Want to make your own Akshi wool doll to cuddle and love? Great! Here's how!

Material:

First of, you'll need the How to make a Pompon tutorial and all the materials listed for that. To make the pompons for Akshi you need yellow wool.
Furthermore you need the following:
- darning needle, sewing needle
- decorative yarn in orange and pink
- orange, pink and white felt 1.5mm
- thick (3mm) yellow felt for the tail
- 2 wiggly eyes (about 10mm in diameter)
- waterproof black pen or black yarn
- stuffing
- for alternative ways to make her you can use needle felting supplies (wool rovings) or acrylic paint for her eyes

Of almost all those things small amounts will do. I typically need 1-1.5 skeins of wool. It depends on how thick your wool is and how fluffy you want to make your pompons. You also need to print out the template. I added a scale so you can check for accuracy of your print but there's no harm in making Akshi bigger or smaller as long as you can arrange an alternative for the wiggly eyes. (They are available in other sizes too, bzw.)

Step 1:

Print the template and cut out all parts. The rings for Akshi's body are transferred to cardboard. (Like all pictures in my tutorials, you can click the template to get a popup with a larger version which you can then save with right click.)

Use the template to make the pompons for Akshi. The tutorial linked above shows you how. You need one slightly oval large pompon for the body and a smaller round pompon for the head. Don't cut off the threads you use to fasten the pompons in the end!

Step 2:

From orange felt cut the three parts of Akshi's beak. You need two of the rounded triangle shape and one of the longish part.
Put the two rounded parts on top of each other, get out the decorative yarn and start sewing along the rounded part (A). Once you reach the end of that line add the third part. The more pointed end of that one should go in front while the more rounded part is used to close off the beak at the back. I hope the photos help understand this better. Sew B to B and then fold the long part upwards and sew C to C. Then use a new thread to sew D to D on the other side but don't sew E to E yet.

Tipp: If you don't like this beak you can use your needlefelting supplies to make another one. For that I provided the template at the bottom as a rough sketch of how much felting wool is needed. The beak must be very strong in the back, therefore the template is much longer than Akshi's actual beak should be to allow for firm stitches. You can also use other materials too, of course. Make a beak from pipecleaners like Akshi v1 has, fold a piece of triangular paper and glue it in place with pva glue, crochet or knit a beak if you have an idea how or make a simpler felt beak. It's up to you.

Step 3:

Stuff the beak with stuffing, cotton, even a leftover piece of soft fabric or a paper handkerchief ripped to shreds will do if you don't have anything else at hand. Once it's fluffy enough for your taste sew E to E to close it off.

Next up cut the feet from orange felt. You need two identical parts for each foot. Sew them all around, add stuffing and close them too.

Tipp: In earlier reincarnations Akshi had simple, thick orange felt (3mm) for feet. You could do it that way if you prefer. Maybe still with a decorative trim?

Step 4:

Cut the tail from thick yellow felt and sew all around it with decorative yarn. The tips of Akshi's feathers are pink so make sure to take that into account.
Once that is done also cut both eyes and the nose from white and pink felt. Now you have all parts ready to assemble Akshi!

Tipp: There are several alternatives for making Akshi's tail. You can leave the thick felt as is and only add pink yarn at the top, or use paint suitable for fabric on it. Or you could needlefelt the tail. (Warning though: I did so for Darkest_Secret's Akshi and in my opinion it's a bit prone to sagging. Maybe incoorporate some wire into such a project.) You can twist pipecleaners like v1 has or cut two tail parts from thinner felt and sew and stuff them like the feet and beak. Heck, you could even use real yellow feathers if you want.

Step 5:

Start by tying the two pompons together. Simply use the threads for this that you finished them with. Make a knot that keeps them snuggly together so Akshi's head doesn't sag - but not so tight that she ducks! At this point it's also a good idea to take the scissors and give her a haircut. I shortened the wool on her chest so it's almost in line with her head. It's also good to flatten her belly to make her less likely to tip over. Apart from that just trim her so she looks smooth.

Next up Askhi gets feet. Use the same wool you used to make the pompons and a darning needle, take the wool double and make a stitch into the first foot. (Note: actually it's best NOT to make this stitch in the middle but closer to the inner side of her feet, then she doesn't have such strong knock knees as mine has ^^)
Definitely use a darning needle for this, as you can hurt yourself quite much when feeling around in the wool ball for a real needle and blood doesn't look that good on Akshi!
Pinch the needle through the harder core of her body and bring it up on the other side. From there make a stitch downwards, again going through the harder core. Attach the other foot and make a stitch upwards to the other side. One last stitch downwards and you're back where you started from. Tie a knot to secure the feet. The harder you pull the closer to Askhi's body the feet are but the more knock kneed she becomes. The final position is up to your taste. ^^ Cut off the loose ends.

Step 6:

Put the pink felt for the nose on the beak, with the little gap pointing towards the beak's tip, shortening the left and right size if needed. (I made the template for the nose slightly on the big side since depending on your sewing style and the amount of stuffing the beak might differ in size. Just shorten the nose on both sides equally until it fits your beak.) Use some pink thread to sew it to the end of the beak, then fold the other end over. Secure the lower ends of the nose with a few stitches to keep it from flopping back into its initial position.

Step 7:

Time to get out the wool again. With two strands of wool in the needle make one or two horizontal stitches through the back of Akshi's beak. Make a stitch through the core of her head from front to back and another stitch back to the front, then stitch it through the beak again. Tug on both ends until it sits nicely. The nose should sink a bit into her feathers so that all stitches made on the back end of the beak are hidden. Make a knot and cut off the loose ends.

Step 8:

Time to prepare her eyes! Use a wiggly eye as guidance for the eye but don't glue it on just yet. Just use the marker to paint Akshi's lashes and make sure the upper eyelid touches the wiggly eye or Askhi will have a manic stare. For better effect also paint the sides of the felt, not just the front.
If you don't want to use a marker (the colour bleeds a bit and if it's not lightfast it will fade) you can use black thread instead and stitch the lashes, but I must confess this usually just wears the felt out and it might even rip. You might try to harden the rims of the eyes with some PVA glue first or glue a piece of paper to the back. If you don't want to use wiggly eyes you can also draw the eyes on or use embroidery for them. In that case you should know that Akshi has golden/amber eyes.

However you design her eyes, remember to make the second one mirrored. ^^

 Step 9:

With a single thread and the darning needle stitch the eyes to the head, going through the core as always. Start at the backside of an eye so that your knot will also end up behind the eyes and get hidden in the head. The eyes won't sit as tightly as the other body parts and you might encounter them turning or sagging while playing. If that annoys you you can use a bit of PVA glue on their back later to fix them to the head more securely.

As a last step the wiggly eyes are glued on with PVA glue or superglue. Superglue creates a stronger bond but for me PVA glue always did the trick so far.

 Step 10:

Last but not least attach the tail. I have no clue why I forgot to take pictures of this, my apologies. It's basically the same technique as for the other limbs though. Start with a horizontal stitch through the tail (starting at the back to hide the knot later), go through the core to the front and back, then make another horizontal stitch slightly above the first. Tug on both ends slightly and check if the tail sags. If it does repeat the stitch through the core and make a third stitch through the tail. Once it sits decently tie a knot, cut off the loose ends and give Akshi a last haircut.

Your done! Put her on a shelf and cuddle her a lot!

This tutorial is now over and you can ask questions if you still have any. You can view some more photos of the finished Akshi v4 in the gallery.