Ever wanted to make a Bill Cypher plush? Here’s how!
You’ll need:

• Yellow fabric for the base (I prefer fleece, but you can use any soft fabric)
• White and black fabric for the details (I prefer felt, but you can use any fabric that doesn’t fray)
• Fabric glue (optional, but it’ll make your life easier)
• Tread in a colour that it’s slightly darker than your main yellow (or alternatively fabric marker pen in this colour)
• Interfacing
• Stuffing
• Basic sewing supplies

Please note that I am by no means a professional plushie maker. In fact, Bill was only my second plushie ever.

Step 1: the base

Decide how big you want your plushie to be. The sides of mine were 40 cm long, which is about life size. Remember that smaller won’t necessarily be easier. In fact, it will be harder to sew all the little details on and to make the arms and legs.

Bill’s main form is a triangle with equal sides. If we know the length of the sides we want, we can calculate the height by using Pythagoras’ law (see picture). Pythagoras law states that in a triangle with a right angle a²=b²+c². In our case, c will be 40 cm and b will be 20 cm. To calculate a (the height), you need to take the square root of b²+c²

Now we know the base of our triangle (40 cm) and the height (34,65 cm). Cut out two triangles, making sure to leave seam allowance. I used 1 cm seam allowance, but you can use whatever you like to work with.

I like to use fleece as a base for my plushies because it’s so soft. For Bill in particular, fleece is nice because it is thicker than felt, which creates a nice effect for the bricks, but more about that later.

Step 2: the eye

Now we want to make the eye and the bowtie. You can calculate how big they should be, or you can just try to wing it.

If you want to do some more calculations, here’s how: first, print out an image where you can see Bill frontal view. It would be ideal if the height of Bill in this image is 1/10 of the height of you plushie, but I didn’t really think of this when printing the reference and I don’t really know how to do that anyway.

Now you want to use the rule of 3 (or whatever it is called in English). Let us say our reference Bill is 4 cm high. To go from 4 cm to 34,65, you divide by 4 and multiply by 34,65. Now take as much measurements as you want and divide them by 4 and multiply by 34,65. This will be how big they will be on your plushie.

To make the eye, first make a sketch of what would be the whole eye, plus the black border, plus the eyelashes. Fold the paper in half when you cut it so you are sure that it is symmetrical. Put it on one of your triangles to see if it is the size you want, but remember that the triangles have seam allowance and thus are slightly bigger than they will be.

When the eye looks the way you want it to, cut it out of black felt. DO NOT USE SEAM ALLOWANCE. I like using felt for the details because it is thinner than fleece and you can buy it in smaller quantities. Pin the black eye in place and stitch on top of one of the triangles. I use some fancy stitch that I have on my machine because I think it looks good, but you can also use a normal stitch or a zigzag stitch or basically anything you want. Make sure though to secure your stitches so they don’t become undone. If they become undone after the plushie is finished, it will be almost impossible to fix. You can secure it by backstitching our by pulling the threads to the wrong side and knotting them. Alternatively, you can also glue it on with fabric glue, but I’m always afraid the corners will come loose.

Now do the same for the white of the eye and the pupil.

Step 3: the bricks

You can make the bricks in two ways: paint/draw them on or sew them.

Painting them with fabric paint our drawing them with fabric paint pens is a lot faster, but sewing them looks really neat.

If you want to sew them, first draw the pattern on the wrong side of the fleece. I think my bricks were about 3 cm high and 10 cm long. Take a dark yellow/light brown thread and start by stitching the horizontal lines. Make sure to backstitch, but do so in the seam allowance, so you won’t be able to see it. Now for the vertical lines.

You should NOT backstitch here because it will be really noticeable. Instead, leave the ends long. Pull them to the wrong side (just pull on your bottom thread. You will see a loop appearing. This is the top thread. Pull it all the way through) and tie a few knots. Again it is important to firmly attach all loose strings now, because if they become loose later, you won’t be able to fix it.

