Summer project #3: Delish felt food

As part of the marathon to make all the two-year olds' birthday presents in Little Monkey's circle, I decided to create something special for a special little friend of her.
For Meli who, in spite of her young age, loves to help her mummy in the kitchen (her specialities: rolling croissant dough into shape and stirring cookie mixture), I thought I'd try to make some felt food for her to do some creative pretend play...I've also made a little apron to go with it (what proper chef doesn't have her own apron?!), which I'll write very soon about.

The inspiration came from some fabric food that Ikea now sells, which I have to admit, it's pretty sweet...but can you compare with the abundant love that comes free with hand-made felt food???

IKEA DUKTIG food

I had made felt food before for Little Monkey's playhouse. However, I was looking for a more sophisticated and realistic look.
So, again on my invaluable Pinterest, and off I went hunting for felt food.
Little I know there is a whole culinary world made of felt: from chickens to cakes, from crisps to veggies, from cupcakes to sophisticated breads (admittedly, croissants and novelty bread could all be found in a French blog...as you would expect!)
But I wanted to concentrate on fruit and veg, also for the educational value of teaching young children that green is good...these are the tutorials I found:

Strawberries

 Bread and Buttons. Excellent tutorial, really easy and perfect results.

Corn

While Wearing Heels' tutorial. When I saw it, I totally felt in love with this felt corn, so I didn't hesitate to use it for my creation. However, I modified slightly the procedure in an attempt to simplify it a little, by rolling a piece of white felt rather than sewing two halves of the cob and stuffing it, as you can see in the pic below.

I then hand-stiched my rows of kernels straight onto this "roll"; by the way, the kernels are very realistic and look great but take AGES to make, also because the whole lot is entirely hand stitched...I'm very happy of the result, although the original tutorial with the stuffed cob seems to give a slightly less wobbly corn... Check this blogger's other felt creations, they are really great.

Apple

Felt Cuisine pattern and tutorial. Before using this pattern I tried to make my own basic apple section...I didn't know it is in fact a fine art to come up with the perfect section to make an apple! My first attempt turned out an ugly tomato...this one is awesome.

Courgette

Une Ame d'Enfant (blog in French - check her other incredible creations, even just for curiosity, including the above mentioned bread and patisserie). My rusty French just about helped me to understand the written content of this sweet blog, but the good thing of the courgette tutorial is that the pictures are very self-explanatory.

Aubergine / Egg plant

This one is my own creation, on the basis of the courgette tutorial and pictures of aubergines available on the internet. I wanted an aubergine to add a note of purple.

Carrots

Again, my own creation. These are extremely easy to make, each carrot is simply made out of one very long and narrow triangle, which is closed by sewing together the long sides, turned inside out then stuffed from the open top, closed and finished with a little irregular circle of green, hand-stiched to cover the closure of the carrot; finally, add a few hand stiches all around to create the little marks on the carrot's surface.

That's it! I didn't want to stop making felt food, if I had more time I would have loved to add bread and a cupcake and perhaps the chicken I pinned, but where to stop? That's the question!
You can find very good lists of tutorials of other felt food items on: 
Apartment Therapy
Skip to My Lou
Crafster's forum.

Hope you've got inspired to make some felt food! And don't forget to show me your creations, perhaps on my Facebook page?