Handpaws!
January 18th, 2025
this is my second go at making handpaws, although my first time making more standard paws. making these was quite an involved process, but I am very happy with the result, and have learned a lot in the process that I hope to share with you here!
these paws were made using RunnerRabbit's handpaw pattern, which is not only a fantastic pattern, but it's also free to use! please check it out if you are interested in making fursuits and need a good pattern!
onto the process, these were very involved, but very fun to make! i'll go over the basic steps required to make these, and detail any challenges I ran into!
the first step is cutting the fur using the pattern, which I cut using an exacto knife (which prevents cutting any fur by accident, which scissors will be prone to). I also always make sure to mark my seam allowance to ensure consistency, on these I used 1/4" on the palms tapering to 1/8" on the fingers
then came shaving... this step was a little difficult, as I had never shaved faux fur before, but I made sure to go slow and even, and measured the pile length after each pass. for this project, I had to shave the finger pieces and the palms of two of the hand pieces. I used some wahl basic pet clippers that I got from walmart for ~25 dollars, and they did the job nicely as long as I kept them oiled and brushed the fur off from time to time.
(side note: when shaving faux fur, please WEAR A RESPIRATOR! little plastic particles are not things you want to be breathing in!)
next, I made the claws and sewed them into the finger slits, and sewed the fingers onto the top palm pieces. I think I understuffed the claws a bit, and I'm going to try to find a way to make them more securely in the finger pieces for the next pair I make, as these ones move around slightly.
then came appliqueing the paw pads, which entailed draping a large sheet of minky over my palm pieces and sewing the outlines of paw pads into them, and finally trimming the excess. to make a clean edge, I zig-zag stitched the edges of each pad.
after that came the longest part, which was sewing the two sides of the paw together! I used a sewing machine to sew up to the fingers, and handsewed the fingers using a blanket stitch and heavy duty thread! this allowed me to get strong stitches that were accurate to the tight curves of the finger seams.
finally, I did a shave of the paws to make them look neater, as i had left some of the finger fur longer than anticipated, which led to some fur getting caught in the seam. nothing some brushing and shaving couldn't fix though! after sewing the cuff on (which I used white minky for) they were done!
incredibly happy about this, and I plan to make a more soon! I think with another few tries at this, I can get them looking quite clean!
if you're interested in making fursuits, or crafting in general, just go for it! making mistakes is half the fun for me, it means I can go into making the next one with knowledge I didn't have before!
thank you for reading, and remember to always believe in yourself. have a great day!