Felt Mushroom

I'm on a bit of a roll with felt fruit & veg again. Little Imp is pretty excited to have some additions to her original fruit basket.

Little Imp is known as 'Mushroom Girl' by our local greengrocer given we very often buy a mushroom or two to nibble on the way out. About time I made some mushrooms then!

Prepare the pieces you need for the mushroom:

Mushroom button 'top' – Use something circular as a template (like a glass) to draw and then cut out a circle approximately 8cm in diameter.

Mushroom stalk – cut a rectangle approx 3cm x 6cm.

Create the stalk by rolling up the felt along the short edge and then stitch to secure along the open seam. I also ran a thread through the width of the stalk a few times for extra hold.

Now for the button top. Double over some matching thread & secure at a point on the edge of the circle. Then, using a running stitch, sew all the way around the mushroom top, close to the edge, in the same way you would to create a Suffolk puff. Once back to where you started, pull the thread to gather and form a little bowl.

Assemble the mushroom by adding a small amount of stuffing into the ‘bowl’ (definitely don't over stuff these ones).  Then pull up the thread to begin to close the hole until it matches the diameter of the stalk, then tie off the thread to secure.

Poke the stalk into the hole and then sew back around the mushroom passing the needle through the gathers of the button top & the stalk in turn to attach the gathered top securely to the stalk. When doing this, make sure to keep the mushroom top quite flat (that is, when passing the needle through the stalk make sure you keep close to the top end of the stalk).

Once stitched all the way around, pass the needle through the stalk several times from different spots to really secure the stalk to the 'button' of the mushroom.

Oh by the way...
A fruit basket that can also become a chef's hat apparently!