Nini Makes

Cheater's patchwork, a tutorial

Yet another project that uses up those scraps. These mini patchwork patches have multiple uses and are so easy it feels like a cheater's version of patchwork. They can be used to appliqué on t-shirts, for patching holes, stitching on to paper or cards or used as whole pieces of fabric to cover moleskines, make wallets, etc.

Supplies
Sewing machine * fabric scraps * small iron * fusible webbing * rotary cutter or scissors

How to
Determine the size you want the final piece of patchwork to be, cut out a piece of fabric that size and iron a piece of fusible webbing to it.

Cut out a variety of small squares of fabric, best to use a rotary cutter for accuracy. My squares are very small, about 13 mm or 1/2 an inch; larger squares would be even easier.

Peel the backing paper of the fusible webbing off of your base piece of fabric then begin lining up your squares (right-side-up) on to the side of the fabric that you removed the paper from (the "glue" side.) Line them up horizontally and vertically with no spaces between the squares forming a grid with them.

Next begin pressing your squares with a small hot iron, I used a Clover Mini Iron but a travel iron would work too. I found it easiest to do one line of squares at a time instead of trying to line up the whole grid.

When you have filled the area you want to cover with squares secure them using a zig-zag stitch with your sewing machine stitching along the gutters of the squares of your grid. Experiment with your zig-zag stitch width and length before stitching the patchwork.

Note: It's easiest to not clip the threads at the end of each line, just lift the presser foot and gently move the fabric to your next line.

To finish, trim the edges of your fabric or cut a shape out of it and adhere another piece of fusible webbing to the back of your finished patchwork - thus creating a finished, ready-to-use patch. When you remove the backing paper from your finished patch be sure it is completely cool before gently lifting it off.

I find I can iron these patches on to paper to make cards or iron them on to fabric with equal success. You will need to stitch around the outer edge on to the fabric or paper the patch is adhered to. This is also an easy way to create quick pieces of patchwork for making small sewn items like wallets, just skip the final step and leave off the last piece of fusible webbing.

Note: I use the Bondaweb brand of fusible webbing because in the UK it seems to be easiest to come by. If you've never used fusible webbing before simply follow the manufacturer's instructions for whichever brand you use.

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I hope you give these a try. It's another project that becomes a little addictive, I started going mad with tiny squares when I first tried out this idea.

About the Clover Mini Iron
Of all the various forms of appliqué one of my favourites is using fusible webbing then stitching the edges, it makes a neat job of small pieces appliqué. I bought the mini iron mainly for this purpose. Mine was about £25 which has been a worthwhile investment as I use it a lot. Clover now make a new version (Clover Mini Iron II) which allows for different attachments.
If like me, you wouldn't need any of the attachments the new iron can accommodate there are now bargains to be found on the old models like mine - I've seen it as low as £7 on ebay.

Spinning

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
Tennyson

We are definitely in a spin, ringing the grooves of change around here. Not only the obvious changes, new home, new school but even more.

Gracie has been off school the last two days with a streaming cold. Today she was feeling better which meant a lot of artwork being made. Spin art, water colour painting, clay shape making and letter writing in calligraphy; and that was nearly all before lunchtime - clearly she's ready to go back to school.

This year she has many more options for after school clubs and has chosen all sports: netball, judo, football and gymnastics (not all at the same time.) In the past she'd have opted for the art clubs but says she gets a lot of art at home and "I finally get a chance to play football!" Changing indeed.

She wanted me to show you her special spin art machine, an old favourite that she recently rediscovered. I looked for a salad spinner at boot fairs forever to make spin art with the children but never found one, luckily Gracie received this machine as a gift.

We had a lovely visit back to Kent at the weekend for a big birthday party (happy birthday Tim.) We had a chance to meet up with lots of other friends and I finally got my chance to cuddle baby Rufus and so did Tristan, he loves babies.

