Fold each ribbon in half and pin to the circle with the raw edges along the edge of the circle and the folded edge toward the center. 

When all of the ribbons are in place, sew around the outside of the back circle catching all of the ribbons and securing them in place. 

Now put the front circle with the face, face side down on top of the back with the ribbon side up (so the face and the ribbons are on the inside), and pin in place. I am not always a big pin user when I sew, but if you are using fleece I would definitely not skip the pinning, if you do the fleece can stretch and pull out of shape as you sew and your circles may not line up in the end. 

 Stitch around the edge, leaving an opening about 2 inches wide for turning and stuffing. 

Turn your sun right side out and stuff. 

Now you need to close up your opening and there are two ways you can do that. 

1- you can hand stitch the opening closed 

or 2- you can top stitch all the way around the edge, super close to the edge to close the opening. 

I chose option 2, mostly because I wanted to add one more round of stitching to secure the ribbons so I wouldn't have to worry about any of them coming loose, but I think I kind of prefer the more pillowy look of a hand stitched opening, so choose the one you like best. 

Either way will finish off your little ribbon toy and it is ready for baby.