Friday, May 29, 2009

My Foray into Felt Food



Over the last few days I've been making a sandwich out of felt — using no patterns, just winging it.


The sandwich has:

* 2 slices of bread, with crust
* swiss cheese slice
* 3 slices of thin cut deli turkey meat
* 2 pickles
* 2 tomatoes
* slice of ham/bologna
* an egg with yolk
* cheddar cheese slice
* 10 leaves of lettuce


After making it, I came to realize that people who sell felt food on etsy severely underprice their creations. I've seen sandwiches, albeit not as complete as this one, for sale for as little as $11! That's crazy. It took me at least an hour alone to sew just the bread and cheese. And, it's not like I'm a novice hand-stitcher either — I've been sewing since my grandmother taught me when I was 11. And I have gotten plenty of practice making all those stinking OrnaMonkeys! There is definitely an upper limit on how fast you can stich by hand, so to see people so severely underprice their work it makes me wonder.

Of course, some of you may be wondering why the heck you'd make felt food, let alone buy it in the first place. Well... if you've got kids or are expecting them, they do make super cool toys. Kids can assemble their own sandwich, picking and choosing what they want to put on it to pretend to eat (or to pretend to make their dolls eat). This let's them practice at making their own food long before it's safe to. And, there's no mess. Depending on the type of felt play food they have to play with, they may even be more adventurous with eating the real deal. Play with fake asparagus enough times, or sushi, or pita sandwiches, and maybe just maybe she'll ask to eat that instead of a whole litany of other things that wouldn't be as healthy.

Baby Field Notes will have a well stocked felt food pantry by the time she's old enough to make believe. I can't wait! I've already bought some super awesome felt food from GoBuggy on etsy. Her creations are amazing — so much so that I now know it's not worth it to even try. I did try to make a lobster like her crawfish. It has joined the domain of Projects I Started And Never Finished. What was I thinking?! You can see her talent on display here in this crawfish dinner.

8 comments:

Sycamore Moon Studios said...

very, very cute!

Paula Nelson said...

I love the baby field greens!!
Always wanted to try this.... maybe I'll have to now ;~)
~P.

Cecile/DreamCreateRepeat said...

how soon are you due?

here is one piece of advice for all deliveries; if you feel a sudden burst of energy near your due date DO NOT SUDDENLY START CLEANING, OR SEWING COMPLICATED PROJECTS, OR REARRANGING A ROOM! ; )

Save the energy for the delivery... you are about to give birth. Some one told me that before my first delivery, and i got so caught up in the energy i blew it all on washing the kitchen floor and then going into a long tiring delivery.

write yourself a note and stick it somewhere...

Very cute 'sandwich' btw. you're a talented person!

Field Notes said...

Good advice, Cecile!

Not due *that* soon, or I should say, not due soon enough!

The cloth I bought for the baby room is still waiting for me to do something with it..... but this felt stuff I can work on right in bed =D It's very low key.

Unbalanced Reaction said...

What a great idea! I never thought about having kids play with healthy food (or any food, for that matter)!

Quinn and Trisha's proud mom said...

Love the sandwich I started making felt food for my twins about a year ago and I have to warn you it's dangerously addicting! you should check out American Felt and Crafts blog, americanfeltandcraft.wordpress.com they have a couple of tutorials up and I have my eye on that cherry pie...

Field Notes said...

Thank you proud mom =D

I so know what you mean about it being addictive! My only worry is how soon people will get tired of seeing blog posts about all the stuff I'm making. Today I've already made some pineapple slices, green beans, and a couple of cinnamon rolls. Addictive for sure!

So far I've only tackled easy stuff.

I have my eyes on a felt Chinese take out box I found a free pattern for online.

Candy Bello said...

cute felt food!

:)
candy