Arrrrrrg! Felt Pirate Sword Tutorial

I first saw the idea for these swords on Pinterest, but the link was only to an old etsy listing that was no longer active. But I really wanted felt swords for the boys to have with their pirate Halloween costumes. Why felt? Well, no matter how many times I say, "Do NOT hit your brother with that sword!" They are going to hit their brother with that sword. I figure that a soft felt sword does much less damage than a plastic one. Plus, they just look cute! (Don't tell my manly pirates I said that!) It took me a while to sort out the pieces and steps in my mind, but they were very quick to actually make. I ended up making 4 altogether for my boys and our friends who were also dressing as pirates. And even though Halloween is over, I thought they would make a fantastic Christmas gift for a boy. They have remained a favorite plaything for more than a month here at our house.

Materials
Grey felt
Black felt
grey thread
Poly-fill

I purchased 1/2 yard of grey and 1/4 yard of black and it was more than enough for 4 swords, as was one small bag of inexpensive filler.

1. Start by sketching your sword shape onto paper or card stock. I used a curved blade, but you could make yours whatever shape and size you desired. Then I used marker to trace onto the felt.
2. Cut the felt, leaving a 1/4 inch allowance around your desired sword shape. You'll need 2 pieces of the grey felt to make one sword.
3. Cut 2 medium rectangles for the handle (the same width as your blade) and one long rectangle for the hand guard. My hand guard ended up looking a little long on the swords, so I'd it a little shorter than the 8 inches I used. At this point you should have 5 pieces of fabric cut.
4. Sew the handles to the blades. It should look like this:

5. Fold your hand guard in half and then press the ends so that they lay flat on your work surface. (If you look very closely at mine you can see I actually folded it in half first, then laid it flat. I ended up finding this step to be completely unnecessary. You can fold yours, but it doesn't make a difference in the final product visually.)

 6. Place the guard on top of the RIGHT side of the fabric, with the ends still laying flat on the table and the edges lined up with the edge of the handle. Pinning would probably be a good idea at this point. (I didn't but it would have been easier if I had.)

7. Place the other handle and blade on top of the guard with the RIGHT side down, lined up with that same edge. Stitch from the top of the handle down to the corner. Stop with the needle still in your fabric.

8. Turn the corner and tuck the hand guard completely into the handle before completing all three sides of the handle. Do not sew across the top of the handle. The stitching you see below is from sewing the handle to the blade in step #4.

9. Clip your corners and turn the handle right-side-out. It should form a somewhat cylindrical shape with the two blades at the top still unsewn.

10. Stitch almost all the way around the blades. I chose to stitch near the edge but with my seam visible because I felt like it made the blade look flatter than the handle. But you could omit step #9 and keep sewing past the handle, turning your sword right-side-out after this step.

 11. Your flat sword should have an opening 1-2 inches where the blade meets the handle on one side only. Fill with stuffing.

12. Sew the blade closed on your machine or by hand.

13. Make some pirate very happy! (This is his mean pirate face.)

Here are a few things I wish I'd done differently or learned the hard way when I was working on these. I'm sure there's any easier way to do some of these things, but I'm not a very skilled seamstress. I tend to just "wing it" when it comes to projects and play with things until they look right to me. If you have any suggestion, please leave them in the comments below:

1. Overfill the swords. Especially where the blade meets the handle. Ours have started bending there. I think it's just natural wear and tear, but it might even work better to leave the opening at another place on the sword so that you can get even more stuffing into that part of the sword. 

2. Make sure your hand guard is completely on the inside of the handle in step #8. It's a real pain if you accidentally stitch part of it to another part of your handle.

3. It's very difficult to do step #12 by machine. I recommend hand sewing this part of the blade. 

4. If your stitching isn't completely even around the blade just take your scissors and trim around the edges until it looks even.

I think I'm going to tackle some felt light sabers next!