TUTORIAL: Goomba - Part 2

In Part 1, I showed you how to make the pattern pieces for your Goomba. Now we're going to use those pattern pieces to make the Goomba's face.

Supplies for Part 2

• Light brown felt for the body. I used about 1 1/2 yard of 72" wide felt.
• White felt for the eyes and fangs.
• Black felt for the eyes and mouth.
• Black faux fur for the eyebrows. Or you can use black felt.
• Four black pipe cleaners.
• Wire cutters.
• Pattern piece for your Goomba's body. (See Part 1)
• Pattern pieces for the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, and fangs. (Print from Part 1)
• thread, scissors, hand sewing needle, pins, sewing machine

1. Cut fabric pieces for the face.
Use the pattern pieces to cut out the fabric for your Goomba's face. For you visual folks, here's a picture of the finished face so you can see what you'll need. Here's the same info in list form:

• 2 large white ovals for the eyes.
• 2 black ovals for the eyes.
• 2 small white circles for the eyes.
• 2 eyebrows. (see tip below)
• 2 white fangs.
• 1 mouth. (see tip below)
• 4 Goomba bodies. NOTE: You only need 1 Goomba body for the face, but you'll need 4 body pieces for the entire costume.

TIP: Faux fur has nap, meaning that if you look at the fabric, the fur points in a certain direction. Make sure you line up your pattern pieces such that when you cut your right eyebrow, the fur points to the right. Then flip over the pattern so that when you cut your left eyebrow, the fur points left.

In the picture above, the nap is pointing down. See those long hairs hanging off the bottom? That's how you can tell that the nap is pointing down. If you look closely, you can see how I laid out my pattern pieces to make sure the nap points in the correct direction. Warning: When you cut faux fur, be prepared for a flurry of scrap fur to cover your workspace. Try to only cut the fabric backing, not the fur itself. Still, arm yourself with a Swiffer or a vacuum cleaner. You'll need it.


TIP: To cut the mouth, fold a piece of black felt in half. If you look at the pattern for the mouth, I marked for one edge as "place on fold". You guessed it - place that edge on the fold of the fabric. Cut out the mouth, cutting only the three sides that are NOT on the fold. You should now have one long, skinny, symmetrical mouth.

2. Applique the eyes to your Goomba's body.

First sew the small white circles onto the black ovals.

TIP: When appliqueing several layers, start at the TOP layer and work your way down. In this case, the top layer is the tiny white circles. You may be tempted to sew the big white ovals onto the Goomba's body first...DON'T. By the time you add the black ovals and then the white circles on top, you'll be sewing through four layers of felt! NO, no, NO!


Sew the black ovals onto the white ovals.


Sew the white ovals onto the Goomba's body. (See how you never had to sew through more than two layers of felt?)

TIP: I appliqued the eyes using a narrow zig zag stitch. I started using a straight stitch (which could work, if that's what you prefer), but I found a zig zag stitch was more forgiving where I sewed around the curves.

3. Sew the mouth and fangs to the Goomba's body.

Make sure the bottom of each fang is flush against the mouth.

4. Sew the eyebrows to the Goomba's body.

If you look at the picture of a Goomba, its eyebrows stick out past the sides of its head. To make this work for our costume, I hand sewed pipe cleaners to the back of the eyebrows. (Otherwise the fabric was too floppy.)

For each eyebrow, cut two pipe cleaners and shape them to fit the arch of the eyebrow.


Hand sew the pipe cleaners to the back of the eyebrow. I drew a diagram so you could see approximately where I tacked down the pipe cleaners...(keep reading below)
If you click on the picture, you might be able to see what I did. Black on black stinks for tutorial making...but it's fantastic for the actual costume where you don't want the pipe cleaners to show. TIP: When sewing, try not to catch any of the fur under the thread. Just stitch the pipe cleaner to the back of the fabric.


Sew the eyebrows onto the Goomba's face. A zig zag stitch works best. Only sew along three sides (see photo below). Do not sew where the eyebrows hang off the edges. (It's hard to explain why, but trust me - it will be a big pain later if you do.)

TIP: When sewing, push the fur to the side so that you're sewing the fabric (not the poofy fur) to your Goomba's face. This keep the fur from getting tangled in your machine or matted down by the thread.


This is the back side of the Goomba's face. (I know, I can't believe I'm showing it.) If you click on the picture, you can see where I only stitched along three sides of each eyebrow.


Ta-da! Here's your Goomba's face. Those eyebrows and scowl look so perfectly angry, I can't help but smile.


Now let your child hold it up and get excited - it's starting to look like a costume!

Please click here for Part 3 of the tutorial and click here for Part 4.