How are soft toys made?
A teddy bear is a flat sheet of fabric that has been tricked into being round. Cut one open, fold orange-peel pieces into a ball, blow fibre into a bear, then pull its eye with 90 newtons and drop the parts into the tube that stands for a toddler's throat.
▶ Play with it · Read the 60-second explainer · Watch the 40-second video
- A skin and a filling. A soft toy is a skin of plush, a knitted backing with short polyester fibres standing up from it, sewn from flat pieces and filled with springy polyester fibrefill. Safety eyes lock on from inside with a washer, noses are embroidered, and a pellet pouch can add weight.
- Flat pieces, round toy. A flat sheet cannot curve two ways at once without stretching. So a round head is split into gores, pointed pieces like orange peel, each πR long and (2πR/N) sin(s/R) wide. More pieces need less stretch but more seams and more seam allowance.
- The factory line. Steel dies cut stacks of fabric. Pieces are sewn right sides together, then turned, so the seams hide inside. Air blows fluffed fibre down a tube into the skin. In a fibre-compression model, doubling the fill density makes the toy about eight times firmer.
- Safe for a child. Anything that fits in the 31.75 mm small-parts cylinder is banned in toys for under-3s. Parts are twisted and pulled first: 10 or 15 pounds of force in the US, 90 N under EN 71-1 and IS 9873, with seams at 70 N. Lead, phthalates and flame spread are limited too.
- India's toys. Channapatna turns and lacquers ivory-wood. Kondapalli carves a light softwood. Plush is a factory product. Since 1 January 2021 the Toys (Quality Control) Order has required the BIS ISI mark on toys sold in India, made here or imported, with artisan and GI toys exempted.
- Two teddies, one name. In November 1902 Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a tied-up bear. Morris and Rose Michtom in Brooklyn made 'Teddy's bear', and Richard Steiff in Germany designed a jointed bear that won an order for 3,000 in 1903. Since then bears' faces have grown more baby-like.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Plush (pile fabric) | A fabric with a dense layer of short fibres standing up from a knitted or woven backing. |
| Pile direction | The way pile fibres lean. It is lined up to run down the toy on every pattern piece. |
| Fibrefill | Loose, springy polyester fibre used to stuff toys and pillows. |
| Gore | A pointed, curved-sided piece. Several sewn edge to edge make a ball or dome. |
| Seam allowance | The strip of fabric between the stitching line and the cut edge. |
| Safety eye | A plastic eye whose ridged shank is locked from inside by a washer. |
| Small-parts cylinder | A test tube 31.75 mm wide. Anything that fits inside is a choking risk for under-3s. |
| Tension test | Pulling a part with a set force, such as 90 N, to check that it stays on. |
| ISI mark | The Bureau of Indian Standards mark, compulsory on toys sold in India since 2021. |
From Harappan clay bulls with nodding heads to a felt elephant, a president's bear, polyester fill and a safety mark on every toy in India.
- 2500 BCE · Clay animals with nodding heads (Makers of the Indus (Harappan) cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro)
- 1880 · A felt elephant starts a toy company (Margarete Steiff, Giengen an der Brenz)
- 1902 · A president refuses to shoot a tied-up bear (Theodore Roosevelt, near Onward, Mississippi)
- 1902 · Richard Steiff designs a jointed bear (Richard Steiff, Giengen an der Brenz)
- 1902 · "Teddy's bear" in a shop window (Morris and Rose Michtom, Brooklyn, New York)
- 1941 · Polyester is patented (John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson, England)
- 1978 · The small-parts cylinder is proposed (US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Washington, DC)
- 2020 · India's Toys (Quality Control) Order (Government of India (DPIIT) and BIS, New Delhi)
The full story, with 27 moments, charts, people and 25 sources: glassbox.how/e/softtoyclear/history. The data lives in history.json.
Made with the Glassbox studio from this box's storyboard (window.glassbox.director). Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
| File | What | Size |
|---|---|---|
glassbox/reel.mp4 |
Reel / Short, with captions and soundtrack | 1080×1920 |
glassbox/video.mp4 |
YouTube video, with captions and soundtrack | 1920×1080 |
glassbox/slide-1…10.jpg |
Instagram carousel | 1080×1350 |
glassbox/thumb.jpg |
YouTube thumbnail | 1280×720 |
glassbox/cover.jpg |
Share card and repo social preview | 1200×630 |
glassbox/history-reel.mp4 |
“History in 10 moments” Reel / Short | 1080×1920 |
glassbox/history-slide-*.jpg |
History carousel | 1080×1350 |
glassbox/post.json |
Post copy and schedule used by the publish kit |
This box has no accounts and no ads, and it ships its own fonts and libraries. When you run it yourself it sends nothing anywhere. On glassbox.how, the site's /bar.js also loads Glassbox's analytics: Google Analytics to count visits (it asks first in the EU, UK and Switzerland, and stays off when your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track) and ClickTrust to detect bots.
It remembers a few things in your own browser only, and never sends them anywhere:
| Browser storage key | What it holds |
|---|---|
softtoyclear.v1 |
Which chapters you have opened, your best quiz scores, and sound on or off. |
Exactly what each one sees is at glassbox.how/privacy.
- Code: MIT. Use it, change it, ship it.
- Explanations, text, images and videos (
glassbox.json,glassbox/): CC BY 4.0. Credit “Glassbox, glassbox.how/e/softtoyclear”. - Third-party parts keep their own licences: three.js (MIT), Geist, Instrument Serif (SIL OFL 1.1).
- The Glassbox name and logo aren't covered by either licence. See the terms.
Found a mistake? Open an issue. Corrections happen in public.
It's plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript. No build step and no dependencies. Run locally, it contacts no other website.
python3 -m http.server 8000Three.js and the fonts ship in vendor/ and fonts/, so it also works offline.
Then open http://localhost:8000.
| File | What |
|---|---|
index.html, css/app.css |
The page and its styles |
js/app.js, js/stage.js, js/ui.js, js/kit.js |
The shared Glassbox 3D engine: chapters, 3D stage, controls, quiz, video director |
js/chapters/*.js |
One file per chapter: the 3D model, controls, text, key terms, quiz and video scenes |
js/softtoy.js |
SoftToyClear's shared models: the gore geometry, the fibre-fill compression model, the safety-test figures, and the generic bear, elephant and wooden toys |
glassbox.json |
Title, question, explainer beats, key terms, browser storage and credits shown on glassbox.how |
reel in each chapter |
The storyboard the Glassbox studio records into short videos |
glassbox/ |
The published video, slides, thumbnail and post copy |
fonts/, vendor/three/ |
Self-hosted Geist and Instrument Serif (SIL OFL 1.1) and three.js (MIT) |