Monday, October 18, 2010

Felt Food Class!


This past weekend my good friend Stephanie and I taught our first craft class together.  We're doing a "Homemade Holiday Craft Series" at our local art gallery.  The idea is for moms to get together to make beautiful things for their children for Christmas.  Our first session was a felt fruit and veggie basket.  We had 9 beautiful mamas show up and it was a fabulously productive afternoon of sewing and coming together in a spirit of creativity and craftiness!

Here are some of the mamas busy at work!

Here's some individual pictures of what we made, and some links to help get you started! 
Firstly mamas, I urge you to get 100% wool felt to do these crafts...if you've never had the JOY of working with Wool felt I'll tell you...once you start, you'll never go back to cheapy acrylic again.  The other thing is that the only thing in our baskets that was machine stitched is the banana.  Everything else was lovingly stitched by hand.  I think there is something just so beautiful about hand stitching.


For the pears I printed off the template from UK lass in US.  For our pears I had some lovely leather stems that we used at the top from Stockade.   To sew all of our fruit and veggies we use the blanket stitch.  It's an essential stitch to learn, and really does finish off your fruit and veggies nicely!


This same gal has an  apple on her site.  I did two things with this template...when used at regular size it makes a great apple, but when made smaller, the wedges make a fantastic little tomato.  It takes 4 large wedges to do an apple and 6 smaller ones to do a tomato. 




I found this super cool pattern for a banana in a peel from here.  My only word of advice with the pattern is that when I was cutting out the parts for the inner banana I made the template a bit smaller.  Isn't it just awesome though!


Strawberries!  This is a wonderful strawberry pattern...they're so darn sweet.

Orange section...I do mine a bit different, (go up to see the picture)...cutting out a piece of yellow felt for the circle and smaller wedge shapes. 



Here's a tutorial for some carrots.  The ones we made are similar, but I made longer tops for ours.  To sew the tops on first I use a gathering stitch to gather up the top of the carrot, then roll up the "leaves" and blanket stitch them on!


The mushrooms are tweaked from our toadstool tutorial...brought down in size and only stuffed with stuffing.  If you want to get fancy, you can do some lovely embroidery on the underside, to make it look mushroomy!


And finally some sweet little felt peas.  When I saw them I just knew we'd HAVE to have some in our baskets!

I smile when I think of all of the lucky kids in our area who will be receiving such wonderful gifts crafted with LOVE!

If you're in our area and are interested in attending on of our classes you can check them out HERE.  We only have a few spaces left per class, so sign up soon!

Sewing sweet felt food is highly addictive...once you start, it's so hard to stop!  Do a google search for "felt food tutorials", and you'll see that there are all sorts of possibilities beyond the fruit and veggie basket!

Happy holiday creating!
xo maureen


24 comments:

  1. Perfect! Not only do I love the idea of the hand stitched felt food, but I adore the idea of women coming together to do something for the joy of their children! Thanks for sharing! Kerri

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  2. How cool! Love that banana!
    My moms and I are having a tie dye night tomorrow night. Should be similar type fun (but maybe with wine.)

    Ya'll made such wonderful stuff.

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  3. Love felt food! I made a whole heap for my sons 3rd bday not long ago and he loves playing with it. You have done a couple I ddnt though so I may have to get back into it.

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  4. wow... amazing. i want to make them all. i just wish i could get real wool felt here on this island. i'll have to suffer through and use the acrylic or whatever polyester fiber this is that i have. thank you for sharing all this wonderful information!!!

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  5. Great post...I can't get my pictures up as usual so will do it late or just link to yours, darnit! Lovely photos...thanks for the use of your camera. I'm hooked. Here's to more successful classes!

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  6. Such a lovely idea! and even nicer to be sharing your skills with others in your community :)

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  7. That is one big table full of crafty goodness and good company! I'm so glad it was such a success and that there will be many a happy child enjoying their handmade gifts this holiday season :-)

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  8. I'm in Ontario too! Just wondered where your purchase your wool felt? I'd love to hear from you.
    lynchta1@hotmail.com
    THanks

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  9. I love all of your felt food creations. Right now I am doing a series of blog posts about creating felt food, from tutorials to tips and tricks. I was wondering if I could link to your post in a future post?
    I too have taught felt food "classes" to a bunch of friends and classmates of my daughters moms. There is something very special about the joy and fellowship at these meetings.

    Susan

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  10. Oh I just LOVE these :) I like to use felt for lots of my crafting projects with the kids but I haven't tried making felt food yet so thank you so much for sharing the links to the patterns. I think I've just found what I'm making my 4 year old for Christmas *grin*.

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  11. brilliant. I just looove wool felt. I wonder if my 2 yr old would love it as much as me? I hope so! I want to do this soon. excellent thing to do for your community too x

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  12. Wool felt is sooooo glorious ! All the children in my day home love the wool food..... good for you ... they turned out lovely...
    light and Peace

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  13. How wonderful - to run a class, to meet new people and to make such great stuff! I have some fabulous patterns just waiting for me to find some time...lucky my wee girl is still so wee!

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  14. These look so wonderful and the colours are so beautiful.

    Have a beautiful week. xxx

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  15. I had such a wonderful day Maureen. It was a beautiful drive out too. I'll have to post once I get mine finished. May be a while though, I have to wait till a certain Miss is asleep because she doesn't miss anything.

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  16. I so wish I lived closer...you two are amazing!

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  17. Wow, this is wonderful, and it looks like so much fun! Thank you for sharing these patterns.

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  18. A few folks from Canada have been inquiring about wool felt. Shanti and I are hoping to have an online shop up and running in a few days. We'll be selling wool felt, roving, other natural supplies and some small toys.
    We'll let you know as soon as we have it together enough to launch!
    xo maureen

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  19. congrats on the new shop. Can't wait. food looks great. Wish I could come, but we only get up in that direction in June.
    best to your new endeavours...

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  20. Just wanted to let you know that I have linked to you and a couple of your craft projects that we re-created over at my blog. Hope thats ok :)

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  21. You are so kind with all you share - oh, I would just love a class like this.
    Best wishes with you new shop - how exciting.
    Warm wishes, Tonya

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  22. i see your blog its very amazing and informative blog i am also working with Exporthub ExportHub connects you with Textile & Leather Products Manufacturers, suppliers and exporters.

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