down the laine: May 2015

sewing

These are Amelia's last two sewing projects.

I found the pattern for this fruit bag here. It is a great pattern because it gives you the choice of a few different types of fruit just by changing the colours of fabric and the seeds you applique onto the bag.

Amelia made this bag today and was it ever a HIT! She had picked the pattern last week and it was supposed to have rope handles. She had forgotten to get rope to use and was a little disappointed when she showed up this morning. Little did she know that the little knitting store down the street from us had put out a big bin of plastic handles with a "FREE" sign last weekend. I scooped 10 pairs so she was able to use them in place of the rope. It was a surprisingly easy bag to make. She sewed everything by herself except doing the casing for the handles which was a little tricky even for me to do.

We are starting a big quilting project next week which will take probably 4 weeks to complete.

gelli printing with a kid

One of Taylor's favourite activities when she comes to my house is Gelli printing. I have 2 plates one is 6x6 and the other is 3x5. For the 6x6 I just give her pieces of newsprint or white paper to use for her prints. With the 3x5, she uses blank index cards that are the same size as the plate.

She uses Princeton Catalyst tools (these are one of my favourite tools to use), recycling I've collected for texture and fluid acrylic paint from the dollar store. I showed her how to use some of the tools when she first started use the plates but now she just experiments with different colours and tools. I usually use whichever plate she isn't so she will often ask me how I did something on my plate and try it out on her own.

These are 4 of her last prints.

fabric dollhouse

Amelia made this fabric dollhouse a few weeks ago and it was a huge hit. We followed the pattern here. It used hard plastic mesh lined with batting inside the fabric. It took one class (2 hours) to assemble plus another little bit for me to hand sew the velcro in place. We spent her next class decorating it with felt.

The back.

Inside.

Complete with curtains, a table (an empty spool of thread) with a bowl of apples (red beads hot glued in place), a rug...

...and a fish pond!

baking soda paint

I tried this recipe for baking soda paint with Taylor. You mix up water, baking soda and food colouring to paint with. Once your creation is down on paper (use water colour paper if available), spray or drip vinegar on the paint to create the fizzing reaction. It was a neat activity but once dry there was a lot of baking soda flaking off the paper which made a bit of an extra mess.

Her colours.