Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Wanna see the last four months of my life?

This is what four months looks like.

A 23cm (9 inch) high pile of cloth books for my twins.
I took them to our fortnightly crafty girls meet up on Monday and they all very nicely oohed and aahed and told me to blog them. So here they are. I'll make it two posts or we'll be here all day! First up, Nicholas' book.
Tie my shoe. Shoe template from here. (Other images from various craft magazine patterns for other stuff. I very seldom use craft patterns as set!)
Of course we have to learn to tell the time. I got the clock image by googling "clock colouring pages". I love google. And photoshop.


My idea, mix-up robots. The pocket holds the other pieces.

And since we gave our children long names, these pages have to be double width! The pocket with animals and letters on it holds two entire alphabets. I got a bit sick of making the letters by the time I got to letter #104! (And kept asking myself why I did this for my twins)

This is possibly Nicholas' favourite. (I made no attempt to keep these secret since the twins are only 2 1/2. When the pieces (which hold on with velcro) were done Nicholas got hold of them and wouldn't give them back. I take this as a good sign that I have not wasted four months. Images again from all over the place. The robot in the rocket is from a pattern in a Homespun magazine which I got after combining two other rocket pictures to get what I wanted. Saw this and decided to make it instead. So glad I found it before I made the other one!


What little boy (and most girls too I think) doesn't love dinosaurs? The landscape started with this and this. The cloud is from a book of stained glass quilts I think!


Hiding in pockets are these guys. Yay for google and photoshop once again! Once I had my images the right size I traced them onto press'n'seal and stitched them onto felt, which I backed with stiff interfacing and cut out. I cut a matching piece of felt for the back and sewed a bit of velcro onto it before blanket stitching the shapes together.

I'm not sure where the idea for this came from, but once the idea sparked, it was back to google for some leaves.

For these guys to hide under. They're made the same way as the dinosaurs.

And after all that work you can bet I want credit for it!


So there you go, Nicholas' book. I hope it will be loved and worn out with use (but not for years!)

9 comments:

  1. OMG! Now THAT's a labour of love! I think you would profit from a embroidery machine, don't you think?

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  2. That is absolutely beautiful! I am sure it will be well-loved.

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  3. I'm sure it will be well used. I hope it becomes an heirloom piece so all that gorgeous work is preserved.

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  4. Adorable! They will love those books, which I'm sure will become treasured heirlooms.

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  5. The photos don't do the book justice! Truly awesome!

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  6. Great googly-moogly, woman! That is just AMAZING! (You are so a way better mom than me.)

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  7. Oh! How absolutely adorable. You are one wonderfully creative mum.

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