Folded Fabric Star

I’m a glutton for punishment, I tell you what. I was barely home from my adventures in Nottawasaga when I joined a workshop with my home stitchery guild to make a folded fabric Christmas star.

The presenter of this workshop, Susan C., was kind enough to do half the work for us ahead of time – she cut and ironed the fabric strips (four inches by fourteen inches) we’d need. As far as I’m concerned, this is the hardest part of the star, folding the fabric strips in four with the raw edges on the inside and then ironing them (reducing the width to one inch).

The bundle was passed around the table and we each picked two pairs of strips to make our stars. The first step was to fold the strips in half and lay them out in a square, then tuck the raw ends in the fold of the next strip in the square.

Then we were supposed to gently work the folded ends towards the middle to make a square in the center. Of course I was so busy taking pictures I messed up. So my square looked like this:

When it should have looked like this:

So then you take the long strip at the top, and fold it to the right.

Then you flip it over, and fold it down again so that there’s a point.

Next you fold the strip lengthwise, so the point is folded in half. At this point you might want to use a daub of glue, just to hold it in place. And it helps if you have a clip of some kind to keep it from slipping while the glue sets.

Then comes the tricky part. You want to trim the remainder of the strip, and then tuck it under the contrasting strip just below your point. You might want to stick a little daub of glue in there, too.

So far so good, right? Now you need to do the same thing to the other strip at the top.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Now do the rest of the strips.

And before you know it, you’ll have your very own fabric star

I know my instructions are a little sparse, but if you’re interested in making your own fabric stars, here’s a video to show you how.

Woven Fabric Basket Project

Slow stitching means setting aside time to find myself somewhere in the thread and spread myself out on a piece of fabric.
— Kelly Martinez

There should be an extra day of the week called sew day.
— Makerist

No matter how it looks from the outside, everything that is made by hand requires a lifetime of effort.
— Kit Dunsmore

From time to time my stitchery guild offers classes or seminars or whatever, and recently they offered a class in creating a woven fabric basket. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, I gotta tell you. I did not get off to a good start with this project. We were sent the instructions and I guess I didn’t read them correctly, because I kind of messed up, right off the mark.

To start with, we had to cut a number of fabric strips. I figured it would be easier to buy material than to dig through my fabric stash, so I took myself to Walmart and bought some fat quarters.

Unfortunately, a fat quarter was too short to use for my strips - my own fault, I hadn't really paid attention to what size the strips needed to be.

Then apparently I really didn’t read my instructions, because we were supposed to come to the first part of the class with our strips cut and ironed. Then we were going to spend the class inserting the batting in them and sewing them along the edges.

Well. After realizing the fat quarters weren’t going to work, I ended up having to go through my stash after all, and found some plain, pastel material as well as a print for contrast. So I brought it all with me . . . and spent the next two hours cutting and ironing (with lots of help).

The colour doesn’t show well in the picture, but when I was finished (at home) I had five long patterned strips, and fourteen solid coloured strips (seven pale pink, seven pale mauve).

But for the next class I was fully prepared. We were to have the bottom of our basket woven and sewn, ready to weave the horizontal strips in.

None of us had brought enough pins with us, and the clips really didn’t help as well as they should have, so those of us doing the project (not everyone was participating) spent a rather frustrating couple of hours weaving and re-weaving our baskets. In my case, I was moving my pins up as I wove, and ended up with a gap in the side where the ends of the horizonal strips were supposed to meet.

Back at home, where I had adequate pins, I did much better. However, I couldn’t help but notice that one of my horizontal strips was shorter than the others by about an inch, maybe a little more. So I decided to start with that one because I figured the bottom would be the narrowest.

Well, I was about a quarter of an inch short even meeting with the other end of the strip, let alone overlapping it like I was supposed to do. So I unpinned the whole thing, and then loosely sewed the two ends together making a loop. I found the middle opposite where I joined it, and pinned it in place on one side of the basket, pinning the part I’d joined on the other.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but I finally got that first row pinned in place. After that it went fairly easily. With three rows done, you can see the basket shape starting to take place.

And here’s the finished basket, all that’s left is to do some top stitching (by hand) around the top to tack the strips in place.

And after all that work, I think I’ll go get one of those glass domes to put it under, to preserve it for all time.

P.A. Day Fun

Well, I figure if you're gonna screw things up by skipping school, the day better be worth it.
— Katie Klein

Skipping school isn't a crime. It's an infraction. They're totally different.
— Cory Doctorow

One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.
— Hugh Jackman

I mentioned last week that the granddaughter recently had a P.A. day, which meant I got the pleasure of her company for an afternoon. One of the things we enjoy doing together is crafts, and it just so happened that I had seen a craft on the internet I thought we could have fun with.

They looked simple enough, so I took myself to the nearest dollar store to pick up some of the supplies we’d need. Well, turned out the dollar store didn’t carry the glass stones any more, and at least I was able to purchase a couple of vases (for the stems) and clear glass bowls.

Seeing as they’re being really slow opening the Michael’s craft store in our town, I was forced to drive to the one all the way in Peterborough to get the rest of the stuff I needed. Or at least most of the stuff.

The glue proved problematic. I wanted to be able to use our toadstools outside in the fairy gardens, but what glue would glue glass to glass, was safe for children, dried clear, and was water-proof.

I found some silicone sealant that would work, but it was a little hard to get out of the tube and it took a while to dry. So, since Grappy was going out to run errands anyway, we told him to pick us up some better glue. :-)

While we waited, the granddaughter shared a craft she’d learned at school that week, and we made several God’s Eyes.

When the hubby came back with the new glue, the granddaughter spotted a warning label on the tube telling us the product was toxic. So we soldiered on with the silicone, and I think we did pretty good.

The granddaughter wasn’t as generous in her application of stones, so she ended up painting the inside of the toadstool she made with the clear glass bowl. We also had to fill the vase she was using for the bottom with stones because it was a little top heavy.

The granddaughter did the two in front, and I did the blurry red one in the back.

We had so much fun with them that I’d like to try again, this time using different sizes of bowls and better glue.

Maybe I can find the right glue online . . .