Felt Food Fetish Gone Overboard

 

 

Well, I've been busy.  ;-D  Our family has been undergoing some interesting changes lately ~ my oldest daughter got married off, my 2nd oldest daughter moved away to college, my third oldest daughter is still at home, but she is gone to work full-time half of the week, my fourth daughter moved to my sisters house to nanny for 3 months, & my son is largely self-directed in his school-work.  Which has left me a lot (LOT) of time on my hands.  Yes, you might say I became an almost instant almost empty nester.  How strange.  Is that supposed to happen at age 41?  I suppose when you have 5 children in 7 years, you must expect that while they were all babies together, they will all be adults together too.  You just never think it will happen so fast.  Little word of wisdom to the young mama out there?  Hold them, talk to them, play with them, read to them ~ because tomorrow they really will be grown & gone. 

 

And so it is, that I have enjoyed my children for so long that they are no longer children ~ My youngest baby is 14! 

And so it is, that I have been busy.  Pretty REALLY busy.  (OOoooohh, the grammar, the grammar!)

If you would like to join me on a little tour of my latest obsession ~ Felt Food!!!

 

The picture above is of a chocolate cupcake I made for my sister's son.  Since he is 5, I not only stitched the toppings down, but I also glued them down, too.  Hence the wonky chocolate stick.  And yah, by the time I gave it to him, the pins were out of the pink cupcake liner, too.  ;-D

 

 

 

This is the chicken nuggets snack tray I made for my little niece & nephew.  Since they are both younger than 5, I made only pieces too large to fit in their mouths.  There is an apple wedge, some potato wedges, boiled eggs wedges, & chicken nuggets.  I thought it would be pretty funny to include an actual chick as well, since, believe it or not, some kids don't know where meat comes from.  Not that that is true with my sister's kids ~ I just thought it was pretty funny. 

 

 

This is a "little ham" sandwich, complete with bread slices, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, cheese, & of course two "little hams".

"Little Ham" sandwich was made for my niece.

 

Here is a fun little box sewing kit that I designed & made for my youngest daughter.  My theme this year for Christmas for the kids was sewing related, which is also why I made the two 1930's needlebooks shown in my previous post.

 

Just enough space to hold some pins & needles, a thimble, measure tape, tiny folding scissors, a small case with snaps, frogs & butttons, & even 3 decorative cardboard pieces with thread!  I admit it, I just love making these little sewing kits up!  Right now I am in the process of makng up a tiny bridal emergency kit.  I will post that when I am done.

Up next is a small fruit medley ( not sure why I didn't include the banana in this pic... oh well, I think it's in one lower down).  Apple, orange & peach.

Here is a bit of chocolate cake.  When I first starting thinking about how I would make this, I wanted to stick to stitching everything on, but these just weren't going to have the body neccessary for the right look if I did that, so ~ I finally broke down & glued them on.  And guess what?  The world didn't fall apart!  Glue was GOOD!  I have since decided that there is a place for both stitching AND glue, both can give good professional results.  Anyway ~ I didn't give this cake to anyone, it was mainly a way to work out the little glue revelation.  So, there you go, hope that helps someone out there.  ;-D

This is a little banana cream cheesecake tear-drop cake.  I didn't make this for anyone either.  I have always just wanted to make cheese cakes that looked this awesome & it turns out that if I make it out of felt & foam, instead of sugar & cream, I can!

Ahhhh, the daikon radish.  Does anyone else eat these or know what they are?  I made this to include in a gift of felt garden vegetables to a dear friend & her children, but before I could wrap it all up, so many people asked me what the heck this was, that I just decided to leave it out.  So, here it sits, by itself, sometimes gracing a round cook-pot that I also made. 

 

Now this fun little venture I actually made to sell in my Etsy shop, because I figured maybe someone would love a cool tea-cup pincushion as much as I do.  It's pretty sturdy, as I used cardboard, foam & fluff, along with both glue & stitching.  Who knows if it might go to a child, for play, so I had to make certain it would be safe.

I'm not sure which was more fun, with both the teacup & the next three, though, making the items, or shopping for the perfect gift boxes to go along with them.  The teacup comes in a little green polkadot box, & I just love the apple box, too.

