Felt Flower Garden House Embroidery Project

I used Checkout Girl’s awesome Little Pink House tutorial that was posted on Sew Mama Sew awhile back to make this!  I didn’t break out much from the pattern, but it was my first project like this and I wanted to get my hands around it first.  Now I need to sketch something up to make something new!

My "Little Pink House"

Close-up of the flowers

The background is linen, and the felt is all wool.  I just love the spring green color of the leaves.  I can’t remember where I bought that color but I’ll have to figure it out because I love it.  The orange and aqua colors are some hand-dyed felt that I got from Felt-o-Rama.  Gorgeous colors, but the felt is a bit thin (1mm according to the website, as compared to the wool blend which is 1.2mm).  Fine for this sort of project though.  They sell hand-dyed embroidery floss to match.

Montessori Word Family House

J’s teacher showed me an idea that she got from a blog and asked if I could come up with something similar for their classroom.  Well, how can I say no to such a challenge?  **Update** I finally found the link for the original inspiration for this project at itty bitty love.  She has some examples of word family cards that the children can choose from.  Check out her blog.  Great Montessori ideas!

Word Family House

The purpose of this work is to put a word ending in the top attic window.  So there will be a card with “AT” on it for example.  Then, the child will have more cards with the “AT” ending which the child places down the right-side column of windows, cards with beginning sounds, and then objects that match the words that can be created…”CAT” or “BAT” for instance.  I’ll try to get some pictures of the work in progress once J’s teacher puts it out.

The size of the red house is about 12×12 inches, which was just the size of the pieces of wool-blend red felt that I had (purchased from Felt-o-Rama).  The white windows on the red part of the house are 2×3 inches.  I sewed those on with my machine and a straight-stitch.  So here was my process:

1) Cut out two pieces of tan for the roof.  Attached the window in the center of one piece using white embroidery floss and a whip stitch.  Then, I used a back-stitch and dark gray floss to make the window panes, and to outline the window.  I then put the two tan pieces together, sandwiched in a piece of dark charcoal (a felted sweater scrap) and used a decorative stitch to sew the roof together.

2) Cut out the main house window pieces.  I attached these to the front house piece with Heat-n-Bond Lite in order to get them to stay on securely when I was sewing them on.  I find this works better than just pinning which can cause the pieces to turn out a bit wonky by the time you are done if you aren’t careful.  Then I sewed them in place with my machine, matching thread, and a standard straight stitch.  I hand-stitched the window panes with a back stitch and dark charcoal embroidery floss.  You could put the windows on by hand with a whip-stitch but I was trying to save a bit of time with eight windows!

3) I then embellished the house a bit with the purple coneflower, grass and butterfly.

4) While watching the awesome skating on the Olympics last night, I put together the two red pieces by hand with a blanket stitch.  Stitched all the way around all sides.  I then attached the roof using a whipstitch along the bottom edge of the roof where it meets the front piece of the house.  I didn’t tack it down in the back at all.  I didn’t really feel like it needed it, but I can do that later if it turns out to need some additional support after it’s been used awhile by the children.

Purple coneflower embellishment on the house

Butterfly embellishment

This was a fun project!  I can’t wait to see it in action in the classroom.

Baby washcloths

I made some baby washcloths for a friend’s new baby.  Very quick and easy to make.  Some matching burp cloths would have been fun.  Maybe for next time we see the cutie-pie.

They are just organic cotton terry that I bought at Alewives Fabrics (the terry is not online however), and some flannel on the other side that I picked up at Jo-Anns.  I sewed them wrong sides together, leaving a space for turning.  Turned, poked out the corners, ironed, and then top-stitched around (closing up the opening) using a zig-zag stitch.  Easy-peasy.  Well, except the terry cloth is a bit wonky to work with.  I had a tiny bit leftover and I made a little mitt with it.

Like the table that they are sitting on?  It’s the coffee table that my husband finished a little while ago.  I love it!  He’s making beds next – for our guest room and our room.  I’d better get started on my Turning Twenty quilt that I’m going to make for us!  I bought a great fat quarter collection of Amy Butler prints at Alewives when I was there last.

Rainbow window stars

A few weeks ago, we had school canceled for a snow day so the boys and I made these window stars using Garden Mama’s tutorial.  The boys are 7.5yo and 5.5yo and did a pretty good job with the folding.  Even when it’s not perfect, it’s really not noticeable.  Now, I’ve been busy making them for friends, school, etc!  I shared them with the Elementary teacher at J’s Montessori school, she shared them with the art teacher, and now they are on the hunt for kite paper so they can do them with Elementary and Extended Day students (i.e., the Kindergarten-age children).  I purchased my kite paper at Mercurius (awesome art supplies but wholesale only — I got mine in a co-op) but I’m sure you can buy it elsewhere.  I saw it at Nova Natural online or Waldorf School stores are a good place to check too.  You can also use tissue paper, wax paper, etc., but I really like the sturdiness of the kite paper.