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Order up! These felt bagels offer endless fun. Kids will love putting the toppings on them or pretending to run their own bakery. Laura Hopper of @sonicstitches takes you step-by-step through making bagels plus cream cheese, avocado slices, and the New York City classic lox bagels. Feeling hungry yet?
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Time: 5 hours (complete set) or 1 1/2 hours (one bagel with cream cheese)
Additional Supplies:
Felt Bagel Template (click to download)
120 lb Cardstock
The supplies above will make a full set of three bagels plus toppings.
Directions:
1. Begin by printing all bagel templates on freezer paper. Cut templates out of the paper, but do not cut along template lines yet. Using medium heat, press freezer paper templates onto felt.
2. Cut along template lines using 5" scissors which will help to get smooth curves. Remove freezer paper.
3. Use cardstock template to cut out two cardstock bagel shapes per bagel. The cardstock will make the bagel look like it has been realistically cut in half. Cutting the heavy cardstock can be tricky, but don’t worry if there are any jagged edges like the cardstock shown below. The felt is thick enough to hide that.
Felt Bagels
4. Add seed shapes to one bagel top in each color you’re using. Use Sulky 1071 and a lazy daisy stitch, varying the size, placement, and direction of each seed. Next, fill in spaces by using Sulky 1131 and French knots.
5. Each bagel top is made with an embroidered felt piece, cardstock circle, and plain circle of felt that is ideally a lighter shade than the embroidered felt piece. This further helps give the bagel a realistic cut-in-half look.
6. Layer the three bagel pieces with plain felt piece on bottom, cardstock circle in middle and embroidered felt shape on top (embroidery facing up.)
7. Clip the three pieces together, ensuring cardstock is centered.
8. Using a blanket stitch, sew central circle of bagel closed. Then, begin blanket stitching outer circle. Stop blanket stitching about half way through the outer circle.
9. Use a stuffing tool and Polyfil to stuff first half of bagel. Place the stuffing between the embroidered felt and the cardstock. Be sure not to overstuff the bagel otherwise the cardstock will bend and the bottom of the bagel piece will not look flat.
10. Once it is firmly stuffed, replace clips around unsewn potion of bagel and continue blanket stitching and stuffing until closed.
11. To make bottom half of each bagel, use two plain pieces of felt and repeat steps 5-10.
Felt Bagel Toppings
Cream Cheese
12. Place two cream cheese pieces together.
13. Blanket stitch inner circle, then blanket stitch outer circle.
Avocado
14. Each avocado slice uses four felt pieces — two small light green pieces and two large darker green pieces. After cutting these pieces out, arrange so they are a mirror image as shown below.
15. Whip stitch small light green piece to large darker green piece along upper curved side. Repeat with the mirror image. Blanket stitch the two pieces together.
Lox Bagel - A lox bagel has cream cheese (Steps 12-13), salmon, red onions and capers, though recipes can vary.
16. To make salmon, use a disappearing ink marker to draw lines like those on real salmon. Make sure each side is a mirror image of the other.
17. Using white thread, backstitch along lines. Blanket stitch two pieces of salmon together.
18. To make onions, cut two purple strips of felt and two white strips of felt that are 7" x 1/4". Glue two strips together using Tacky Glue, ensuring that short edge of white felt is about 1" lower than the purple, as shown below.
19. Glue short edges of felt together so pieces lock in place.
20. To make capers (these are optional since it will be hard for children to play with them), cut small pieces of green felt and scatter them over lox bagel.
Thanks to Laura for designing and writing this tutorial! You can follow her on Instagram @sonicstitches or visit her website. Stay tuned for more tutorials!
