felt food series: breakfast sunny side up
I thought it might be fun to use up the GIANT pile of felt I have lying around to make a whole series of felt foods. I have every intention of getting Marlow a play kitchen when she is older, and of course she will need lots of imaginatively yummy things to offer up her guests!
So I’m kicking it off with an eggy breakfast - sunny side up of course, with the friendliest of eggs.
you will need
paper for your template.
fabric scissors.
embroidery threads (you can buy DMC stranded cotton from here). You will need threads in black, white, dark brown, green and yellow.
embroidery needle.
beige sheets of wool felt (I get mine from ‘World of Wool’ in ‘Melange Marble’ - you can find it here).
brown sheets of wool felt (I use ‘Melange Gravel’ which you can find here).
two shades of green wool felt (you can search Ebay for ‘wool felt’ and tonnes of sellers come up. You are looking for 100% wool felt if you want to use the best materials. I have managed to find a UK stockist who sells a variety of colours, see here).
white sheets of wool felt (see here).
a yellow sheet of wool felt (see here or here).
wool stuffing (you can find ‘carded white lambswool’ here).
pale pink felting wool for needle felting the cheeks (you can buy similar here).
felting needles, holder and felting mat (I use a wooden tulip needle holder to safely store and use my needles; you can buy a range of needles and accessories at the ‘World of Wool’. See here and here). If you don’t want to buy a felting mat you can use polystyrene.
stitches you will use
blanket stitch
whip stitch
backward stitch
french knot
what to do
Begin by printing your template and cutting around the paper shapes.
Lay each shape on top of your corresponding piece of fabric and cut out your felt pieces using your sharp fabric scissors.
If you find it difficult to hold it steady and cut at the same time you can attach your paper templates to the felt while you cut using a sewing needle or a safety pin, and simply remove them afterwards.
Needle felt pink cheeks onto your yolks and one side of toast.
To do this lay your felt on top of your felting mat or polystyrene. Take a tiny whisp of pink felting wool and roll it into a rough ball with your fingers. Place it roughly where you would like it on your felt fabric, and CAREFULLY stab it repeatedly with your needle. Try to keep your needle as straight as possible but continually change the angle to make a firm circular shape for the cheeks.
If you don’t feel confident needle felting you could do a french knot with pink embroidery thread or stitch down a small circular piece of pink wool felt.
Use three strands of black embroidery thread at this point to french knot eyes just above and to the inside edge of the pink cheeks.
To do this knot your thread at the back, bring it up through the felt where you want your eye and pointing your needle back towards the fabric, wrap your thread around the needle three times before holding the thread taut and gently bringing your needle back down right beside the original hole. You should be left with a french knot. There are plenty of video tutorials on YouTube to help with this if you are struggling.
Use 2-3 strands of black embroidery thread to stitch each smile with a simple backward stitch.
Working on your egg first (and using a couple of strands of yellow embroidery thread) use a whipstitch to attach your yolk to one piece of white felt. You don’t have to worry about how neat this stitch is on the back because it will be hidden within the egg. Knot it off at the back when you have circled the entire way around the yolk.
Use a couple of strands of white embroidery thread to blanket stitch your way around the two pieces of white felt (right way out). Leave a 2 cm opening and fill it with your carded lambswool padding before you seal it closed.
For your avocado pieces (using green thread) simply whipstitch the smaller green piece of felt onto your larger piece, and then similarly to above blanket stitch your larger felt pieces to one another (right way out). I didn’t fill my avocado but you might want them to have a little puff.
The toast is the more logistically challenging piece. First blanket stitch in brown thread one side of the 'melange marble' felt to the darker crust, then separate the pieces (so the felt is joined at a right angle).
Blanket stitch the second piece of 'melange marble' felt to the exposed edge of the 'crust', and again remember to leave a gap for stuffing before you seal it off completely.
Fill your toast and wa-la... you will have one plate of friendly breakfast.