And Tristan just returned from two days away at an adventure and bonding session with his new classmates. He returned full of stories and though it was late when he returned we had a lengthy conversation about his time away before he fell into bed for an early start tomorrow. As he was talking I realized that this was a new type of conversation, a little boy wasn't explaining things to me, a more mature little man appears to be emerging. Though I'm not that familiar with this little man yet, I'm very happy to get to know him. Spin on!

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For Lovers of Spin Art

I'm a spin art lover. It reminds me of happy days at the county fair where I could sidle up to a booth and make my own abstract masterpiece in minutes.

Make Your Own
If you've never tried the salad spinner version with children here's how it goes:

Use an old salad spinner and put a paper plate in the bottom of it, the plate should fit snugly. Make it spin, remove the lid while it's spinning and drip paint on the plate. If your spinner stops spinning when the lid is removed then put some big drops on the plate first then put the lid on and spin.

Paint that's slightly runny but not watery works best.

I've also toyed with the idea of rigging up my electric drill to create bigger art but I haven't finished figuring that one all out yet.

Many uses for the finished art
We've used the finished artwork for collage, gift cards and framed art. For the gift cards we cut shapes out of the finished spin art. For instance, we cut lots of petals and created a multi-coloured flower.
For the framed art we lined several finished pieces of spin art up together in four stacked rows to create a larger piece of art.

If I could find any samples of these ideas in our many boxes of junk/treasure, I would show you.

And for iPhone and iPod Touch users of course there's an app. It looks fun, not as fun as real paint, but fun enough to amuse yourself if you're unfortunate enough to be on a long commuter train journey with no book to read or sketchbook to fill. Oh and of course there's a Flickr group for art made with the Spin Art app.

If I had an iPhone, I might have to get it just so I could be whisked away to my 10 year old self at the county fair whenever my little heart desired :)

Have a great Wednesday!

Dragonflies revisited, a tutorial

I love dragonflies and wanted to make them with my class but they're a little young to manage the wirework dragonflies I made with previous classes so we simplified by using recycled plastic to create the wings.

Supplies: scissors • hole-punch • permanent marker • recycled plastic (we used the lids from strawberry containers) • 2 pipe cleaners • coloured tissue paper • white glue • sequins and glitter optional

How to:

First use this wing template, or draw one of your own and trace around it four times onto plastic using a permanent marker. Cut out the four wings then glue pieces of tissue paper on to decorate them. Leave the wings to dry; the glue will make the tissue paper more translucent when dried. When the wings are dry, put a hole in the squared off end of each one with a hole-punch.

Note: I've drawn two wing shapes on the template, a simplified shape to make it easy for younger crafters to cut out as well as a slightly more realistic shaped wing.

Click on this diagram to see it close-up.

• To assemble thread one wing each onto the pipe cleaners. Push the wings about 4 cm down the pipe cleaners then twist the top of the two pipe cleaners together tightly a couple of times just above the wings.       
• Now tightly wrap the long end of one pipe cleaner around the wing two times close to where the wing was threaded and repeat with the other pipe cleaner.
• Twist the long ends together 3 or 4 times tightly under the wings then thread on the two remaining wings and repeat step 2.
• Twist tightly under the second set of wings and continue twisting down the length of the pipe cleaners making a small loop at the end completing a tail.
• Curl the short ends of the pipe cleaners into small loops to create the dragonfly eyes.
• Finish by adding a bit of glitter and sequins if you like.  

There are a lot of great books about dragonflies to be found in libraries, they're fascinating little creatures. Children always think it's amazing that dragonflies start their lives in water and they also marvel at their amazing colour variations. Look out for dragonflies and damselflies this time of year near ponds and lakes, they're a real treat to observe in nature.

If you give these a try let me know, I love to see children's interpretations of these projects, grown-ups too. Get a group of friends together and make several, they look fantastic hanging from the ceiling in one big swarm!

Have a great Friday :)

Ship Ahoy! Father's Day Card

These are the sea-faring cards my class made for Father's Day this year. Like the tie cards, this project is one that can be enjoyed by all age ranges - and although they're all based on the same template the childrens' choice of fabrics and assorted supplies make each card very individual.

