Felt Food Tutorial and Patterns

photo (7)

Here is the moment we’ve all been waiting for… (there’s totally a drumroll)…

I learned to create patterns in pdf form!!!!

I’ve been saying I’d do this for the longest time. It really wasn’t as hard as I was worried it would be. One day I’ll post about that for the other chickens out there Smile .

Patterns:

You’ll notice that most of the patterns call for cutting 2 pieces of felt, even for something flat. This is for stability, because you can warp or even tear felt pretty easily.

I tried to keep everything simple. All the stitching is on the outside, there’s no flipping or turning things inside out. And I did everything by machine.

Assembly Tutorial:

photo (14)

Cheese: Probably the easiest thing you’ll make in the felt food world. Cut 2 rectangles of felt, and sew them together. Tada! You’ve made cheese. You have some creative options here: you can change colors for different types of cheese slices (think off white with stitched sprinkles for Monterey Jack), oval for provolone, and if you want Swiss, my suggestion is to sew circles, and then trim the holes.

photo (11)

Bacon and Eggs: Felt food must-haves! Cut 2 egg whites and 1 yolk for each egg. Sew the yolk onto one of the whites, leaving a small opening. Very lightly stuff the yolk with polyfil and close the opening. Then put your 2 egg whites together, with the yolk on the outside, and sew all the way around.

For the bacon slices, I only cut 1 layer, because I felt like those lighter strips would be secure enough. Cut your darker bacon slices and 2 lighter strips for each slice. Just freehand those stripes, there is no reason to try to conform them to a pattern, and I think it would be more difficult to do so. Lay the light strips on top of the darker fabric and stitch around the strips.

photo (15)

PB&J Sammy: I wanted everything to be as simple as possible, so these bread slices are flat, flat, flat! For each slice, cut 1 dark piece (that will become the crust) and 2 lighter pieces. This was actually the most difficult thing I did, despite trying to keep simplicity in mind. Sandwich those 3 pieces (light, then dark, then light) and pin the layers. You want to stitch around the edges of the light felt, catching all 3 layers. One of my slices came out perfectly the first time. The other slice slipped and I had to redo it a couple of times.

For the peanut butter and jelly, cut 2 pieces each and sew together. Super easy.

If you want to go a little further, you could make sandwich meats out of circles and ovals. I also want to make lettuce and tomato slices one day, but I just didn’t bother this time. Dexter already has a wooden sandwich set anyway. 

photo (12)

Broccoli: I had a lot of fun making the little veggies! I was inspired by Dana at MADE for the broccoli and chicken legs for sure. In fact, I was probably most inspired by her felt food, because I saw how simple it could be instead of trying to create incredibly detailed 3D models of food.

Back to the broccoli. For each piece, cut 2 stalks, and sew those together. Cut 2 florets, my recommendation is to cut ovals just slightly bigger than you want your floret to be. This is another time where freehanding is going to be easier on you.

Ok, I said oval, but what I did was more like a little mushroom cap. You take your 2 little mushroom cap shapes, and freehand a broccoli shape around the top, leaving the bottom open.

broccoli top

Next, take a little bit of polyfil and stuff the top. Then poke your little stalk into the opening, and stitch it closed. Like this:

broccoli

(Bet you can’t tell that I’m sketching these out as I go…)

Then trim your broccoli tops, and you’re done!

photo (13)

Beans/Peas: Cut your 2 pieces. Sew along the curved back, leaving the inner curve open. Ball up polyfil into 3 little pea-sized… well… peas. Or beans. Put them in a row inside your shell. Sew up the inner circle.

photo (8)

Carrots: These go together like the broccoli pieces. Sew your little carrot tops together, then sew the carrots, leaving the top open. Stuff with polyfil, then put the stem inside the opening and stitch shut. Then, I ran these guys under my sewing machine to create the lines. It wasn’t super easy, I had to help them along. Don’t “help” them so much that you break a needle. But some light pressure should be ok.

photo (10)

