Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Felt Play Set


Twice a year one of my favorite blogs, No Big Dill, hosts a series called Once Upon a Thread. She sews projects that are literature-related in some way or another. Last year, there was a guest post where the woman made a set of felt food from the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I loved the idea and I got the wild idea to make two sets, one for us and one for James' teacher. Guess who's set is sitting unfinished on my sewing table? That's right. Ours! I got a little crazy and decided to make a caterpillar book bag, complete with a zipper mouth so the Hungry Caterpillar could devour his food. It ended up being a lot more work that I had anticipated, mainly because I kept saying 'oh, I could just do this....' For the food, I just sketched the shapes onto scratch paper to make the patterns. The food is hand-stitched with embroidery thread. The bag applique is wool felt, and the bag itself is made of navy blue baby wale corduroy. The bag is lined with a heavy striped cotton, to give it a little body and to make it look nice inside. (yes, that means I had to make an opening for the zipper...a pain!) The cherries in the pie are red pompoms. As I was frantically finishing this the night before my son's last day of school before break, I kept wishing I could keep it. The teacher did seem to really like it though, so that made it a little better. Now maybe I'll get ours done by Easter? Next Christmas?! :)