Today I made a lovely little banana with a peel. It took some trial and error to come up with a design I liked but still felt sturdy enough to hand over to my niece for nomming. I did mine with felt but the pattern is suitable for fleece or another non-fraying fabric.
Materials:
- 1 sheet of yellow felt
- 1 sheet of cream felt (you can also use white, or light yellow if you prefer)
- white thread
- Stuffing material/fiberfil
- pattern
I used my sewing machine to piece this together, but you can hand-sew it if you prefer.
1. Using the pattern, cut 7 pieces of cream felt, and four 4 pieces of the yellow felt. One piece of felt is a tight fit for the 7 pieces of cream, but I laid them out like the example and it fit.
2. First we’ll put together the banana itself. Line up (2) of the cream pieces you just cut and carefully sew one side together.
3. Take a third cream piece and attach this to one side in the same manner you just attached the other two.
Note: I find it somewhat easier to start in the center of the piece and run toward the corners. This prevents the wiggly bits on the ends from getting stuck in the machine foot.
4. Sew the final seam of your banana mostly closed, leaving a long thread attached to close after turning.
5. Turn the banana right-side out. I used a chopstick to push it through, but be careful not to poke through the felt.
6. Stuff your banana lightly and close the opening. If you have any thread remaining at this point leave it, you will use it later.
Now onto the peel!
Note: You’ll notice we’re making the banana in three pieces but the peel is four. This lets us cut the same size pieces for all our parts, but still be able to close the peel over the banana.
7. Pair each yellow piece with a cream piece. We won’t be turning these so put the right sides out this time. Sew all around each piece, leaving a medium-sized seam. There’s a bit extra space to work with. Do all four sections this way and trim any major mis-alignment away.
8. Take two of the peel sections you’ve just made and put them inside-to-inside. Sew them together on one side, only halfway. Attach the rest of the peels this way until you have them all attached.
9. I chose to connect my banana to the peel permanently, but you may skip this step. Take the thread you left after closing the banana and thread it into a needle. Sew from the inside of the peel down and do a few stitches to keep it secure.
And that’s all! You may want to go around the peel edges at this point and trim them up, but take care not to snip the stitches.
