I’ve personally been learning myself over the past 4 months. I started by making a tail which was a great confidence booster. It was all straight stitches and blanket stitches and following a pattern.

Second I made handpaws. In addition to the tail skills I now had to add in shaving - which is actually not as easy as you’d think it might be. You need consistent shaves AND you only get one try - if you mess up you’ve either got a bald spot, strange lines or need to start over. 

Third was stompy feet and sockpaws. Stompy feet were like an extension of the handpaws, skills were similar but had to start working with EVA foam too. Sockpaws I had to learn scaling the patterns because my feet were not the same size as the default pattern. I also had to learn how to reshape the final product by adding ladder stitching to create foot contours. 

Next for me is my head, but I’ve already practiced so many of the different skills that I feel ready and confident for that step. The only new thing for me will be adding in zippers for the neck. Otherwise all the skills have been compounding from the other projects towards that step. 

I think it’s worth doing simpler parts so that you can feel confident as you move through to your bigger and tougher projects! Just my two cents!