June 2025 Funky Friends

Challenge Guidelines:

Project Type: Stuffed animal with a pattern from Funky Friends Factory
Fabric: Combination of Island Batik Blues and selections from the Jubilee collection
The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and its partners

Funky Friends Factory was created by Pauline McArthur of Australia. She sells easy-to-follow Soft Toy Sewing Downloadable Patterns with step-by-step photo tutorials. The Funky Friends Factory website has lots of toy-making tips and tutorials to help you sew the cutest Soft Toys. I picked the Dolphin for the Funky Friends Factory challenge, I am going to call him Dylan. This Funky Friends Factory Dolphin is a quick and easy pattern.

I started the Dylan the Dolphin design by using my Accuquilt GO! to cut out half square triangles in various blues using Die 5 of the 8-inch Cube set. Love the perfect cuts with the Accuquilt system!!

My Oliso Project Iron was essential for pressing those squares. Once I had two sets of 10 by 7-inch squares, I backed those with Hobbs batting left over from other projects and quilted each with stitches from the library on my Brother Dreamweaver. Dylan the Dolphin’s pattern top body pattern pieces were then cut from the two quilted squares. Dylan’s remaining body pieces were cut from 10-inch squares of the Island Batik Brilliant Blue collection. Dylan’s tummy that was also quilted with Brother Dreamweaver special stitches. Dylan’s body parts were all interfaced with By Annie’s Soft & Stable.

Dylan’s tail and fins completion process took a detour from the Funky Friends Factory instructions. After sewing the paired pieces of the tail and fins, I inserted By Annies Soft and Stable cut to fit for each piece. Soft and Stable has great lasting body and stability, it is lightweight and maintains shape plus it is washer and dryer safe! I then added decorative stitching to each piece. This step will provide a lasting stiffness to Dylan’s appendages. Before sewing Dylan’s body together, I added button eyes.

After turning Dylan outside in, he was stuffed with Hobbs Simply Stuffing. Simply Stuffing is a white 100% polyester product that is ideal for toys, pillows and crafts. It is non-allergenic and hand washable.

I wanted to create a baby quilt to go with Dylan the Dolphin and came across the perfect quilt in the Eleanor Burns Quilt In A Day Accuquilt GO! Qube book. The Dylan’s Sailboat Quilt was created with Island Batik Jubilee and Brilliant Blue collections with Hobbs Thermore batting used. Thermore^® is made with 100% polyester and is surface treated with our own unique process, creating a polyester batting that is guaranteed not to beard or migrate.