Soft Nativity Play Set Sewing Pattern

soft toy nativity set with a stable carrying bag with the text, "sew a soft nativity"

When my kids were little, they had a Little People Nativity play set that they loved and looked forward to getting out of the holiday bin each year at Christmastime. My newest pattern was inspired by this sweet Christmas memory with my own children, who are now teens, and I really hope you love it!

Introducing my new sewing pattern, the Nativity Play Set with Stable Carrying Bag. Each person and animal stands up on its own and the stable is a drawstring bag that can store the characters for portable play!

The pattern includes full step by step instructions with lots of photos, and all the pattern pieces you need to make Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus with his manger, the angel, wiseman, shepherd, camel, and sheep. Plus of course, the stable! This cute manger scene can be made as a soft toy, or simply for your Christmas decor. (I had a TON of fun making it, so I happen to know adults will love it too ;)

I had a few goals with this pattern. One was to make the nativity scene characters as simple to sew as possible, so that this isn’t a project that will take an eternity to make. The faces are attached with fusible web, the faces are very basic, and the felt pieces are glued in place (this is the BEST brand of craft glue!) Also, you can make the set with or without the stable if you’re short on time, or you can sew just Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus if you want. You can always add more characters later!

The other goal was to make this a soft toy nativity set that kids can actually play with. I knew it would be a lot less fun if the people and animals couldn’t stand up on their own, so I made the characters with simple boxed corners and filled the bottoms of them with some rice (bean bag filling is also an option).

In order to provide even more visual instruction if you need it, I made a video sew-a-long for the little dolls. This video shows you how the people are made in detail. You can see how easy they are!

I hope you enjoy this pattern! I truly feel that this is my best work yet and every time someone has purchased it since its release, it’s made me so happy to know that others are going to enjoy it too.

Happy Sewing!
Nikki