As we have a limited time frame to work on projects in the class room we kept the decorating of the ships simple. If we'd had more time we might have added little people standing on deck and strings to mimic ropes for the rigging. 

To make them you'll need these supplies:

Scraps of fabric, old lace or ribbons • cereal boxes or other card stock • white glue • scissors • brown paper (we used pieces cut from old magazines) • a twig or a stick • card stock for the folded card • corrugated cardboard or foam mounting stickers

1. Begin by tracing this template on to the back of a cereal box then cut out the three shapes. The shapes are simplified to make them easy for little hands to cut but if you have limited time like I did, pre-cut the shapes for the children.
2. Glue scraps of fabric to the sails, leave to dry then trim off any excess fabric from around the edges.
3. Glue scraps of brown paper or fabric to the boat leave to dry then trim off any excess brown paper from around the edges.
4. Cut out 6 small squares (about a cm square) of the corrugated cardboard. Glue two squares to the back of each piece of the ship. Spread them apart for balance and don't place them too near the edges.
5. Put glue on the small squares, turn the pieces of the ship over and put them into position on the card. The ship parts will now be set off of the page and allow you to glue the stick for the mast behind them. (Alternatively use foam stickers instead of cardboard squares)
6. Glue the mast on then cut out a small triangle of fabric and glue it to the top of the mast for a flag. 
7. Draw some waves for the sea and write a message inside the card.

I hope you try it out, my class really enjoyed putting these together and we'll definitely be making a few up at home for daddy and the grandpas.

Stitch a postcard

I like to stitch cards and postcards to make greetings that are a little bit different. It's another way to use up scraps of fabric, lace and buttons. The one above has gone off to my husband's uncle and aunt, our hosts during our recent trip to Holland.

As this is a postcard, I wanted the design to have a postcard feel about it. I also added ribbon when I mounted it so that it could be hung. Then I wrote a message on the reverse like a regular postcard, but this one will go in an envelope to protect it.

Here's a very easy way to mount a small, stitched piece of art and turn it into a postcard or mini wall hanging.

You'll need: a piece of art or wording stitched on to lightweight fabric • heavy card stock or mount board • normal card stock • a craft knife and cutting mat • a length of ribbon • craft glue • double sided tape (not the narrow type in the roll on dispenser) • regular clear tape

1. Stitch an image or a message on to lightweight fabric.
2. Cut out a piece of heavy card stock with a craft knife or utility knife to mount it on (I use the backing from used sketch pads.) The heavy card should be about an inch (3 cm) smaller than the image area of your fabric art.
3. Place the artwork image side down on a table then place the heavy card on top of it making sure it's positioned in the center. Place a piece of double sided tape along two opposite edges of the heavy card stock.
4. Starting in the middle of one edge, pull the artwork over the card so it sticks to the tape, then stick the rest of that edge and repeat on the opposite side.
5. Follow by sticking the remaining two edges in the same way.
6. Neaten up the corners and tape them down flat with normal tape.
7. Add a ribbon by gluing the two ends down at the top. (The ribbon will be sandwiched between the mounted art and the backing.) NOTE: If I've made steps 2 - 7 sound harder than they are, click here for a quickly drawn diagram.
8. Cut a normal piece of card stock out slightly smaller than the mounted artwork. Put craft glue around each edge and place it over the back of the mounted art.
9. Place a book on top to help it dry flat or put clothes pegs around the edges.

Now post it off and make the recipient smile :)

A big thank you for all the kind comments regarding Tristan's trip away, I appreciate all of your sweet sentiments. I'm happy to report that I'm coping, which hasn't even involved red wine consumption, but maybe a little lot of chocolate. Really, I'm completely void of self control at the moment, but I'm considering it medicinal!

P.S.  Back soon with a Father's Day card project I recently made with my class. If you need a card project sooner, take a look at this one from previous years.

