A long time ago, I learned to make simple soft toys from my Aunt who was a professional seamstress and 'dollmaker' on the side.
After my Aunt showed me stitching and pattern-making basics, I used to create modified patterns to fit the scraps I found in her bins.
My daughter needed to make a homemade gift for a 'secret snowflake' at school so we did the same here with something I saw somewhere on the interwebs and some socks - can't recall where I saw it but it's out there.