Hand cut felt applique Cooking Mama Apron

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It's a Cooking Mama Apron! Or rather an apron, adorned with a hand cut felt appliqué of none other than Cooking Mama of Nintendo fame. It's a little bit of a joke with my friend Heidi, who was the recipient, but I am really excited with how it turned out.

To start with, if you're not framilar with the game I'll give you a quick overview. Basically your goal is to make different dishes like sticky rice and sweet fired egg following along step-by-step as instructed by Mama. Each step along the way you either succeed and earn her praise or fail and have to bear Mama's wrath. Here is a still from the DS game, specifically a still of Mama, when she is less then happy with your work.

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When Heidi last came to visit I let her borrow the game. We joked about her fireball eyes and repeated the line "Don't worry, Mama will fix it." So late one night over IM I was brainstorming with my friend Lindsey, trying to come up with something to make to cheer Heidi up. There were a lot of good ideas but when we finally got to the idea of a "Cooking Mama Apron" we both knew that was the hands down winner. (Thanks again Lindsey!)

So I got to work making patterns from the screen cap of the game. Then I traced all the patterns onto paper-backed, double-sided fusible webbing.

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When I was done tracing, I ironed the fusible webbing onto the felt and got to cutting.

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I started the cutting with an x-acto knife but found I made better progress with my super-sharp gingher scissors. Each piece was hand cut and adhered in layers with the iron-on adhesive backing. Below you can see some of the cut pieces before they were fused, and after. I love how the layers of felt create some dimension, almost like a sort of a low relief sculpture...

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It was also important to me the apron was just right. The pink gingham fabric and the lace were essential for the kitsch factor. I found a great little tutorial and pattern for the apron here. I also thought it would be a nice idea to turn the little "score" box into a little pocket, which I trimed in blue lace to match the game.

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So this is the completed project. I'm really excited with how it turned out. It's one of the more complicated projects I've done in a while, and it made me feel all accomplished when I was done.

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The gift was a hit and I hope you like it.