The Long and Winding felt road - tutorial

It is Ebi-kuns birthday at the end of the month, so I have been trying to think of a few things to make him. Last Christmas I thought about making a playmat, the sort with roads on for him to play with using his little cars. Then I decided I wanted something a bit more open ended and so I made this felt road, he has requested some more pieces, it was super easy to make so I thought I would share.

You will need

• a couple of big sheets of felt, I prefer wool blend to the acrylic since that bobbles after a bit of use
• a ruler
• something to mark the felt with
• scissors
• sewing machine
• black and white felt if you want to add a zebra crossing

Decide how wide you want your road to be, mine are 8cm. Once you decide the width you need to stick with it. Cut your felt into 8cm strips, for country style roads make the strips wavy, if you prefer the new city look keep them straight.

Once your strips are cut you can start making the roads. To make a long road, take two piece and place the ends together so that they are touching, they don't need to overlap, using the zig-zag function on the machine (adjust so the stitch is quite long), sew them together.*

I made a couple of long roads and then added side roads, 4 strips of felt per 'section' and then made 3 sections, all different. The beauty of it all is that he can completely change the layout of the town by switching the sections around and because it is just the road, it packs up quite small and fits in with his box of cars.

The wooden pieces shown are from Muji, he often uses his little Tomika cars on her too. I actually made the felt park to use with his animals/dinosaurs but it usually comes out with the roads.

*worried about the stitching holding up? no need, Ebi-kun has been using these for the last 6 months and they are still held together.