Plush is bought from a fabric swatch and judged from a photograph of the finished toy. These four decisions are what stand between the two.

Ask how many panels are in the head

This is the single most useful question in the category. A head cut from too few panels cannot be round — it comes out as a faceted egg — and a seam placed across the muzzle breaks the character’s face.

Ask to see a photograph of a sewn sample from the side as well as the front. A plush that looks correct head-on is very often wrong in profile, and profile is the view it will spend its life in.

Ask about nap direction

Plush fabric has a pile that lies one way, like velvet. Panels cut with the nap running in opposite directions reflect light differently and look like two different shades of the same colour.

Laying out a pattern so every panel runs the same way wastes fabric, so it is the first thing dropped on a cheap quote. It is also the reason a patchy-looking plush is patchy.

Insist on an embroidered face

The surface of a plush toy is a pile that moves constantly. Print sits on top of it, so it cracks along fold lines and fades in the wash.

Moulded parts — plastic eyes, snap-on noses — look sharper in a photograph and are attachments, and attachments detach. For anything going near a young child that is the entire conversation.

Ask how the fill is distributed

Not how much: where. Evenly stuffed toys have their mass in the head and slump forward. A weighted seat and lower body with light fibre above drops the centre of gravity and the toy sits up.

Over-filling is its own problem — hard to the touch and prone to splitting at the seams. Ask for fill by zone.

And say who it is for

A plush for a young child is a different build: embroidered face, nothing glued, nothing removable, testing arranged. A plush for an adult collector can have removable clothing and finer detail.

Say it at the quote stage. It changes the pattern, not just the paperwork.