crafts – the long thread

February 8, 2008February 8, 2008

Paper Doilies

Here are today’s projects. Doily cut-out cards and flour sack kitchen towels painted with doily shapes.

For the towels, I took some spray adhesive to attach the doily to the towel, cut out a heart for the outside and taped that down around it. Now I used red spray paint, but I think it would have been better to use a stencil brush and fabric paint. I also think a circular doily would have been prettier, but these were all I could find in the store today (and I don’t like that they sort of look like a face). When I washed the towels, the paint faded a bit, but the basic shape remains. I think the doily idea would work nicely for a tablecloth as well.

January 20, 2008January 21, 2008

Folk Art Felt Pillow

Inspired by Hawaiian quilts and folk art traditions, I created a flower pattern that can be appliquéd for a 20″x20″ pillow. I’m giving complete instructions for making the pillow, so if you’re not interested in trying the appliqué you can still use the tutorial to learn to make a pillow cover. I used a wool blend for the front of this pillow and a canvas fabric for the back. The felt is easy to work with and cut, but I would recommend using 100% wool or a high-quality blend for durability. I think this would be great in a variety of colors.

Rather than attaching a .pdf file, I will just give the instructions here, as they are pretty quick. This project may take an hour or two. This is difficult for me to estimate because I was working on it with kids “helping”. I think a beginner can do this, but you might want to practice sewing around corners and edges.

Supplies:

felt: 1 yard of background color, 1/2 yard of contrasting felt
backing fabric: 1 yard of canvas, felt, or upholstery fabric
small, sharp scissors
fabric marker or regular pen
pins
2 large buttons
thread to match contrasting felt color
20″ x 20″pillow form

Step 1: Cut Fabric

Background felt: 22″x22″
Pillow Back (2 pieces): 22″x17″, 22″x14″

Step 2: Create Appliqué Shape

Print and cut out template below. Card stock might be helpful here.
Trace pattern directly onto felt with a fabric marker or regular pen, then rotate design 90 degrees and continue until you have the full flower effect (if using a regular pen, be sure to flip over before sewing design to hide markings).
Carefully cut out shape with small, sharp scissors.

folk-art-pillow-template.pdf

Step 3: Sew Appliqué Shape

Fold pillow front background fabric in halves to mark center (or measure), then pin appliqué design to the center of the fabric, with at least one pin in each point of the flower. Felt sticks to itself pretty well, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble with slipping as you sew.
With matching thread, carefully sew shape onto pillow background with a straight stitch, moving slowly around the corners. Stitching should be almost to the edge. Take your time.

Step 4: Buttonholes

Take the two pieces of backing fabric and fold one edge of each piece down 3″ (on a 22″ side). If you can manage it, try to have the selvege ends folding down; otherwise, run a quick overcasting stitch along the edge to prevent fraying. Press the folds down.
On the larger piece, measure 7 1/2″ in from each edge and 1/2″ up from fold. Mark this as the bottom of your buttonhole. Sew buttonholes perpendicular to the fold in the fabric, as shown in photo below (this helps keep them from opening).

Step 5: Sew Pillow Together

Make a “fabric sandwich” in the following order:

felt pillow front piece (with appliqué side face up).
backing fabric larger piece with buttonhole (wrong side facing up).
backing fabric without buttonhole next (wrong side facing up). The fabric with the buttonholes should overlap the smaller piece by about 3″ to form pillow opening.

Pin and sew fabric together.
Trim excess and corners.
Cut buttonholes open with a seam ripper or sharp scissors (you can put a pin in the bottom so you don’t cut too far).
Turn right side out and sew buttons. It helps to lay pillow cover flat and draw a line through the buttonhole to mark the correct spot for the button.

All done! Hope this makes sense. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

January 18, 2008January 19, 2008

Yarn Projects

I’m not a very good knitter. I can’t follow a pattern and I am still working on my three-year-old’s baby blanket! So now I’m planning to turn it into a stuffed animal. I’ve decided to knit some small projects and use up my yarn in other ways. I’ll be posting some projects in the next few weeks.

Here is some trim that I made for a jumper. Just a few rows of knitting. I tacked it to the underside of the dress and then sewed it on so it would be secure and stay flat. I think I can wash this on delicate, but no dryer. I made this extra long, so I had to sew it with a wide and dense zig-zag stitch, and then I cut it. I was a little nervous about sewing the knitted yarn, but it worked really well. I am thinking of making a hair ribbon or headband with the rest.

And here’s a jar that I wrapped with yarn. This was super fast and easy. I just used a glue gun to secure the beginning and the end on the back side. Would look great for vases of flowers or flower pots and I think it would be nice in multiples.

January 9, 2008January 15, 2008

Checkerboard Quilt

Since I updated our playroom, I wanted to make something that the girls could use so I decided to make a checkerboard quilt using this flower fabric from IKEA and some striped fabric that I had on hand. I quickly realized that a checkerboard has 64 squares! I cut 3″ squares and made the top. I then decided to make things more difficult by making the reverse side a tic-tac-toe game board. This was a little tricky, so I decided to just use one piece of fabric and delineate the squares with the stitching. There is a lot of math in quilting. Argh.

But I am enjoying my first attempts at quilting. I love to come up with a design and piece it together. I’m having a little trouble putting it together and finishing the edges. You can see on this project I finished with the fabric from the reverse side. I can see why this is not the recommended quilting method because you would be much less likely to get puckering with a separate piece of fabric. But I was too lazy to cut binding.

We went to the craft store and bought some unpainted wooden chips for the checkerboard pieces, which we painted green and blue. We couldn’t find Xs and Os, so we went with hearts and stars instead and painted those as well. I think it would be nice to make a pouch for the game pieces and ties to roll up the board and take it with you.

January 9, 2008March 21, 2008

Bamboo

I bought some bamboo yarn the other day, which was a new find for me. Is there anything that can’t be made from bamboo? Since my knitting projects are stacked up and moving slowly (still working on my three-year-old’s baby blanket), I try to stay away from yarn stores these days. I’d be interested to know how this yarn stands up over time and it looks like it might slip around a bit on the needles. I guess I need to get out my knitting needles.

The image above is from Yarnlust over at Etsy and is a bamboo blend, which I suspect will hold up better. You can find a variety of colors in 100% bamboo here and it’s likely to be available at your local knit shop.

Anyway, since I was thinking about bamboo, here are some other bamboo finds:

I saw these bamboo kids’ utensils on Cool Mom Picks a while back and keep meaning to order some for the kids. Available from Branch for $7. There’s a lot of other great bamboo stuff there, like these colorful bowls.

Bamboo fabric? It might be slippery to work with, but great possibilities for pajamas and baby things.

Bamboo clothes at Bamboosa.

And of course you can find bamboo sheets all over the place.