Chicken Legs: I’m in love with these little chicken legs. Sew the 2 meat parts together, leaving the bottom open. Sew the 2 bone pieces together, leaving the top open. Stuff both sections with polyfil. I stuffed these a little more firmly, leaving it a little softer at both of the openings. Insert the bone into the meat opening (Ok, I just realized how creepy meat assembly sounds!), and stitch across all layers. 

photo (9)

Cookies: You can make different kinds of cookies. Whatever you make, sew the add-ons to the top before you sew and stuff the actual cookie (or if you plan to hand stitch, you can do the add-ons at any time). Then sew most of the way around the 2 cookie layers, stuff lightly (you don’t want these to be too puffy), and then sew across the opening.

IMAG2123

Pancakes: These were the first items I made, and I couldn’t find them when I did my photo shoot, AND I only took one phone picture of them before I gave them away. I did not think ahead to when I’d be doing a fancy-schmancy tutorial.

At the time, I did these a little differently than I would now. You can probably see the batting peeking through. That was before I realized that stuffing with polyfil works just as well and actually looks better.

For the pancakes, cut 2 pieces, sew most of the way around, stuff lightly with polyfil, and close ‘em up.

For the syrup, cut 2 pieces, sew together.

For the butter, cut 2 pieces, sew 3 sides, lightly stuff, sew the 4th side. (I feel silly for typing out all these directions, since most of them are “cut 2, sew together”, but I wanted this to be as easy as possible for anyone making them!)

Now, when I made these, I thought I had just created the most amazing thing ever. And then I found these on Etsy. I guess there are only so many ways to make felt pancakes!

Oh, I also indicated on the pancake pattern that this is also what I’d use to make a hamburger. And yet, I have not created a hamburger bun pattern. I will do that soon though, because my sister has requested a hamburger for her boys. I’ll probably tackle the lettuce and tomato slices at the same time.

Links:

Now, I promised links to all the felt food that inspired me, but it was extremely hard to go back and find those!! I will add what I found, and maybe this was all. I know for some of the items I just did my own thing, making them look the way I thought they should look. But I truly don’t want to take credit for something someone else did, so I am sorry if I missed a link!!!

Dana at Made (The cutest little almost-2D picnic set! And I just noticed she has bread slices in there too, so maybe that’s where I got that inspiration as well as the broccoli and drumsticks)

Pickle Things at Black Wagon (This is likely an inspiration for the cookies.)

Stitches by Krustal (I didn’t get my cheese from here- I don’t think that sad little cheese slices are particularly inspired, as they are just squares- but I plan to use this as a jumping off point for my future hamburger bun, because the style is very similar to my felt food philosophy. And if you don’t want to wait for my version, which will probably only be slightly different, this would be a good place to go for a simple bun.)

Now, go have fun felt-fooding it up!!

We’re Famous: 20 Little Toes In the Press!

Thanks to our old friend and fellow blogger, Jaime Garrett, Deborah and I have been featured on CookevilleTimes.com! Jaime interviewed me for an article for her blog (btw, can I just pause for a minute to tell you how cool it felt to be interviewed??) and then Cookeville Times published it! A huge thanks for you guys for promoting 20 Little Toes! You rock!rebekah and deborah                  (Rebekah Robson, left, Deborah Robson, right)

Sneak Peek: Hair Bands

I am SO excited about our new hair bands! Deborah and I are both starting to wish we had a little girl to put them on. Our husbands were NOT happy when we tried them on our boys to see how they fit lol.

Here’s a sneak peek at what we have so far:IMG_5789 

I love them all so far, but here are close ups on a few of my favorites: IMG_5791  IMG_5792

These will be sewn onto head bands (and maybe clips if we can find some that are CPSIA certified). Next week we’ll be photographing what we have and hopefully we will have our shop up and running by this coming Friday. We’re both so excited!!! Our accessories will make perfect gifts for Christmas!

If you haven’t seen the ties Deborah is making (which are awesome), then head over to her blog!

Bibs, Bibs, Bibs…

My weekend is going to be spent sewing bibs. My sister and I are (hoping) to start an Esty shop together… We believe working together will keep us motivated and inspired. I think we’ll be a great team! She has a classic and cool design sensibility, and I like to make things quirky and funky, and I think we will balance each other out perfectly!

