Who says unicorns aren’t real? Our lightweight, low-loft Fleece makes this nostalgic hobby-horse style toy come to life with little more than one yard of fabric, a wooden dowel, and some imagination. (Note: As of March 2023, we are phasing out our Fleece fabric and launching Polartec® Fleece, which will also work great for this project!) Spoonflower friend and DIY craft expert Lia Griffith stops by to share a video tutorial that carefully lays out all the steps for how to master this project, with the help of her cut-and-sew Unicorn Hobby Horse template available in the Spoonflower Marketplace.
Photographs courtesy of Lia Griffith and team!
Materials Needed:
- One yard of Lia Griffith’s Unicorn Hobby Horse design. When ordering your fabric, be sure to choose Polartec® Fleece, otherwise the template will not fit correctly onto the material.
- extra soft poly-fill and a long wooden dowel that you can find at any local hardware store.
- scissors
- white craft paint
- sand paper
Basic instructions:
1. When you receive your fleece pattern, cut each piece out according to the template. The square white pieces will be used for mane.
2. Next, prepare your dowel. To prevent any splinters, sand the dowel down and paint it with the white craft paint. Lia’s tutorial uses three coats on the dowel, sanding it between each coat for extra smoothness.
3. Sew the unicorn’s head, and add the dowel as you are stuffing the head with poly-fill. Sew up the rest of your stick unicorn, and then add your finishing touches!
4. Use embroidery floss to wrap around the horn, and then tie a pretty ribbon at the base where the unicorn meets the dowel.
Need more DIY projects? Check out our Back to School DIYs roundup for 41 awesome projects to get your creativity flowing!
Cute and fun. The fabric is not conducive to handsewing, but the machine sorted out main seams. Not used to using poly stuffing. The cats adore the stuffing. Once I got my brain around it things went well. Didn’t paint the pole. Wrapped with ribbon. So cute.
Gosh, so disappointed no one has commented on my posting above. I am puzzled how to make the purse that is printed with the fabric. The unicorn hobby horses are finished and they are adorable, but what a shame to not have any instructions on how to make the matching purses. 🙁
Hi Susie — so sorry for the delayed response! We unfortunately don’t have the answer for you, as Lia Griffith was a guest poster on our blog and she wrote the tutorial. We have reached out to her to try and find the answer for you, you may also want to get in touch with Lia here: https://liagriffith.com/contact-us/ Good luck!
Hi! I received 2 yards yesterday of your Unicorn Hobby Horse fleece and have watched the video and made detailed notes. I think I’ve got it and am so excited!The fleece from Spoonflower is absolutely GORGEOUS!! One unicorn is almost finished; I’ve assigned the job of preparing the dowels to Grandpa! My two granddaughters are going to be thrilled.
I would like to make the little purses that go with it too. Have you written any instructions anywhere that I’m just not seeing? I would imagine the long “strap piece” will act as a gusset also but am a bit puzzled how to attach at the ends, etc. I guess I can figure it out but sure would appreciate how you envisioned it! Thanks ahead of time.
Adorable! There are never enough unicorns in the world!