This little confection was very fun to make, as well, but I have to say, I LOVE the tiny hat box I found to put it in! 

Ok, here is the pic of the banana.  This is a great little toy, as the skin actually comes off, & leaves you with a peeled banana!  Even my 14 yr old son thought that was pretty cool.  (Hey, it's hard to impress 14 yr old boys with felt food... they only want real food... oddly enough.....;-D)

This is a little cooking pot, the frame is cardboard.  I actually used eco-fi felt on this pot, & I have to say, one thing about the eco-fi felt ~ if you mess up or think you might make a mistake, (because, say, you are making a proto-type) you feel no guilt.  It's cheap.  Really cheap.  Sadly, it's also cheap.  Really cheap.   But regardless, it does work well for proto-typing, which is what we have going on here.

Some "noodles & green onions" for the pot.  ALMOST miso soup.......ok, so more like less-cheap ramen noodles.  As long as we are having fun imagining......

These pieces are like the Japanese version of dim-sum.  I'm not really sure what they are called, but I think most are supposed to be little decorative rice cakes or sushi.

My husband says "Why would you make fake food that you don't even know what it is?"  Well, duh ~ because it looks so cool!  Yeah, so that's a little lame-o ~ slame-o ~ so what, they DO look cool!

See, here is the thing ~ I get these Japanese felt food books, & I can understand the patterns & making instructions, but since I don't read more than 3 words of Japanese, I have no idea what they are called or any of that.  I DO know that these three little doo-hickey's are supposed to be sushi balls.

And the present, rabbit & cookie are supposed to be rice cakes of varying natures.

Now this, I don't know.  I am assuming it is a lotus wrapped sushi.  I really don't know.

 

But it DOES look cool!  Can you imagine eating this?  I think the Japanese present their food even more beautifully than the French.  This could be basically rice & seaweed, but who would care?  It's gorgeous!

And based on the way the book has you make this, I think it is also a type of sushi.

Here is a little hot pot or wok that I made, using mainly cardboard & felt.  I think that in order to make it sturdy enough for children to play with, it should probably be made of a very thin pressed packing foam, instead of cardboard, however, as it can still bend a bit more than I think would hold up well with regular play.

Salmon & noodles!

ok, here's the real miso soup!  You have bamboo shoots, salmon strips, seaweed, green onions & noodles, bits of cabbage, & green beans for garnish.  Ok, so that's not QUITE miso soup either, but I think we're getting closer.

Here we have some felt food hot pot goodies.

Little clam bits & tofu, kippers & salmon wraps, water chestnuts, tuna rolls, & some other stuff that I can't quite identify.  (Again, however, they looked so nifty in the book, I just had to try them out!)

If you know what they are, can you please leave a comment? ;-D

 Here are some miniature Japanese snack items.  I think these are their version of sweets.  I think I should make sure all of my sweets are this tiny ~ possibly, my hips would be tinier as well.  ;-D
The rice dough bun ( called pork buns, I believe) is the same size as the other sushi pieces in the pics above ~ hopefully you can see just how minute these little guys are.




Rooster head pork bun felt food

A teensy tinsy felt almond cake

 An even tensier, tinsier felt rabbit rice cake.  I am going to call it a felt rabbit, anyway ~ my husband thinks it's a mouse, but the whole concept of consuming a mouse under the guise of sugar is just a little .... different for me.  Mouse is not food.  ;-D

 

Well, this is the end of my felt food tour for now.  I still have some heart cakes, a few more pincushions, & tarts & what not that I have not pictured, but I will save that for another post.

I hope you have enjoyed browsing through my latest obsession with me, please feel free to comment or come again another day.  :-D

1920's & 30's redwork turned felt needlecase!

PART 3
This is the final follow-up post to my original 1920's / 30's redwork adapted from actual catalog photos.

I decided to make some felt needle cases for two of my daughters for Christmas.  The other two daughters will have to get theirs next year, as these took some considerable time stitching. 



 

One of the funnest things about doing these, is that both of them look so much like the daughter I gave them too.  I am excited to do the other two as well, for the same reason. Another fun aspect of making these needle books was that I could see the vintage 19020's & 1930's drawings just come to life. 

