Picking Fabric for Animal Designs

We love creating ITH animal designs at Sweet Pea, and throughout each step of the process, we are thinking about a number of things, including the kind of fabric that would showcase the animal best. In this blog, we will go through a few of the unique fabrics we like to use, as well as how to choose fabric that isn't physically textured, but features a textured design to give the same impression.

Boucle/sherpa/poodle

This was actually the fabric that prompted this whole article! So many of you asked about the fabric we used for our brown version of Patch, and this is actually a fabric we like using quite a bit! Perfect for animals with curly or short fur, boucle gives a really realistic look to your animals. When stitching down the boucle on Patch, we used lightweight soluble washaway and peeled it out of the seam to ensure the fabric stitched down perfectly.

Faux fur

A classic for a reason, faux fur is great for stuffies and designs where you want the fur to be the star! You can get it in lots of colours (realistic and not so much), and it is relatively inexpensive. Just make sure to use short pile when sourcing.

Faux leather and cork

Perfect for animals with leathery skin or horns, we are big fans of faux leather and cork across all of our designs, animal or not! It can give a very realistic look to your work, just be careful when it is in seam lines - it can be a little tricker to work with when sewing panels together (but still totally doable!).

Mylar

Mylar is an iridescent transparent film that is amazing for creating a shimmery effect on designs, which makes it perfect for insect and bug wings, like bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. We often use it on hanging designs so the light can shine through, but it adds a lovely sheen to any ITH design.

Minky

Our go-to fabric for our comforters and baby-focused designs, minky is the perfect softness for sensitive skin and just feels so luxurious to touch. We really like bubble minky as little fingers love to play with the dots on the fabric.

Textured Designs on Fabrics

You don't have to use textured fabric for a textured effect! In fact, we often don't! There are lots of fabrics that give the impression of texture or fur without the need for unusual fabrics. Below is an example of a panel we didn't use for the Book Stack Sleeping Kitten add-on - aren't they so cute? When choosing fabric like this, you can go for the obvious and pick an animal print, but you can also look for fabrics with repeating patterns that indicate hair placement - simple lines or squiggles work well.

Thread Chart Designs

And of course, many of our highly realistic animal designs come with thread charts, where the thread choice is the star! However, fabrics are still so important here - most often we choose plain colours or simple patterns to let the thread shine.

We hope this helps you when picking fabrics for ITH animal designs!