Stitch-Craft

Month: August 2009

  • A tour & a tutorial

    When it was time to redecorate my son’s room last winter, he had just abandoned his fascination with dinosaurs and was heavy into knights. Since then, we’ve cycled through trains and now we’re on to a consuming passion for Richard Scarry books. So my husband and I knew better than to design his room around his obsession du jour. Instead, we let Parker pick the wall color and added a few small touches that reflected his interests.

    room4

    I made the Colorwheel Quilt from Joelle Hoverson’s Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts, changing the rainbow color scheme to blues and greens, and told him to think of the circle as King Arthur’s round table. I used the leftover fabric to make a curtain for his closet, dyed the formerly yellow slipcover I had made for his chair a nice apple green and made very simple faux Roman shades for the windows.

    room3

    room2

    To make the shades: I cut rectangles out of the solid blue linen-blend fabric and window shade lining an inch larger than the inside measurement of the window, sewed them together leaving an opening for turning and then turned the panel right side out and sewed the opening by hand. I added grommets along the top edge and the sides, and cup hooks screwed into the window frame to hang the panels.

    room1

    The knight theme was limited to a few prints purchased from Bealoo Art Designs, and a pillowcase I made for his bed.  The pillowcase was so easy, I’ve made several more as gifts for other kids, and wrote an article and tutorial you can find HERE or on my tutorials pages above.

    I admit, I wasn’t eager to re-do his room because I still loved his “nursery.” But I preserved a bit of it by including a piece of fabric from his baby quilt in the new quilt. Now if I could just find some Richard Scarry fabric….

  • Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

    cloudy

    I loved this book when I was little and had no idea there was a sequel until I bought the original earlier this summer as a gift for one of my son’s friends. For those who haven’t read it, it’s a tale of a town where all the food falls from the sky. (It’s also been turned into a movie recently but the plot appears to be quite different).  I decided (the night before the party of course) to make some felt food to go with it, hence the odd assortment pictured above.

    The meatball and ravioli are needle-felted. The ziti is wet-felted, made by wrapping wool roving around a pencil. The donut, sauce and pickle are made out of acrylic craft felt, though the frosting on the donut is needle-felted wool.

    I’ve made a ton of felt food in the last year or so, mostly as gifts for my son, his friends and young relatives. I bought some fantastic fruit patterns from Bugga Bugs, and for other items I’ve just made things up as I went along. I even made one of my favorite desserts – a chocolate éclair – which became proof that even if you don’t let your 4-year-old son watch television, he still will turn everything into a weapon. “Really?” I asked him. “You’re going to shoot me with a chocolate éclair?”

    View Felt Food

    Check out the article I wrote for AP about felt food in my tutorial page above, along with a how-to on making felt sushi.

  • His & Her quillow playmats

    girlquillow

    boyquillow My son has two friends whose parents met in childbirth class, so their birthdays are quite close together. When they turned five recently, I made them each a playmat quillow: a quilt that folds up into a pillow. For the girl version, I designed it to look like the floor plan of a house, with a bed, tables and chairs. For the boy version, I went with a street scene.

    I used the same basic block for both (I think it is called a framed 1-patch) and just altered the colors for the various blocks. I didn’t use batting or binding, just backed them with fleece, top-stitched around the edge and machine quilted around the squares. I used gray fleece for the pockets because I ran out of green.

    quillow

    I made my son a slightly larger train track version earlier this summer to take on vacation. It was perfect to keep him cozy on the plane, as a pillow in the car and a playmat in the hotel.

    trainmat

    They were really easy to make, but of course I had some help.

    sammy

  • Find your way to better vacation souvenirs

    I love maps, but they make me sick. As my husband will confirm, I am as likely to cry out “I can’t look at this anymore!” as I am to say “Take Exit 32” when asked to help navigate during family road trips. I have tossed more than a few maps on the floor of the car in a fit of nausea, and even, I’ll admit, considered whether I could fashion one into a makeshift barf bag if necessary. (Now that’s crafty!) But back on firm ground, I’ve been using maps for home decor and accessory projects. They’re also an easy way to save money on souvenirs from your summer vacation by making your own.

    Here’s an article I wrote for The Associated Press about crafting with maps. Click on the article link to see more photos, and a how-to on making Scrabble tile pendants.