I recently modified my Chick Pea plush pattern into this little snuggly family of peas to give to my friend 😀

You guys remember the Chick Peas plush pattern I featured in March, right? Of course you do!

If you’ve purchased the pattern or earned yours during March, then you can use this hack to modify the plush into a zipped pouch! In the following tutorial, I’ll show you what new supplies to purchase and how you need to change the pattern you already have to make a pea pod family zip pouch instead of the snuggly chick peas.

The story behind this goes that a little bit back one of my very closest friends announced she was pregnant! She wanted to have a gender reveal party and announce the new arrival via plush! >w< So I was lucky enough to get the honor of making the family of peas in a zippered pea pod pouch for the reveal ^-^ In the end, the new arrival turned out to be a boy, so the middle pea was decorated with a little blue newsboy cap. Unfortunately I had to make it at the last moment so that’s not included in the tutorial here ^^; But this family of peas would be a lovely gift for a baby shower or perhaps a Mother or Father’s Day gift.

Difficulty:

The addition of the zipper makes this project a little more difficult, but if you’re familiar with zippers you’ll be fine.
Makes three 4” x 4” x 3” pea plushies with a 16” x 7” pouch

Materials & Tools:
• 1/4 yd. of light green fleece
• 1/4 yd. of outer pouch fabric
• 1/4 yd. of pouch lining
• 17” zipper
• 4” x 4” scrap of black applique fabric
• 2” x 2” scrap of red applique fabric
• 2” x 2” scrap of pink applique fabric
• 4” x 4” piece of light or heavy duty fusible web
• 17” x 3” piece of lightweight fusible interfacing
• Scrap paper for pattern drafting
• Matching sewing thread
• Basic sewing tools (sewing machine, scissors, iron, needles, pins, fabric marker, seam ripper)

Before you begin:
1. Print out the pattern from your Chick Pea Plush pattern
2. Assemble the pattern pieces, see the page here for more help
3. Make some adjustments to the pouch pattern, shown next:

1. The pouch pattern needs to be a bit bigger to both accommodate 3 pea plushies & a zipper. To do this, we’re going to do what’s called slashing and spreading. That’s where you add length & width to a pattern from the middle instead of just extending the outer edges.
Take your pouch pattern and cut it straight in half along the middle, going vertically perpendicular to the top edge. Then, spread those halves 3 1/2” apart, keeping them parallel. Lastly, tuck your scrap paper into that gap and tape the two halves to the paper. This effectively makes the pattern 3 1/2” wider. Trim off the excess scrap paper so it’s flush with the rest of the pattern.

2. Now we’re going to repeat the same thing for the height of the pouch. Cut horizontally across the pattern, this time 1” down from the top edge. Then, spread the two halves 2” apart. Take your scrap paper and slide it beneath the halves, and tape the pattern halves to the paper. Once again, trim the excess paper so it’s flush with the pattern.
Your pattern adjusting is all done! Now we can get to the fabric cutting.

3. Now you can move on to cutting your main pattern pieces as usual, with a few small changes.
Pea pod: use the newly altered pattern to cut 2 from your lining fabric and 2 from your main fabric (they can be the same fabric if you like)
Chick front/back: use this pattern to instead cut 6 from light green fabric for 3 peas total
The others: you can skip using the patterns for the beak, feet, and wings of course.
In the next step we’ll cover the applique parts!

4. Continue to step 1 of your Chick Peas pattern. Except instead of using the face pattern provided, you can use one of these smiling faces I’ve included here. The image is at 100% scale, so feel free to print it off and trace it as you usually would with an applique template. Sew on the applique pieces as usual with the original pattern.

5. Continue on with steps 2, 3, 7, & 8 to finish the family of 3 pea plushies 😀

6. Before moving on to the pouch, take your fusible interfacing and cut it into 1” strips that fit along the top edge of your (outer) pouch pieces. Fuse them to the wrong side of the fabric. This is meant to give your pouch a bit of stability for installing the zipper.

7. Sandwich your zipper between one of the outer pouch fabric pieces and lining fabric pieces (shown in lime green in the photo). The zipper tape should line up with the upper edge of the pouch pieces as shown. Sew through all 3 layers with a 1/4” seam allowance. Repeat this with the other half of the zipper tape and the remaining pouch pieces.

8. Press the fabrics away from the zipper, then align them like so. Line up the outer fabric with its other half (right sides facing), and line up the lining fabrics the same way with the zipper in the middle. Sew around the perimeter of the pouch, leaving an opening in the bottom of the lining as the original pattern indicates so you can turn it right side out later.
When finished, turn the pouch right side out and sew the opening closed as in step 15 of the original pattern. You’re now all done and the pouch is ready to fill with your family of peas!