Would you like a donut?

Long before Mr Panda entered our picture book library and started asking if anyone would like a donut (see my recent book recommendations for 2 year olds for more info on this book!), the boys had requested some donuts for their play kitchen. And who can blame them – donuts are pretty much a staple food, right? So, prompted by Mr Panda, I finally got around to stitching them up half a dozen. Each donut took roughly half an hour to make by hand, or approximately two nights of watching crime drama on the telly for all six of them. Read on to see how you can make your own (NO sewing machine required!).

For each donut you will need:

• Sheets of felt in two contrasting colours – one for the donut, one for the icing. I went for vanilla donuts with pink icing, and chocolate donuts with white icing. The felt was sold in sheets of A4, so to make half a dozen donuts I needed two sheets each of cream and chocolate coloured felt, and one sheet each of pink and white coloured felt.
• The donut template >> see below for download
• Little scraps of different coloured felt for the sprinkles.
• Toy stuffing.
• Fabric glue suitable for felt.
• A pair of scissors.
• A sewing needle, and thread in colours matching the felt.
• A couple of pins can come in handy too.

>> Download donut template (PDF)

Step 1: Cut out the template, and for each donut cut out two donut shapes and one icing shape. I used a couple of pins to keep the template in place whilst cutting out.

Step 2: Lay the two donut shapes on top of each other and stitch around the inside ring, through both layers, to join them together. Then stitch three quarters of the way around the outside, leaving a gap.

Step 3: Stuff the donut to your desired thickness, then sew the gap shut.

Step 4: Glue on the icing. I decided to also stitch around it (see below), to stop the edges from coming away – or to stop the kids picking it off more likely!

Step 5: Cut little scraps of felt for the sprinkles and glue them in place. Beware: this can get quite messy and requires a bit of patience!

Voila! A stack of beautiful felt donuts, ready to go in to the play kitchen!