Felt Food Tutorial: Pizza Crust

Have you ever noticed how much kids love to bite play food? Occasionally, I'll see a little girl politely pretend to nibble, but my boys are a whole other story. Often their vivacious gnawing leaves me wondering why they can't be so enthusiastic over dinner?
We've tried plastic food, but it only takes a few minutes before it is peppered in permanent teethmarks. For some reason, my kids don't find the food as appealing after that... I was frustrated with this when I discovered FELT FOOD! What a great idea! It's easy to wash, keeps it shape, and most importantly it's incredibly cheap to make! I have thoroughly enjoyed making felt food, so I thought I would include tutorials for some of my favorite pieces.

Pizza Crust Tutorial

Step 1: Cut out two circle shapes out of felt. One eight inch in diameter, and one 6 1/2 inch in diameter.

Step 2: Cut each of your circles into quarters.

Step 3: Set aside your 8 inch circle quarters, this will be the bottom of your pizza crust. Using your 6 1/2 inch circle as a guide, cut a 2 inch strip of felt. These two pieces will be the top of your pizza.

By now you should have an assortment of pieces that look like this.

 Step 4: Sew the rounded edge of the large triangular shape to the rounded outside edge of the crust. 

(I used dark colored thread so you could see what I was doing, but I suggest using a matching thread that you won't be able to see so easily. Or, if you like the crafty look of the hand stitching, I would suggest using an embroidery floss.)

I used a blanket stitch, because it allows for better shaping.

Here is another view of what it will look like.

 Step 5: Attach the small triangular shape to the crust. This time, the seam will be on the underside of the felt. This will give it the right shape once you put everything together.

 Step 6: Cut out a piece of felt that is just a bit smaller than the base piece and insert it into the crust. This will give it a little bit of density, and make it more firm.
(I used blue for contrast, but only for tutorial purposes. Try to use a similar color for your filling, because anything this dark will show through and make your felt look tinged wrong.)

 Step 7: Cut out gradient pieces of felt for the crust. About 3 should do.

 Step 8: Fold down the top of the crust and fit snugly onto the filling.

 Step 9: Begin hemming along the thin part of the crust, working from the crust and going in towards the point. This will prevent it from bubbling up.

 Step 10: Once you have made it to the point, continue up the other side until you get to the crust again.

 Step 11: Next, do a basic stitch to hold down the center of the pizza crust to keep things from shifting.

 

Here is a view of what it will look like on the bottom.

Once you get to the end, here is a little trick: take your needle, and thread it into the middle of your fabric...

Poke out the point about an inch into the fabric, and pull it all the way through.

You will have a tail of thread coming randomly out of your crust.

Now snip the thread and it will disappear into the center of your crust. That way, you don't have any tail ends poking outside of your piece of pizza!

Step 12: Cut two shapes to fit the ends of your crust.

Step 13: Blanket stitch around the ends and tuck the threads in, using the little trick I showed you.

And here it is! Your finished product!