Now do the same for the back part.

Now is also the time to sew on the bowtie the same way you did the eye.

Step 4: the hat

For the hat, cut out the top circle, the base rectangle and 2 bottom circles in interfacing (WITHOUT seam allowance). Cut out the top circle and the rectangle in felt WITH seam allowance and cut out 3 bottom circles in felt WITHOUT seam allowance. Press the interfacing to the felt with an iron. The interfacing is important not only to give the hat extra strength, but also to use as a guideline.

Sew the long sides of the rectangle together so that it will become a tube. Press the seam. Glue the seam allowance down and topstitch the bottom and the top seams (alternatively, you can also do this before sewing the long sides, it’s personal preference). Turn inside out.

Take the top circle, using the interfacing as a guide, turn in the seam allowance and glue it. Now glue the top circle to the top of the cylinder. As I said, I don’t trust glue, so I sewed it in place by hand. Now fill the cylinder with stuffing. Pack it in tight.

Glue all 3 bottom circles together. If your interfacing is white, you might still be able to see it. Sewing the outsides together solved this problem for me. (cutting the interfacing just a little bit smaller also helps) or you can also just use black interfacing.

Now glue the cylinder on the bottom circle. Sew it and, tadaa, your hat is finished.

(No pictures sorry :c )

Step 5: returning to the body

Now all the details are done, we can start putting the body together. First decide how thick you want your plushie to be. Bill seems pretty flat in the cartoon, but I wanted something I would still be able to hug, so I think I made mine about 4 cm thick. Cut a rectangle to make the with. Calculate how long you want it to be. That would be 3 times the sides, plus some extra, just in case. In my case, 3×40 cm is 120 cm, and I added 10 cm extra because I had enough fabric anyway. Cut out the strip with these measurements, be sure to add seam allowance.

Start pinning it to the front triangle, right sides together. If you want your bricks to continue on the sides, mark where they should be if everything is pinned, then unpin it just enough so you can topstitch it and pin it back in place again, making sure that the lines align. You can also do this for the bottom, but it is quite the hassle and I forgot and nobody has noticed yet (even when I said that there was a flaw in the design, they couldn’t find it). Now stitch the seams, but leave enough space at the top to turn it inside out and stuff it. Then pin the back triangle to the strip, again right sides together. Make sure your brick lines align again. Stitch everything, but leave enough space at the top. You should now have something like this:

Trim the seam allowance at the corners and turn inside out. Stuff it. I didn’t really stuff mine very tight because I was afraid it would end up being very round, but play a bit with it and see what feels good.

Now it’s time to sew the top shut. Make it kinda blunt instead of pointy. This will make it easier to attach the hat.

I tried sewing the hat on directly, but it always changes position, so I glued it before sewing again.

Step 6: the limbs

The most important part of this step is actually deciding how you want to position the limbs. There’s quite a few nice poses. I chose this one because I thought it was really cute.

Now draw them on paper to see if they are the size you want. Because you are going to stuff them, they will turn out a little bit thinner than your 2d model.

Also don’t make the limbs too thin, because it will be more difficult to turn them inside out (mine were about 2 cm thick if I remember correctly).

If you are happy with the shape, trace it onto your fabric. I got really lazy at this point so I just traced the lines where I had to sew and cut it out with a small sewing allowance. If you have any straight lines, make them on the fabric fold, so you’ll have less sewing to do and less seams. Once they are sewn together, trim of the excess seam allowance. This will make it easier to get a nice shape when you turn it inside out.

Turn your limbs inside out (I used the round back of a chopstick for this) and stuff them to the top. If both arms or legs aren’t the same length, trim one of them. You should now have something like this:

Now to sew them on to the body, first mark the place where you want to put them with chalk. For once, I didn’t use glue to keep everything in place while I sewed, but I clamped Bill’s body so it couldn’t move, held on to the limb with my left hand and sewed it on with my right, like this:

Repeat another 3 times, and your Bill is done!