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Felt Food: Shareable Apples and Oranges

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 30 min – 1 hour

Recently Barnaby received some shareable foods in his Shimajiro subscription box. Shimajiro is a little tiger boy who learns different lessons and life skills through toys, videos, and books that is in sync with your child’s age. Barnaby has loved all the toys and books he receives monthly and constantly goes back to them all the time. He loves the videos even more as it is full of catchy tunes and dancing moves to keep a little toddler engaged. There are many nights where he won’t fall asleep unless we put on some Shimajiro tunes in the background!

As always, the Shimajiro lessons of sharing came at the perfect time! We’ve been trying to teach Barnaby to share but it has not been very successful. He would hold out a cracker to us and then pop it in his mouth when you try to grab it. Such a tease! The shareable toys (a cloth pizza, donut, and baguette) were great because they allow you to pull the food apart (Velcro) and hand it to others.

Seeing that the shareable toys made such a impact in Barnaby learning to share, I was inspired to make more! Since fruits are one of his favorites, I decided to go with that. I also attached Velcro to the fruit pieces so that he can take it apart and then put it back together.

I had a McCALL’s fruit toys pattern (McCALL’s M6572) lying around, so I slightly modified the pattern for the half apple. The orange slice is a wedge pattern, and since so many fruits are cut into wedges, I think it can easily be modified into other fruits.

Since oranges and apples are in season right now, these shareable toys are great because he already knows what they are! If you know a little toddler in your life who doesn’t like to share, these shareable fruits are great to make sharing fun. Let’s get started!

MATERIALS:

White Felt/Fleece
Orange Felt/Fleece*
Red Felt/Fleece**
Brown Felt/Fleece
White 1″ wide Velcro
Matching Thread
My free Felt Playfood Pattern (available in my free resource library)

TOOLS:

Sewing Machine with zigzag stitch
Fabric Scissors
Thread
Fine Pins
Fabric Glue
Sewing Needles

NOTES:

*You can also use yellow felt to make a lemon, or green to make a lime!
**You can also use other colors to make a granny smith or golden delicious.

INSTRUCTIONS:

FELT PLAYFOOD: SHAREABLE ORANGE

Print pattern and cut out. Cut out pattern on appropriate colored fabric. Diagram shows pattern pieces to make one side of shareable orange.

Stitch [ORANGE FLESH] to [ORANGE SIDE] as indicated by black dotted lines.

LEFT: Stitch [ORANGE SIDE] to [ORANGE PEEL] with right sides together at 1/2” seam allowance. At tip of [ORANGE PEEL], keep needle in the fabric, lift feed dog and pivot fabric and continue sewing on other side.
RIGHT: Side view

LEFT: Pin [ORANGE MIDDLE] piece [ORANGE PEEL] with right sides together.
MIDDLE: Stitch [ORANGE MIDDLE] to [ORANGE PEEL] + [ORANGE SIDE] (orange dotted line). Leave one side open. Clip curves.
RIGHT: Alternative view of orange half.

LEFT: Turn orange to right side. Stuff with polyester fiberfill and fold seam allowance of opening in
RIGHT: Close opening by hand.

FELT PLAYFOOD: SHAREABLE APPLES

Print pattern and cut out. Cut out pattern on appropriate colored fabric. Diagram shows pattern pieces to make one side of shareable apple.

LEFT: Fold [APPLE BACK] in half and stitch, following dotted lines on pattern (approximately 3/8″ seam allowance)
MIDDLE and RIGHT: Stitch side darts together, following dotted lines on pattern.

Front view of finished [APPLE BACK]

  1. Glue [APPLE SEED] to [APPLE CORE].
  2. Zigzag stitch [APPLE CORE] to [APPLE FLESH].
  3. Cut out two pieces of velcro 1/2″ in diameter
  4. Sew Velcro to [APPLE FLESH], making sure one side of flesh has both Velcro hooks, and the other side has both Velcro loops.

LEFT: Pin [APPLE MIDDLE] piece to [APPLE BACK] piece
MIDDLE: Match at midpoint
RIGHT: Sew all around at 3/8”seam allowance, leaving a 1.5” opening. Clip curves.

LEFT: Exit apple through bottom of skin (1/4” from apple flesh. Repeat a few times going from top to bottom of apple until you are satisfied with look of indentation in apple.
RIGHT: Pull needle through to opening on side. 

LEFT: Flip apple to right side and fill with polyester fiberfill. Using a long needle with thread that matches apple skin (red in this case), stick needle through top of apple (1/4” from apple flesh) from opening.
RIGHT: Pull thread through and poke needle down from the same point you entered.

Close opening by hand

 

Repeat for other half of apple. Finished!

One for you and one for me. Nom! Nom! Nom! Food tastes better when it’s shared!

Let me know in the comments if you made this, and if your little one got to practice some sharing. Happy sewing 🙂

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