I debated a bit about what to do about cheese...go for solid globs like the pizza sauce or try to make it look more shredded. Of course you could just give the kids loose shreds...but that's a recipe for a huge mess. I decided I wanted it more shredded like the cheese here so that we could see the stuff a bit underneath...like a real pizza. There were no tips for the shredded cheese, though, so I tried a few things myself. I found a way that works pretty well, but I have a feeling that someone out there might think of something that would improve the process a bit.
(Notice my pictures are back in focus? We can thank my mom for loaning me her camera.)
Materials: Cream and/or goldish felt, scissors or rotary cutter and mat, sewing machine, freemotion foot (although I think you could do it with a regular one too)
- Start by cutting "shreds" of cheese. I used my rotary cutter, and they're about 1/4 inch think...but I just eyeballed it. No measuring. I cut the strips you see here in 1/2 or 1/3 to make them shorter.
- Arrange your cheese, so that it looks good and is overlapping in random looking ways. You want there to be some overlap and some open spaces. You could make one thing of shredded cheese the size of your whole pizza or make several smaller ones. I opted for smaller ones, so they could double for taco cheese easier later. I also arranged the "shreds" on top of a couple of randomly cut pieces of felt to serve as anchors to help hold the whole thing together.
- I made three different shredded cheese clumps trying to find the best way. Ultimately I think my favorite way was to use my free-motion presser foot to machine sew all over the place to hold the shreds together, but I made an effor to sew along the shreds as much as possible. (This one is shown sewing it with the stablizer mentioned below...I don't necessarily recommend the stabilizer because it's a pain to pull off after, but worth a try if you're having a hard time the other way.)
- An alternate way was to use some iron-on tear-away stabalizer and iron it to the bottom. Then do your sewing all over the place. This made the shreds stay straighter, but it was kind of tedious to pull the stabilizer out, since there were so many seams.
Another option I thought of would be to do the shreads sandwiched between two layers of yellow or white tulle, and then do the stitching all over. I didn't have any, though, and it wasn't worth a trip to the fabric store for me.
If you'd like to see the tutorials for other felt food I've done look over in the sidebar at the top. ----------------------->
I'm linking to:
so funny Polly :)
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm so glad to see that the shreds are sewn together in clumps. I could just picture those little shreds all over the place whenever the kids "cooked"--which meant they wouldn't last long! This is a good way to do ti.
ReplyDeleteThis cheese is really cool.
ReplyDeleteNEAT! GREAT job!
ReplyDeleteI just gave you the Sunshine Award!
http://treasuresfortots.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-got-sunshire-award.html
I think the cheese is my favorite - it came out very realistic!
ReplyDeleteSo cute!
ReplyDeleteNew follower. You've inspired me to try to make something for my little boy!
~Amy
I've thought about sewing shredded cheese - I've needle-felted it before, and that worked well, but it does get fuzzy.
ReplyDeleteAren't there dissolvable stabilizers that you could soak out with water? Like tissue paper?
Something dissolvable is a great idea! I hadn't thought of that.
ReplyDeleteSomething you may wish to try as a stablilizer is sheer ribbon (the type without the wire) often used for Garland on Xmas Trees. ie: (by Christmas House (Ruban). It has just enough body, does not ravel and I discovered it kind of sticks to 'felt' giving it the property of a very lightweight velcro. The colour I use is 'flesh' (or a light apricot) which is barely noticeable and works beautifully under white. Oh the price was right too, as I purchased it at the $-Store (on a spool 6" wide x 5 yds).
ReplyDelete-Brenda- google profile .... mrsben
P.S: I've used it as a backing for the shredded cheese and on whipping cream dollops 'n strips.
I tried making some shredded cheese clumps... nearly tied my machine in knots. I used the dissolving backing, but it got sucked down into the feed dogs a few times. I tried decreasing the foot pressure but it didn't help. Did you modify your machine's other settings when you sewed yours? I don't have a free motion foot.
ReplyDelete