When it comes to the perfect Hobby Horse fabric, you’ve come to the right place! So many customers LOVE our SuperSoft SHORTY minky fabric with it’s 1.5 mm pile length for sewing a Hobby Horses, because it is little elastic and most closely resembles horse fur in terms of feel and shine. The fabric just has the perfect amount of silky shine and is still so soft that petting your horse and brushing the fur is a charm.

A quick heads-up: The the Amazon links on this site are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you purchase through them. No extra cost to you, but it helps us with creating more free content for you!

Reinforcing stretchy fabrics

A little side note: Many Hobby Horse makers prefer non-stretch fabrics because they create a sharper, more angular shape. However, sewing with fabrics that don’t stretch at all can be tricky, especially when attaching the gusset to the head pieces. Tight curves and inner edges, like at the throat, can be challenging to sew without some give in the fabric.

If you’re less experienced or want to avoid frustration, a fabric with a little stretch like our SHORTY minky can be a great option. It makes sewing around those tricky curves much easier and allows for a slightly more 3D look after stuffing, which we personally love. While many traditional Finnish Hobby Horses are flatter in style, a fuller, more dimensional horse can give your project a unique flair – though that’s entirely up to your personal preference!

For those who are confident sewists or prefer the angular, flat look of non-stretch fabrics, reinforcing a stretchy fabric with medium-weight iron-on interfacing is a great solution. It provides stability and helps maintain that sharp, structured appearance.

You simply iron the interfacing onto your fabric before cutting any pattern pieces. We recommend this approach because it allows you to transfer the pattern pieces directly onto the interfaced fabric, making it easier to trace and cut everything at once. This also saves time since you only cut the pattern pieces once instead of cutting them separately from both the fabric and the interfacing. However, keep in mind that this method may result in a bit more interfacing waste.

Here are a few of our favorite interfacings for this purpose (affiliate links; see our full disclosure above):

Sale

PLANTIONAL Medium Weight White Iron-On Non-Woven Fusible Interfacing: 11.6" x 30yd Medium Weight...

$12.99

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Sale

Heat'n Bond 102974 Medium Weight Iron-On Fusible Interfacing Yard

$5.18

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Interlining, 60% PES 40% Cellulose, White, 90 cm x 1 m

$16.88

Buy on Amazon

Brown Hobby Horse fabrics

The classic, a bay hobby horse! It doesn’t matter whether it’s a rather reddish brown for a chestnut, a dark brown for a Thoroughbred or a classic bay – we have different shades of brown in our shop that match them all!

The perfect color for a sorrel Hobby Horse is our plush fabric in ginger, and we also offer that fabric together with the matching yarn:

Beige fabrics for Palomino, Dun & Fjord horse

Would you like to sew a Haflinger Hobby Horse or a Fjord horse? Then our beige fabrics are the right choice for you! Our SHORTY in camel is most similar to the Palomino colour, but our other beige-colored plush fabric also matches this type of Hobby Horse! We also offer bundle for a Fjord hobby horse with fabric and matching yarn.

Gray Hobby Horse fabrics for dapple gray and Co.

Gray fabrics are good for sewing dapple gray Hobby Horses if you want to shade the dapples onto the fabric yourself (check out our video here on how to do that!). But even a plain dark gray horse looks gorgeous and classy, especially with black accents on the fur!

Fabric for white Hobby Horses

Black fabrics for Friesians, Mustangs, Andalusians

Would you like to sew a “Black Beauty” as a Hobby Horse? Here is our perfect black fabric for sewing a Friesian or black Mustang! Our tip for black eyes on black fur: Shade the area around the eyes a little lighter or paint a light gray border on the eyes!

And make sure to check our pastel and teal halter DIY kits, they look phenomenal on a black Hobby Horse!