I can’t play now, I’m eating spaghetti!

So I’ve been following along this month at No Big Dill with her Once Upon a Thread series.  It’s a whole month of sewing projects inspired by children’s books.  And it’s been amazing.  I love the whole idea of it.  After making the pots for Play Eats at Project:Project, I felt like those new pots needed something new and fun to go in them.  And then I thought about one of my favorite books as a kid, More Spaghetti I Say by Rita Golden Gelman, illustrated by Mort Gerberg . 

We all loved this book so much that when my mom divvied up all her children's books for us daughters last year, this was one that we all fought over.  I didn’t win that particular fight.  But a quick stop at Amazon consoled my loss. 

My kids had never read this book, so when it came, I gathered them ‘round and was surprised that I still pretty much had the book memorized.  My boys loved the book, giggling at the pictures and the rhyming.  After a few readings, even my two-year old was quoting it at length. 

It’s just a fun, silly book.  Minnie is a monkey in love with spaghetti.  She loves to eat it.  She loves to play with it.  She just loves it, and nothing that poor Freddy says can pull her away from her addiction preoccupation with it.  Until she gets a stomach ache and Freddy is quick to rush in and clear the spaghetti away.  But then, Freddy tries the spaghetti and it’s love at first bite for him, too!  Before the book arrived, I wanted to be prepared with some play spaghetti to go with it.  We already had the pots to hold our spaghetti.  We just needed the actual spaghetti.  I wanted our play spaghetti to be something that would be fun and tactile, like real noodles, but also manageable and not messy.  I was actually really happy with what I came up with.  And my boys loved it.  Like, a lot.  Even a friend of my oldest, who was over later in the day that I made it, asked me to make some for him, too.  All four boys (friend included) played for an hour with this stuff!  They threw it, the flung it, the wore it, they smashed it, they tossed it.  And it all stayed together. 

It really is fun, even addictive to play with, all those super soft, squishy “noodles” flopping and flapping around.  Using just scraps and taking about 15 minutes to make, here’s how I did it:

From making cloth diapers, I have a ton of bamboo fabric scraps.  I’d saved them for cloth wipes, but we still have a ton left over. 

So gather your scraps of whatever non-fraying, soft material you have, and arrange them in groups of similar sizes, stacked as thick as your rotary cutter, or scissors, will slice.

  Slice about 1/4 inch width and however long you want your noodles. Keep the slices stacked/grouped in layers about 3-5 noodles. 

Grab a stack of sliced noodles and run it through your machine at the center of the noodles with a zig-zag stitch. 

Now this is important: DON’T CUT THE THREAD!  Keep adding stacks of noodles every .5 inch or so until you have a noodle chain. 

And that’s it. 

The noodles are free to wiggle and be all loose and fun to play with, while still staying part of one whole, that doesn’t make a mess or get scattered. 

And my eight year old discovered the linked noodles make a stunning outfit

A noodle skirt?  Well, it’s not very modest.  More Spaghetti, I say!