Felt Food Galore!

I recently started making Delilah felt food. I previously wrote about giving Delilah the banana. Guess I shouldn't have said "Would you like a banana?", because she was pretty upset with me (and the felt banana) that it wasn't REAL. It was a good thing we had bananas in the house that morning! The girl likes her bananas.

Since then I have been on a felt food frenzy. My plan is to make a whole bunch and give all the food to Delilah when she gets a new play kitchen. I think this will be a second birthday present. I'm happy to present my progress so far! (Pics taken at night on my bed - very professional yes!)



This sandwich and chips followed this tutorial from Skip To My Lou. I really liked that this was a project to sew by hand, and I could work on these pieces a little at a time propped up in bed before zonking out. You could certainly follow the tutorial and sew on a machine if you like. I took some leftover embroidery stabilizer bits and sandwiched them between the felt for the potato chips, so they would be a little more stiff like a chip instead of floppy. This was a great start into the world of felt food making. The tutorial is SO clear and making each piece was satisfying.

I did add some details to the lettuce and tomato on the machine - can you see in these pics?





The banana and apple and pear are from patterns by LilyBeanMarket. The banana was sewn mostly on the machine, and I like it ok, but I think I prefer my felt food made by hand. The directions by the way, were fantastic. They sent me a disk with videos making the fruit. Awesome! For the apple and pear, alas, I didn't pay attention to the video, and just used the pattern pieces and sewed them by hand. But I probably SHOULD have paid attention to attaching the stems. I just winged it and I am concerned they aren't on there fast enough.

Then I made this carrot using an easy peasy tutorial here from I Make Stuff. I really like this carrot! I did make it mostly on the machine instead of by hand. Seriously, so easy and fast to make. And I think it is super cute.



Following the directions of the other more experienced sewers has given me enough confidence now to make my own! If you are interested in making felt food, the sandwich set and carrot tutorials are great (and free) and the LilyBean Market patterns really help a beginner. LilyBean has some links to some online tutorials so you can check out how clear and awesome they are. Honestly, their kits are a bargain - you get all the felt AND a DVD to play on your computer with complete directions. Course, you can also order felt food already made by them, and that's really tempting.

Next up I'm going to tackle strawberries and perhaps some cake slices. I'd love any advice or suggestions, please comment if you have any!

Teasing my kid and Happy Valentines Day

I am making a collection of felt food for Delilah to play with. I figure by the time I slowly make a nice collection, she'll be old enough to enjoy it. Last night I made her this:



(In case you can't tell, that's a banana made of wool felt.)

I had ordered the pattern from wwwlillybeanmarket.com to get me started on making felt food. It's remarkably easy and moving forward, I think I'll be able to wing it and not have to buy more patterns. (Famous last words!) But I will say having the shapes already worked out for me, and the handy videos gave me some confidence as a beginner felt food maker. The site has lots of neat patterns and sells quality wool felt. If you have any interest in felt food, check em out. They sell the food already put together for reasonable prices -- which is reeeeeally tempting me.

So - this morning I gave the banana to Delilah. She got pretty mad. She hit the fake banana and wailed. Turns out she was pretty disappointed it wasn't a REAL banana after I gave it to her. Good thing we had bananas in the house or it could have been a tough morning. The girl likes her bananas!

One more thing to show you. Our last minute Valentines from Delilah. I took a picture of Delilah (not my favorite picture but it features her HAND the right way and that's what I needed), and I uploaded it to Picnik (if you don't know Picnik - trust me it is AWESOME - I don't have the first clue how to photoshop and this is such a user friendly photo editing tool even I can use it.) I added some text and a picture of a bear, and sent it off to CVS for prints.

After picking up the prints, I made a two slits with a sharp blade by her hands, and slipped in a DumDum lollipop. I think it turned out pretty cute! Here's a photo of the final product.




Wish I had thought of this sooner and would have had time to mail them to people. Ah well, next year. And that gives me time to get a better picture for next Feb! (This Valentine was not my original idea. We received a Valentine's picture/pop years ago, long before Delilah was born. I have wanted to do this ever since and FINALLY got to do it. Chances are, we'll be doing this next year also!)