 

Simply abstract

 

By Joshua

It's funny how the first time we pick up a pencil we are abstract artists. Then somewhere around the age of 3 we start to form images from our own observation, though these images are usually still imagined. We draw what a dog looks like, without actually looking at it; or a house, or our family. Usually the sun will be hanging out in the corner somewhere.

Maybe our early abstract images aren't meant to be abstract at all. They're the presumed scribbles of an untrained hand that grips a marker awkwardly. But maybe that very young person sees a dog, or a house or his family with a sun hanging in the corner of his picture.

I like to introduce abstract art to my class of 5 and 6 year olds by showing them the art of the Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky, often called the father of abstract. I show them the progression of his work. Earlier, colourful Post-Impressionist pieces like this, and this; through to art with less distinguishable features like this.

Lastly I show them his vibrant pieces with harder edges and a lot of geometric forms and we look at how Kandinsky used bright colours and contrasts throughout his career. 

The fact that the same artist has painted the two images below astonishes them. The fact that they can make this kind of art too delights them.

"Murnau: Top of the Johannisstrasse" and "On White II" both by Kandinsky

This is how we make our Kandinsky inspired pictures.

Supplies: Water based paint, card stock, geometric shapes cut from cereal boxes, a pencil, large and small brushes

 

1. The children choose from a variety of shapes then trace around them on to card stock.

We choose four or five because more shapes will take longer than we have during our class time.

 

By Angus

2.Then the shapes are laid out so they overlap to create interesting combinations. (You can see the shapes here on a painting by Angus. He chose eight shapes and ran out of time but I like the combination of lines and blocks of colour as it is, also very Kandinsky.)

By Tilly

3. The shapes are then filled in with paint using bright colours and contrasting darks.

 

By Amy

The children did a brilliant job, they understood how to use light and dark colours for contrast and how to combine the shapes to create interest. Amazingly, this year most of my class is only five.

The children had limited time and they only had large round brushes because I couldn't locate the smaller ones. In the top picture by Joshua, the shapes disappeared due to the brushes, but he still had a lovely result due to his free use of colour.

We also had 30 in the class this week instead of 15 so they worked very independently!

A few notes:

• I share this project because every child in my class enjoys it. Those that are afraid to draw as well as those that are confident with every task and medium. They enjoy the freedom of abstraction and the use of bold colours.
• This project is fun for everyone to do anytime, children and adults alike and not just for school.
• With more time children could create their own shapes to cut out for templates.
• The bold colours of these pieces look especially good scanned and reduced for use as cards.
• This site has a lot of information and links to original Kandinsky art.

I hope some of you try this one, you'll love it.

New Scarf for a Chilly Wednesday

This morning the clear sky that arrived with the sunrise over the little valley was deceiving. Looks spring-like but the cold is back. My fingers were numb after whipping outside to take a couple of early pictures, of course I was in pajamas. You should have seen me tear back into the house when I heard the farmer next door coming down the track!

The return of the cold gives me the opportunity to show my new "no-sew" scarf and take part in fabulous Fi's WWW. It took me all of about 10 minutes to make this scarf and I swear 8 of those minutes were spent trying to find a place to spread out my fabric.

The tutorial for said scarf is brought to you by the lovely Debbie at  Pretty + Simple. Debbie's scarf is much prettier than mine so check hers out.

I'm not sure I like the crinkly jersey I used, but it's nice and soft. I love it because it's comfy to leave on all day, not just for outdoors. I bought the jersey here on ebay because ebay is my best option for fabric shopping but there is a downside; it was so inexpensive that I bought more than I need and ended up with colours I probably won't even use. I'm sure if I saw them and touched them in person I would have made better choices.

H A P P Y   W E D N E S D A Y !

Felt & Button Flower Cards

My class loved making these button flower cards so much I thought I'd share them. We made them for Mother's Day (it's celebrated in March in the UK) but they'd also be handy to use for any variety of other occasions like Easter, thank-you's or birthdays.

