Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Wall Art



I started working on these back in the fall, and pulled them out when I was reorganizing some of the things in my craft closet last week. I used a light table to make my own embroidery patterns, traced them onto some bright scraps of fabric from random fat quarters I had, and used 5 bright colors of embroidery floss to stitch them out. That's the state in which I picked them back up. I found that I had 3 small sized canvas frames and centered and stapled them. I liked the way they looked, but thought they could still use a little more flair. I remembered seeing a pattern in a local quilt store for a flower by Heather Bailey. I'm not sure if it's the same one, but I found some rough instructions on her blog for some cute pop-up flowers. In the sticky, 80+ degree heat we've had the past week, I made 2 flowers and a little bird while watch streaming Netflix directly in front of our fan. I made rough flower and bird sketches and cut them out to use as patterns. To finish the wall hangings off, I pinned the flowers and birds through the canvas, enabling me to rearrange them if I want in the future.

Flower Assembly:
  1. Cut 2 flowers from different colors of wool (felt would also work).
  2. Bottom layer - Stitch around the edges of one flower with embroidery floss.
  3. Top layer - Stitch around the edges, but pull a little tighter so the flower petals stand up and out.
  4. Make a small sized yo-yo to layer on the top.
  5. Cut various sizes and thicknesses of yarn to create loops or sprigs to layer between the top flower layer and yo-yo.
  6. Stitch through all the layers to connect them. You can add buttons, beads, brads, or leave them with just the yo-yo on the top.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Laundry Bag


Last week Rebecca and I got together to work on cutting our fabric. I got most of the monkey fabric cut out for a crib set, but had to take a brain break and finish later because I forgot to make sure the pattern on the fabric was running the correct direction. I caught myself in time to recover, and ended up refreshing my math skills in the process. I'm using patterns for a crib skirt, fitted sheet, crib bumper, and laundry bag from the book Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones.

I completed the Cheeky Monkey Laundry Bag the other night. I just love all this sock monkey fabric! It was pretty basic and quick to make. It just took a while to iron on all the fusible interfacing, but that's what a television in front of the ironing board streaming BBC productions of Agatha Christie is for, right?! The monkey's head is designed to stick with Velcro to make it easier to wash without reshaping his cute face.