I found some adorable vintage napkins with 1970's patchwork print on them at the thrift store a while back. They were really small about 8 inches square. I drew an owl shape and a frog shape on a sheet of paper and cut it out to use as a pattern. (Yes, that is a frog... really, don't judge! Emmett thought it was a perfectly tasty frog, thank you very much!)
I decided to make them double layered since the napkin fabric was pretty thin and I didn't want them falling apart and Emmett eating the "stuffing". I just traced the animal shapes onto muslin, and sandwiched the napkins right sides together between two layers of muslin. Then I stitched quickly around the outline and left a small space un-sewn for turning it right-side out and filling them. The owl is loosely filled with dry garbanzo beans (chick peas) and the frog with brown rice. After I filled them I just hand stitched the opening shut making sure everything was super secure.
After shaking them, weighing them, and biting them a bit, I think Emmett decided the bean filled owl was his favorite. It makes a nice loud "whack" when hit against the floor, and it rattles pleasantly (loudly!) when shaken. The rice just make shooshing sounds, it feels shooshy too. (And yes, shooshy is a word... I just made it up!)
He crawled all over the house yesterday dragging his new toy with him. Serious business that, the logistics of moving oneself with a favorite object in tow!
Sorry for the graininess of the pictures, it was a dark grey rainy day yesterday and not very conducive to taking pictures of fast moving babies!