I created a whole bouquet of these felt button flowers for a craft magazine last year but knowing bouquets would be far too much cutting for 5 and 6 year olds I opted for a single flower for each mum.

The project is simple.
Gather some felt, buttons, pipe cleaners and small scissors.

• Draw a flower shape on to a piece of felt or choose a shape from this template and trace around it. I find a biro (ballpoint) works best on felt. If you want leaves, trace them from the template as well.
• Trim the flower just inside the pen mark. Make two tiny slits in the centre of the flower with small scissors.
• Take a pipe cleaner and bend one end about 5cm from the end into the shape of a hair pin with one long end.
• Thread the pipe cleaner ends through two of the holes in a button then through the two slits in the flower. Twist the short end of the pipe cleaner under the head of the flower to secure it. If you are adding leaves, put glue on the stem and wrap it around the pipe cleaner near the flower at the top.

For the card:
You'll need some card stock, decorative paper new or recycled, glue stick and craft knife

• Glue a piece of patterned paper to a card cut two horizontal slits in the centre of the card about 5cm apart then thread the stem of the flower through the card (I did the cutting of the slits for the children using a craft knife.)

• Note: Use multiple buttons for centres or stack multiple felt flowers. Also, be creative with the paper for the background - try the written side of an old postcard, newspaper, a page from an old book, wallpaper, gift wrap, etc.

If these flower instructions make this easy project sound complicated, click here for a diagram and see how easy they really are to make.

Let me know if you give them a try.

Make your breakfast a hat

No, don't eat a hat, felt one for your boiled egg.

Keep your egg warm and cozy with a woolly hat. This is so simple and effective at keeping eggs snugly that if you're a boiled egg lover you'll run around cutting arms off jumpers.

Here's how:

1. Felt a 100% wool jumper or cardigan in a wash of at least 60 degrees celsius (140 F) with a small amount of laundry soap for wool washes. (I used a child's size 5 cardigan, the felted width was perfect for the cozies but an adult garment would work too, just sew all the way down to the bottom on both sides of the curve for the desired width.)

2. When it's dry, cut the sleeves off to make several cozies, or just cut a 10 cm length off the bottom. (Every other bit of the remaining cardigan will be used for more projects.)

3. Trim the end into a curve shape and machine or hand stitch along the curve to close up the top of the hat.

 

4. Turn the hat inside-out and stitch a small pom-pom to the top of the hat.

5. Turn up the bottom of the hat to make a cuff, then pop it on a perfect, four-minute boiled egg.

Adults and children alike would enjoy the simplicity of this project. A pair of these would be a sweet addition to a little Valentine breakfast tray, just remind your hubby to use them when he makes it;)

Find this and loads of other fantastic felt projects linked here at Meet-Me-At-Mikes, there's a Flickr group too!

A Valentine gift

Although Valentine's Day generally comes and goes around here like pretty much any other day I remember gleefully making dozens of Valentine's cards for classmates when I was little, always saving my favourite for the boy I most had the hots for.

The design for this little embroidery pattern popped into my head the other day and I've just managed to get it finished before the 14th has come and gone, though I'd quite like to use it anytime of year. When I stitch it the finished product might be a quilt block.

The seven year old me probably used this "tweet" line when making Valentines all those years ago. I wanted it to hark back to those old little cards with the goofy little puns. I loved making those cards back then and Gracie has her eye on this design for a few Valentine projects of her own.

If you'd like the full-size PDF version of this design leave me a comment on this post and I'll email it to you. It will only be available through the end of February.

The Green Parent magazine has a fantastic new website and has posted one of my craft tutorials from their Christmas edition - it's very simple and appropriate for Valentine's Day. They even included one of my templates for download, handy for a variety of crafts.

And if Valentine's Day is not your favourite day of the year take part in the Black Heart Anti-Valentines Day Contest hosted by Dabbled. I found it via Rachel of Average Jane Crafter who is one of the judges.

To take part create a "creepier" anti-Valentine craft and enter it on Dabbled's site.