The Little Felt Sea Turtle is a sewing pattern & instructions to make the adorable sea turtles featured in this page. The finished sea turtle measures approximately 12 cm (4 3/4″) long and 10 cm (4″) wide. It is the perfect size to rest on the palm of your hand!
The design of the Little Felt Sea Turtle is based mostly on the green sea turtle, which in reality grows to be 1.5 m (5 ft) long, making it the second largest of the seven recognized living species of sea turtles. The Little Felt Sea Turtle has large front flippers and a relatively flat and teardrop-shaped top shell (or carapace). I also wanted the Little Felt Sea Turtle to have the water-tight look that a real sea turtle has. So, its top and bottom shells are designed to fit snugly together, tightly sandwiching the sea turtle’s body in between.
Another physical characteristic of the sea turtle is the countershading of their body colors. They are dark when viewed from above, to help camouflage them in deep water. When viewed from below, however, they are light on the underside, which helps them to blend in with the brightness of the surface of the sea! Very clever, don’t you agree?
When you make your own sea turtle, you don’t necessarily have to use white felt for both the underside of the body and the bottom shell, like I did. However, I do recommend that you select light-colored felt for these parts to give your sea turtle a realistic look.
Included in this sewing pattern’s instructions are the optional decorative patterns which you can see on the olive green sea turtle’s shell in the image above. This design was inspired by the fan-like patterns that some green sea turtles and hawksbill sea turtles have, like the one in the image on the right. While the embroidery designs are much simplified, I hope that they capture the essence of the beautiful patterns that real sea turtles display on their shells.
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Image by DRVIP93
The Little Felt Sea Turtle’s sewing pattern & instructions are available for immediate download from my Etsy shop. You can also click on any of the photos of the Little Felt Sea Turtles on this page to proceed to the product page of my shop.
If you like the Little Felt Sea Turtle, you may also be interested in:
For those of you interested in learning more about sea turtles, here is a site with 10 interesting facts about them. Also, we must not forget that most of the sea turtle species, which have been surviving since the Late Jurassic (150 million years ago!!!), are considered endangered today. The Sea Turtle Conservancy lists a number of threats to sea turtles, which regrettably are mostly caused by us humans. In an effort to make a small contribution to our precious planet, Muumade donates a part of the proceeds from your purchases to wildlife and environmental charities.