Felt Mushroom Tutorial

Here's a little tutorial for the felt mushrooms I made-

 

Supplies needed:

-large circle of red felt

-half of a Styrofoam ball

-cardboard circle, cut same diameter as Styrofoam ball

(I used a floral foam ball because that's what I had on hand- a regular Styrofoam ball is the way to go for this project, though, I think)

-circle of brown felt, slightly smaller than cardboard circle

-long rectangle of cream felt

-small circle of cream felt

-handful of small cream felt circles in various sizes

-fiberfill

-glass stones, beans, lentils, or something heavy

-tacky glue

-embroidery floss

-needle

 

To start, stitch a running stitch halfway around the red felt circle.  I used very small stitches- larger stitches make the felt lumpy after you gather the felt around the Styrofoam. 

 Once you have stitched about halfway, place the Styrofoam ball and cardboard circle in the middle of the red felt.  Start to cinch the felt around the ball by pulling on the thread.

 

 Once you have stitched all the way around the red felt circle pull the thread very tight and tie off.  You might need to adjust the felt a bit to get it to lie as flat as possible.

 

 It should look like this when you are done.

 

To make the base: sew the short ends of the cream felt rectangle together forming a tube.  Sew the small cream circle onto one end of the tube forming a cylinder.  I used my machine for this part, but you could stitch it by hand if you wanted to.

 

 Turn the base out so the seems are facing inside.  Fill with fiberfill and something heavy.  Beans or lentils would work well for this- I used glass stones because I had them on hand.

 Attach the cream base to the center of the brown felt circle.  I used embroidery floss and a blanket stitch to do it by hand, gathering the cream felt slightly.

 

From the top it will look like this.

 

And when finished it will look like this.

 

 Now attach the base to the rounded red top at the edge of the brown felt circle.  Again I used a blanket stitch with fairly small stitches.

 

 After you are done attaching the base it should look like this.

 Now glue the small cream circles onto the top of the mushroom.  You could sew these onto, too, if you wanted them to be really stable, before you start gathering the red circle.

 

 When the glue is dry your little mushroom done!

 

These little mushrooms live under our woodland theme Jesse Trees this Christmas.  Where are your mushrooms growing?