So this past week I worked on cutting out bibs. I didn’t pay attention to how many I was cutting, and when I got tired of it I realized I had 60 bibs!! I really have my work cut out for me! Here’s a sneak peek at what we will have available:

IMG_5659 

IMG_5660

IMG_5663 

Our line will include several baby/child accessories. Right now we’re in the process of working out some of our designs and studying up on CPSIA regulations (ugh!), but hopefully we’ll be up and running in the next week or so!

In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the hats in my current shop! Today was a little cooler, so it won’t be long until hat weather!! I can’t wait to put Dex in his monster hats 🙂

Verbose Boutique Give Away!

My sister-in-law is doing an awesome give away! Alisha made my awesome purse. Everywhere I go I get asked where I got it

IMG_4969

Head on over to Verbose Boutique and leave a comment to enter. One lucky winner will receive the following, made by Alisha:

A night masknight mask

A faux-suede tote bagpurse

Earringsearrings

This is quite a prize! Make sure you enter ASAP because the drawing is tomorrow! And if you’re not lucky enough to win, make sure to check out her Etsy shop. Right now she’s featuring a line of stethoscope covers and surgical caps in adorable fabrics!

Monster Hats, Photo Shoot Bloopers, and The Few Tips I Have

I’ve been planning to make monster hats for my Etsy shop FOREVER. But I kept putting it off. I finally got the motivation to do it, and I’m loving them! I have 5 listed in my shop so far, and almost 20 more started.

Shooting them was so hard, though. The older Dexter gets, the harder it is to photograph him. He was all over the place. Plus, even though he has been an active hat-wearer since birth, he felt it was an injustice to his soul to have to wear these hats for me. (Am I allowed to say, “I carried you for 9 months, the least you can do is let me exploit your cuteness to sell hats!!”?)

IMG_5087 “But Mom, it’s JULY!!!!”

IMG_5149 “Ok, I’ll be still, I just need to blow some kisses first!”

                 IMG_5154  IMG_5155  IMG_5157  IMG_5167  IMG_5168

He spent most of his time running around on the far side of the room with my camera’s lens cap in his mouth.

I made the mistake of making him think we’d go outside, just to lure him closer to the natural light… drama ensued.

               IMG_5183     IMG_5184

The best tips I can give are these:

1. Shoot when your baby is comfortable (not tired, not hungry, not wet, not too cold, not too hot…)

2. Distract, distract, distract! He chose the lens cap and my phone, and then I tried pulling out a mirror so he could check out his hats. But in the future I’m going to find some props that I won’t mind ending up in the pictures.

3. Do your best to get natural light so you can shoot without your flash. My pictures aren’t the best, but that really brings them up several notches. Just keep in mind that if there’s not enough light, your pictures will look blurry.

4. WORK FAST! If you have a digital camera, don’t get picky. Just focus and shoot as fast as you can, because those babies are quick. You may be able to use a quarter of the pictures you take 🙂 If you’re lucky :).

In the end though, if you can get just one drooly, lovable picture of your dude, it’ll be worth it 🙂

IMG_5133

My new purse!!

I love when something totally unexpected and awesome comes your way! I was visiting my family this weekend and my sister-in-law (and fellow crafter), Alisha, gave me a beautiful bag she’d made! I love it and I can’t stop looking at it 🙂 It’s almost like she picked out the fabrics just for me. (She didn’t, hence the “almost” lol)

IMG_4969

                 IMG_4971   IMG_4970

The fabric is Amy Butler (I’ve never even seen actual Amy Butler fabric before, so I am beyond thrilled! I know… I’m the sad little crafter…) The bag has all sorts of pockets around the inside, which will be great to help keep my purse junk a little sorted!

Alisha has just relaunched her blog and her Etsy shop, Verbose Boutique. Check them out! Her blog is going to also feature desserts, including some amazing Oreo Balls she made this weekend. I must have had 10 lol!