Felt Food Tutorials

In 2007 I posted a thread on Crafster that caused quite a stir.  It led to quite a few felt food sales a few online interviews or mentions as well as Crafsters Best of 2008 in the Toys, Dolls And Playthings category.  It's been 4 years and I still receive requests for more tutorials and ideas.  With my son turning 2 this last August, I pulled out our felt food collection.  He immediately got started putting things together.  It's amazing how he just knew what to do with it all.  Now my head is buzzing with ideas for new items to make for him.  All that being said I have decided to finally add my short but sweet tutorials that I had posted on Crafster here.  I'm going to update this as I have time to be more detailed.  My ultimate goal is to put it all together in a PDF format for easy viewing and saving.  I will also be scanning my existing patterns and posting them as I have time. Well... on with it already!

For pictures and more ideas just click here.  I'm working on a good gallery, it's just not ready yet.

General directions and materials for all foods.

I used my machine for about 75% of all the sewing.  Detail stitching was done with embroidery floss.  I used polyester stuffing for rounder shapes and some thin quilt batting in things like, peanut butter & jelly blobs, bread (stacked a few layers) spaghetti sauce, pancakes, etc.

Templates and patterns: For the larger circles I use a mason jar lid, small plate, small bowls.... things like that.  And all non circled shapes were just free drawn into the desired shapes. Really it's all about just the general shape of something. Most things in natural are “organic” so really you can't go wrong. Just check out my pictures and you can get an idea of the shapes used for things. For round shapes I found some free fabric all templates and just used those. Or altered them slightly for other shapes.

Wool felt or acrylic felt? I use both. My local fabric store has a very limited collection of wool felts. I buy some only when they go on sale of if I have a coupon. Otherwise I just use cheapy acrylic felt. It comes in about 20 colors and a few times a year it goes on sale for $1.99 per yard. That's when I buy .5 – 1 yard of almost every color.
Basic Instructions For Some Items.

Bread: The bread is just two cream colored “bread” shapes. Rectangle about 5” long and rounded on the corners. Then I cut 1.5” stripes of light brown for the crust.  I then sewed down the strip on one side of the bread, then attached the other side leaving a space for turning. (I left about 4” open so I could lay in batting) I then layed in about 4 thin layers of batting to make them full and hand stitched the opening closed. Alternately you could use polyester stuffing or just add a few layers of felt and make your bread thinner.

Infinity Bread:  I've decided to keep this one a mystery for the time being. 

Meatballs & Hamburger Patti:  Two brown circles sewn together leaving an opening for turning and stuffing. Turn and stuffed to desired shape then sew opening closed.  I added some fabric paint to add detail.  (grill marks on patti and splotches on meatballs) You could also use embroidery floss for details if you wish.

Bacon:  Layer three free form cut pieces of felt into bacon shapes. (2 brown, 1 light brown)  Stitch “fat” blobs in center of bacon.  Cut out just the top layer of felt to reveal the light brown “fat” underneath. 

Eggs:  Cut two free form white egg shapes.  Cut one yellow circle.  Sew yolk to one white egg shape leaving a small opening to stuff. Add some stuffing and sew the opening closed.  Sew both egg whites together.

Bow Tie Noodles:  Cut 1” wide strips of felt. Using either pinking shears of regular scissors cut them down to 1” x 1.5” rectangles.  Then I gathered the centers and ran them through my sewing machine. If you want one continuous length of noodles, dont' cut the thread between sewing them. Sew one , then sew a few stitches without any fabric, then insert your next noodle and make one long string of noodles. This will save you so much mess! They will all stay together and still look awesome in a bowl.

Quesadilla: Three large circles (two cream one orange). Sandwich first the cream, then orange, than anther cream together. Sew all the way round.  Then using either your rotary cutter or scissors, cut the quesadilla into pie shapes like you would if cutting a pizza. Take each piece back to you sewing machine and stitch around the wedge. *Note that my kids used the quesadillas for pizza crusts. It worked great and makes one thing act like two!
Cucumbers were just two green circles and two smaller cream circles all sewn together and detail stitched.

Onion slices:  For these I cut out two large circles (maybe 5-6” round) and I cut the circles in half.  I then started sewing a kinda rainbow (kinda hard to describe) so that I could cut the pieces apart to make it look like a sliced onion.

Kiwis, Lemons & Limes, Cut one circle in appropriate color and fold in half. These have a bit of stuffing in them and were stitched closed.  I detail stitched where necessary.  The kiwis have an extra cream circle in the center and I added black seed beads as the seeds. For toddlers, feel free to makes the seeds with embroidery floss.

Apples & Oranges: These are made with two pieces.  The top “flesh” part  was a circle cut from a mason jar lid.  The rind was a pointed oval.  I used the machine to attach the pieces.  I won't do that next time as I think it distorted the shape.  I'll hand stitch them.  I used embroidery floss on the details in the center.

Strawberries: Cut out circles then cut the circles in half.  Machine stitched the flat side together to make a cone.  Stuff the insides with fabric scraps or any stuffing and gather up the top. I then used green yarn as the stem and attached it to a green square piece of felt.  Then I stitched freehand the green square to the gathered top.  After it was secure I cut off the access green felt into a wavy circle.  Then I stitched on the yellow seed beads. Again, you could use embroidery floss for the seeds for younger children.

Carrots:  For baby carrots cut two free form ovals (the more uneven the oval the better)  Sew ovals together leaving an opening.  Turn, stuff, hand stitch opening closed.  For whole carrots, cut a triangle and stitch up side.  Stuff and free stitch some green on top.

Flat Stuff Including:  Lunch Meat, Cheese, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Pickles, Bananas, Pepperoni, Pancakes, Butter, Tea Bags, Cookies, Chips, Sauces....
- For these I cut out 2 layers of felt in the correct shape of that food.  For most of these I just used a fancy stitch on my machine (you could also use a zig zag) and stitched the two layers together.  Some needed additional detail stitching inside the piece.  The tomatoes and pickles I sewed the two layers together (leaving a small opening) and then turned them right side out.  Then I top stitched and did the detail stitching.  The pancakes, butter, and tea bags have one layer of batting inside.  Sauces are layered pieces of felt free stitched together.

Needle felted items:

The grapes were needle felted into shape.  I then took a piece of hand spun yarn (any chunky yarn would do) and knotted up the yarn a bit then sewed the grapes onto the yarn.

The cherries were needle felted circles.  It then used brown embroidery floss that I pulled through the whole cherry and then knotted up the stem.

The fruit snacks were needle felted into oval shapes and I made them felt bags.  The wool I used I had dyed using kool aid.