TUTORIAL: Felt Banana in peel or Corn in husk

I have been meaning to do this forever! I get asked all the time about how to do bananas you can remove from the peel. It’s actually pretty simple, and the same instructions will get you corn on the cob in a husk! There are lots of tutorials out there with basic instructions, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one for a banana or corn on the cob. And it’s about time I gave back to the blog-o-sphere! I haven’t ever used a pattern for my felt food, and I tend to do everything by eye each time. Once you get a few basics down, they all sort of just come together!

Here goes my first ever tutorial….
The instructions here are for a banana…alternative instructions for corn are at the end.

I like my bananas to have the cream colored lining on the inside…that part is optional. If you just want a plain yellow peel, you can use the instructions for the corn below. I make my felt food with craft felt you can find at any craft store. Michael’s and JoAnn’s both sell eco-felt which is made in the USA out of recycled plastic. It runs between twenty and twenty-five cents a sheet when it’s not on sale.

For a banana, you’ll need:
-1 sheet yellow felt, 2 sheets cream or white felt
-a little bit of poly-fil or something similar
-needle and white thread
-cream or white or yellow embroidery floss or perl cotton or crochet cotton (something you can use to embroider)
-needle big enough to thread with the embroidery floss

Step 1. Cut out EIGHT of the basic shape in cream, and FOUR in yellow. I usually just eyeball the first one and cut around it for the rest. It doesn’t make for a perfect shape. If you’re cautious, draw your shape on paper and cut your own pattern to use. The nice thing about felt is that you don’t have to be careful which direction you lay your pattern on the material. It’s the same in every direction, so you can get really efficient (aka creative and frugal!) with cutting out your shapes.

Step 2.
Take FOUR of the cream pieces. Pin the edges together (if you’re the pinning type) and sew them together. DO NOT SEW THE LAST SEAM TOGETHER. On the last seam, you want to leave a couple of inches open so that you flip it right side out and stuff it. Use this seam as the time to make a nice rounded top and bottom to your banana. See the photo below.

Step 3. Flip your banana right side out, stuff and stitch shut with a matching thread. You finished your banana!!!

Step 4. On to the peel…take the four remaining cream pieces and stitch each side together about half-way up. You want to be pretty exact, so it’s probably helpful to pin the spot and compare it to each of the other sides to stay even. Do the same thing with your four yellow pieces.

Step 5. Turn the yellow peel right side out, and insert the cream peel into the yellow peel. You want all seams on the inside.

Step 6. Using your embroidery floss, do a blanket stitch around all of the unsewn edges, joining the inner and outer peel. [For help with a blanket stitch, there are lots of instructions online. Here is a video tutorial that might help if you're a visual learner like me!]

YOU’RE DONE!!!
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For corn variation, you’ll need:
-1 sheet yellow felt, 1 sheet green felt
-a little bit of poly-fil or something similar
-needle and yellow thread
-gold or yellow embroidery floss or something similar to embroider with
-needle big enough to thread with the embroidery floss

[Please refer to the banana instructions for additional detail and information.]

Step 1. Cut out FOUR green and FOUR yellow of the basic shape shown above.

Step 2. Sew the four yellow pieces together, but do NOT sew the final seam shut yet.

Step 3. With your gold or yellow embroidery floss, make several rows back and forth and up and down. You’re not going for perfect…just the overall appearance of rows of kernels. Try to make the stitches short enough that you won’t risk them getting caught on something.

Step 4. Sew the final side together leaving a couple of inches open. (See banana option for a photo.) Turn right side out, stuff and stitch up the hole. You have corn on the cob!!

Step 5. For the husk, you could just stitch the four green pieces together half way up each side and leave it, but I’m not a big fan of raw edges. Felt won’t fray, but I just think things look more finished without raw edges showing. The blanket stitch is a really simple stitch that is wonderful for felt projects! My preference for a corn husk, since it’s just one layer, is to use the blanket stitch to sew the seams together up to the half-way point, then continue the blanket stitch up and over the point to the next seam to finish the edge. It takes some time to embroider the whole thing, but looks really nice!

And you’re done!