 

Each of these needle cases measure about 4 1/2" x about 3", have 2 wool felt sheets inside, and have a back in either blue or yellow with no extra embellishment.  These were also made with a wool blend felt purchased on Etsy from shoppe3130.  Her felt selection is by far the highest quality that I have found so far, very thick & soft ~  as well as a fantastic color selection.  And, her prices are pretty reasonable, as well. 

My next post will showcase some of the felt foods I have been busy creating this winter, as well as my newly re-opened Etsy shop ~ My Current Obsession.

Free 1920's redwork or line art embroidery patterns Part 2

Part 2 :  Drawing the patterns

One of the easiest ways to achieve success with these vintage pictures is to use the picture itself as a basis for your line art.  So, as you saw in part one, you first take a picture of the desired design, using the macro setting on your camera.  This allows you to use even the tiniest of catalog pictures.  And even if they are on quite dark newsprint, you can play a few tricks.  

In this first pic, you can see how I chose to outline  with a very dark ink pen, the very most basic lines, and then, since these were printed on very dark newsprint, I also needed to lighten the pics up.  This is the same pic, lightened.

 

 

And here, you can see the final result.  Unfortunately, I kind of messed up a bit on the final line drawing, & I will redo it later, but for the sake of this post, it stays as is. ;-D

And here are the rest of the patterns for these hats.  If you copy them or use them, please link back to me, & please, I am not charging you to get them, don't you be selling the patterns to others. ;-D

 

 

1920's & 1930's Redwork, or Turkey Red Work Part 1

Part 1 ~ Obtaining the images

If you have ever tried to search for quality, vintage & free embroidery images online ~ truly vintage, you know just how difficult it can be!
Ok, so these aren't actual redwork from the 1920's & 30's, because I couldn't find any that suited my taste exactly  ~  these are my own pictures from my collections of vintage catalogs & magazines, that you can copy & adapt for redwork.  In part 2 of this series, I will show you how to do this. (If you do copy these out or share them, pinterest, etc., please link back to me or mention my blog URL ~ I'd appreciate the courtesy.)


Here is how I did it.  First, I went through my catalogs & photographed in macro the images I thought would adapt well & that interested me ~ then I downloaded them to my computer, printed them out, and did the linework from there.  If you want them  in different sizes, just copy & paste the images to your own computer, print them, and take them to a print shop, where they can adjust the image size accordingly.

 In this post, I will show you a few of the images that I copied. (I actually took over 500 pics, so naturally, I won't be posting them all!) ;-D

I just love the innocence & purity of these old drawings! This selection will make an adorable quilt, wall hanging, or even ~ when sized down ~ really cute motifs for little felt cases or ipad covers or the like.  (Which is what I intend to do with them.)

Here is one where the work is almost done for you.  All that is required id a bit more simplifying, and voila! ~ you have your redwork outline pattern.

As to rest of these pics, a little more effort is required.  As you can see, the pics are a bit grainy when taken in such close proximity & macro-ed.  The original size of the pics are less than 1/2" high!

But, who could resist such adorable little works of art, especially when they look so much like my own daughters! 

 

These little black & white baby bonnets were also quite tiny to begin with, but they were almost a whole inch high, so you can see how that improved the quality of the pic.  However, in many cases, the old newsprint they were on was quite dark.  I suppose, however, that coming from original 1927 & 1932 catalogs, they have all survived remarkably well!

In part two of this series, I will show you the line drawings produced from each of these.  Again, I think a redwork quilt done in either the older girls hats or these precious baby bonnet heads would just be the cutest!  Can you see the colors? for the baby bonnets ~ dark brown binding, with baby pink squares, all handwork done in matching dark brown on top of baby pink, with pink satin rosettes in the bottom right hand corner.  Or, to be very vintage, either pink handwork sewn on blue background, or blue handwork sewn on pink background.

And for the older girl heads ~ wouldn't they just be adorable on bright orange, pink, green, yellow, etc, background fabrics, with all handwork done in black?

By the way, I also took several pics from my vintage catalogs of various fabrics available at the time  which show true vintage prints & colors, & I will post this in part three, along with a finished piece of work for an example.