This project is a kinda old one, but I never showed it! And it deserves it’s spot on the blog, in my opinion…
A while back my friend wanted a Ted Wiggins doll with his unicycle for her son, but couldn’t find one online. So she asked me! I love the Lorax, but was blanking on who Ted Wiggins is! He’s the kiddo in the lorax that goes and meets the Lorax outside of town and learns the whole story. In the movie he has a unicycle. A big red unicycle. And of course, I bit and took the challenge!
This isn’t a real tutorial, because I didn’t measure everything and I didn’t save my templates, or any of that. But I do want to show you a bit about how I made these guys! First up is Ted.
I started with the Mikey Monkey doll pattern from mmmcrafts. I have made this pattern before when I made Bear and his best friend Pear for my kiddo. I altered it a bit then for the monkey to be a bear and I did it again for the monkey to be a boy.
The main alteration was the shape of the head. I didn’t want it to be as round as the monkey head, so I worked that out. One reason I wanted to use this pattern is that he comes with accessories, like shoes and a baseball cap. I knew I needed a helmet, so I altered the baseball hat to be a bike helmet. I had to make a trial hat to make sure it fit on the new head shape though! I also added more pieces of fabric for the shirt to match the look of his shirt!
And I winged it on the hair and face! When I stitched the hair on the back of the head, I also stitched up through the brown to give it a little more dimension, instead of just along the edge. I didn’t like it just straight across the back, so I added a couple of curves. And the hat turned out great! I put the front and back together and then hand stitched the flames on. The hat is removable. In hindsight, due to the age of kiddo that this was going to, I probably should have sewn the helmet (and the shoes) on the doll! I wouldn’t be surprised if they got lost pretty quickly!
And I love the shoes!
I had fun taking pictures of him as he was being stuffed and coming to life!
And his unicycle!
The handlebar… So for the handlebar, I wanted it to be skinny and stand up straight. I tried a few things and this is what worked best. I sewed on the red pieces to the longer sides of the grey ‘x’. I included the seam allowances, ironed those over, folded it in half, wrong sides together, and then topstitched. I left the bottom open and one side of the handle to stuff in the pipe cleaners. Then stuffed the pipe cleaners in. As many as I could! Then sew up the other side of the handlebar!
For the bottom of the unicycle, I totally winged it and drew it out. I cut the black and red based on my drawing. The design is to have two sides and one long stripe going around the sides, like a box pillow.
So I sewed the two red sides to the handlebars.
I measured out how much black and red sides I’d need. Made long side strips. Pinned the sides on (yes, missing some step photos, but not a full tutorial here!) to the front and back, right sides together and sewed it all together, leaving a hole in the bottom. For stuffing I used foam pieces. I used two pieces of foam so that the handlebar would be situated between the foam.
And, like the helmet, I hand sewed the flames on the unicycle.
And there you have it! Tedd Wiggins and his Unicycle! I think he turned out pretty cute!
