Craft – Page 2 – penpaletteheart

Designing Patterns

Designing Patterns for Fabric

For the last three years or so I have been using a new outlet for my creativity – designing patterns for fabric on Spoonflower, a company that prints personal designs on fabric which the designer may use to make projects for themselves or offer for sale. Here are some of the patterns I have created.

shamrocks and daisies

Shamrocks and Daisies

planted garden edit

Planted Garden

Helmets and Collumns

Helmets and Columns

Rooter Row

Rooster Row

These are the rather raw originals. Photoshop is a handy tool to clean up erasures and join lines. Some of my designs I have printed and made into scarves, runners and pillows. It is wonderful to see my creations transformed into fabric that I can use. The company also sets design challenges each week that designers may enter. The designs are voted on and the most popular creation result in a prize for the contributing artist. I have enjoyed these challenges and making things from the fabric that I can wear or give as gifts. If you love drawing and like a challenge start making patterns for fabric on Spoonflower.

Valentine’s Day Crafts

Here are some of the crafts we were making in our group at our church for the seniors living at the local nursing home:

puffy yarn hearts.jpg

Puffy yarn hearts – made by winding yarn over a cardboard shape.

Heart shape 3D

3D heart shape – putting 4 heart-shaped cutouts together.

Woven yarn heart

Woven yarn heart – like the sewing cards we did as children. Roses and lace brooches #2

Rose and lace brooches – rolled felt roses on lace with safety pin backing.

I think the seniors will be well pleased with their Valentines!

Sunflower Pillow for Christmas

Sunflower cropped First step: I took a photo of one of our sunflowers in the garden this summer.

my sunflower pattern

Second step: Using Photo shop, I manipulated my photo into first a negative black and white picture and then I uploaded into Spoonflower.com and changed the colours. I then ordered my pattern to be printed onto Spoonflower’s Linen Cotton Canvas Ultra material in a half-drop repeat pattern. I ordered a “fat quarter” which is 27″ by 18″. It was just enough to make one pillow which I sewed and stuffed. This is the result:

Sunflower cushion — Sunflower Sofa cushion from a photo by Dan McKibbon.

I made two of these pillows in slightly different colours for Christmas gifts for two households. I plan to make them the matching pillows for gifts in the New Year.

Krazy Kats for Halloween

Our church crafting group makes some decorations and cards for our local nursing home. These are some cats I have made for this Thanksgiving/Halloween craft fest. I made them out of socks I bought at a dollar store, using left over felt, buttons and some bright orange ribbon.

Krazy Kat #1 Krazy Kat #2.jpg Krazy Kat #3 Krazy Cats aren’t pretty but they have lots of personality. I do notice I have a few threads to snip and for some reason orange appears pink…hmm. I plan to name the Kats and decorate the boxes they are sitting in. Hopefully the seniors who receive them will have a smile.

Another Bonnet for the Tea

Bonnet flower trimming from side Black-eyed susans bonnet trim Straw bonnet back with bow

I can’t wait for the ladies to try the hats on! It has been so much fun to prepare these bonnets.

From Placemat to Bonnet

As part of our Canada’s 150th celebration, our church is planning an 1867 Victorian High Tea for those women in our community who are bereaved. Part of the festivities will be the wearing of decorated hats and bonnets for the occasion. We decorated summer straw hats for the event and then I had an idea for some pretty bonnets made from the round woven placemats I saw in the dollar store. This is the result:

Completed bonnet with lace and flower trim. Front of pink bonnet Unadorned placemat.

20170902_120649 20170902_120707 Pleated back forming a crown for the bonnet.

20170902_120743 The bonnet pleated inside and sewn down.

20170906_135309 Side view of bonnet.

20170906_135333 I hand sewed on the lace, ribbon and trim, but the lace and ribbon could be sewn by sewing machine and the flowers could be hot-glued in place.

Easter Crafts for 2017

Before every holiday and every special day such as “Mother’s Day” our little church crafting group make some special crafts to deliver to the local nursing home. Here are some of the things we made for Easter this year:

Easter Crafts for the Manor 2017

In the photo above are some ribbon woven crosses, paper plate bunny faces, paper plate Easter Bonnets, tulip cups filled with chocolate eggs, and Easter cards.

More Easter cRafts 2017

We set aside three hours on a Saturday before the holiday to make the crafts and we supply our own materials – usually easily obtained from our local dollar store. It is a time of fun creativity for us and a labour of love. The crafts are well-received.

Another lot of crafts for Easter 2017

Play Food Pizza Etc.

I’ve been playing with felt again. This time I made a felt pizza that my grandson can take apart to serve or put on the platter together to bake. This play pizza is stuffed with fill and is covered with tomatoes, olives, pepperoni pieces, green pepper and mushrooms. It attaches to the plastic platter (Dollar Store) with velcro. At first I tried to sew on the fuzzy part of the velcro to the pizza, but after two broken needles, I realized that I only needed the toothy part attached to the platter as the felt just naturally attached to it. So here it is: felt pizza

Then I decided to make three hotdogs and buns for more fun food. The hot dogs were easy – just three tubes of brown felt. I decided to add the toppings before sewing, so while I completed the pizza, I called upon my sous-chef (my 10 year old granddaughter) to cut out the mustard, catsup and relish which she did with great skill. I sewed them on and when I sewed up the seams, she stuffed them. The buns were a bit more of a challenge, but in the end I think they looked enough like bun to please my grandson (he’s two).

Next I made eggs and bacon strips. I think they look convincing.

Felt Bacon and eggs

These felt foods were intended for my grandson’s 2nd birthday present and he was very pleased with them. I think he will like cooking them on his felt play oven. Oh, I do love felt. My sous-chef approved also. Thank you, Kaytlyn.

Homestyle Millinery

My good friend, Dymoon, gave me a huge bag of reclaimed material for crafts. I was going through it one day and discovered a large piece of woollen houndstooth check and had an inspiration. I started out only to sew an infinity scarf, but soon the project grew into a scarf, hat and clutch purse. Here are the results. I have worn the hat and scarf, but I am anticipating using the purse soon also. The hat is quite warm as I stiffened the crown with a thick felted material. It is the first time I have made this kind of hat and my very first purse, so I am happy with the results.

hat-scarf-and-purse

The hat consists of a large circle (slightly larger than a dinner plate) gathered into a band (my head size). As I mentioned I stiffened the crown with a inner lining of felt. Then I added a bow to the hat band.

hat-and-infinity-scarf

To make the purse I cut out a long rectangle of material, interlined it with more felt, made a cotton lining and turned the cotton lining right side out so that the seams were inside. Then I folded one end up part way and the other end down to partially cover it. It made an envelope. I finished off the raw ends of the purse flap by turning it inward slightly and blind stitching it. I then sewed on velcro for a closing and added a bow. I made a smaller envelope out of the houndstooth material to hold makeup etc. inside the purse.

purse

I enjoyed the process of designing and constructing the three items. I hope my description is clear.

Knitting for Christmas

I wanted to make some small knitted items for my granddaughters, so I made scarves, toques and purses for their dolls. Here they are:

eilishs-doll-hat-purse-and-scarf hat-purse-and-scarf-for-kaytlyns-doll

I just did straight knitting stitches using two colours of yarn. I put some cute animal buttons on the purse flap with an elastic loop to fasten it and I slipped a loonie (dollar coin) inside the purses. Each set took about two hours to make.

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