Sewing Tutorial: Quiet Book Page - Monkeys and Balloons

The idea for this page came from Serving Pink Lemonade, although I've simplified it to include just the monkey and the balloons, and generally only make it with buttons and buttonholes nowadays.

STEP ONE

My previous post explains how to prepare your pages and other materials and also mentions the applique paper that I prefer to use to make the process easier.

The first step is to draw your shapes onto the applique paper.

For the monkey page, you will need:

• monkey
• monkey's belly and face
• eight balloon shapes - choose four colours and make two iron on balloons of each colour. This will make four balloon backgrounds to attach to the page, and four button-on balloons.

Cut roughly around your outlines on the paper and iron on to the felt. Follow the ironing instructions for the particular applique adhesive that you choose to use.

Then cut your felt shapes out and peel off the paper layer, leaving an adhesive backing on the back of the felt shapes.

STEP TWO

Put your shapes into position on your page fabric and iron on.

For figures that have two layers (or more), such as the monkey below, do only one layer at a time. Start with the bottom layer (in this case, the dark brown monkey outline) and then iron on the next layer (belly and face in light brown). 

STEP THREE

Make the balloons. Iron the remaining four balloons onto their matching coloured felt and cut them out.

STEP FOUR

Sew around everything. You can choose to skip this step, but the applique adhesive will eventually lose its effectiveness and the felt shapes will come off, especially after repeated buttoning and play. It's much safer, and looks much neater if you sew around everything.

Start with the shapes attached to the page. Sew close to the edes with a machine stitch. For the monkey, you could choose to just sew around the belly and face as this will also secure the body to the page.

 

Also sew strings to connect the monkey's hands to the balloons. 

 

 

STEP FIVE

 

Sew button holes into your balloons.

 

 

STEP SIX

 

Do all hand sewing. For the monkey page, this will mean sewing buttons to the balloons on the page, and embroidering the monkey face.

 

When you have finished, put your page aside until you have all pages finished.

 

Well done!

 

Top 5 ... sock animal tutorials

There's something about sock animals that I really love. I think it's got to do with the need I have to not waste even the smallest scrap of fabric. All of these sock animals use every last piece of the sock or pair of socks.

1. My all time favourite is the sock monkey. I used the tutorial at http://www.web-goddess.org/writing/tutorial/Image0.html to make my first every sock monkey and it was so easy to follow, with clear instructions and lots of pictures.

2. Sock bunny. I made these two bunnies for my kiddies for Easter this year. The idea came from http://www.craftpassion.com/2012/05/sock-bunny-sewing-tutorial.html/2.

3. and 4. Sock elephant and giraffe from http://www.ebygomm.ourownlittleworld.org/2010/12/sock-critters-including-sock-elephant-tutorial/

5. This gorgeous sock pig that is next on my list to make: http://freecraftarticles.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/another-wonderful-free-pattern-by-lisa.html

Have you got a favourite sock animal tutorial? Please post a link in the comments below and share!

Lesley :)

Maternity leave projects

This time around I made it to maternity leave (yay!) and so I thought it would be nice to complete a few sewing projects. There's probably going to be little time for sewing for a while after No. 2 arrives.

I found this simple little pattern online for a reversible baby hat and made two, because I thought the monkey/helicopter design might be a bit loud for a young baby. On finishing the two though, I think it's the one that I prefer.

Sadly I can't find the website again to refer to it here, and it was in Dutch anyway. With lots of help from google translate, I worked out the main parts.

 I finished this bag this morning. I've been trying to decide on a new bag to make, one that's a bit summery. Now that it's finished I'm not sure if the colours are that great for summer, but it's cute all the same and good practical size for carting around those toy animals, snacks, drink bottles etc. I got the pattern from this blog: http://machenmachen.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/free-pattern-for-the-wasp-bag/. and I have to say that the adding the buttons completely lifted the look of the bag. I was actually a bit disappointed in it when I was done with the main sewing last night, but now that the buttons are on, I love it.

 Now to the felt food... Mia was given a play kitchen a little while ago and although being quite young, she was happy for a while to use anything to put into and out of the cupboards, I thought some felt food might be a nice addition. She had some plastic fruit and vegies, but these just look so much better. I found some great pictures online, but made most of the patterns myself through trial and error - there's also a steak to go with the broccoli and potatoes (the orange thing is fish, not an over-sized carrot!)




I'm also part of the way through adding to my backpack collection - just waiting on some supplies to arrive to finish them. And I thought I'd make myself a few new dresses for after this baby comes, but being disappointed in the choice of fabric in the stores around here (and the price), I'm waiting on some fabric to arrive by mail for those.

Spring is near

Continuing on with trying to be crafty with Mia, we tried out threading with the coloured pasta. Although difficult still, Mia loved sitting together and threading. Then she just went mad for pouring and putting coloured pasta all over the place. She loved it and could have played for hours like this.

Then we made a sheep. Mia's a huge fan of sticking - I think her childcare centre has been teaching them about sticky stuff recently. We kept to using clear contact because it's just so easy and I can sit back and watch her create without worrying that she's going to eat any glue.

And then a Father's Day present. I'd seen this idea months ago on Pinterest and thought it was very cute. So we made some homemade paints again with water, cornflour and food colouring. I thought I'd try this recipe and see if it lasted longer than the last time we made paints - the last recipe had a lot of sugar in it too - but it lasted much the same time. Actually I think I prefer the paint with sugar in it, because some of this crumbled and fell off when it was dry.

Finally I finished the smaller version of the quiet book - these ones have been made as gifts and for sale. The hours and hours of work that goes into one of these babies can never be set at a price that anyone's willing to pay, so I tried to keep it simple and limited myself to 6 activity pages - the best six. These have been Mia's favourites so far in her book.

            

Quiet book cover

Monkey with snap fasteners

      

Tie the shoe

Barn and animal finger puppets

                    

       

Count the beads

Tent, sleeping bag and doll with zippers

       

Mr Potato head with velcro

Pocket for all the pieces, plus some pieces for a Mrs Potato Head 

     

And some sewing for our baby who's now only 10 weeks away - a hanging wall storage and some wall art for above the cot.

I quilted the back section of the wall hanging and then made the pockets with square corners, lined with a very stiff interfacing. I'm still not sure if the pockets will sag after a while, especially if they're not stuffed full at the bottoms and have heavy stuff in them.

I found the idea for this one thanks to Martha Stewart, although the original idea was three larger frames. I bought a cheap white frame and a bunch of scrapbooking card stock and chose my book: Dr Seuss' Oh the Places You'll Go! The finished product looked quite effective - I especially like the black section with white writing and the orange giraffe. It stands out a lot more than the other two sections.

I made this one a while back, but never photographed it until now. I had made one as a birthday gift for a friend's baby, and had a second shirt so I thought I'd make one for Mia also. It turned out really cute and is an easy way to brighten up a plain t-shirt. I used heat and bond paper to attach the circles to the t-shirt fabric and then just sewed a tight zig zag stitch around each one to secure it on.

Finished!

I actually finished it a few months ago, but it's taken me a while to get around to posting these pictures of the completed book. It was a great feeling to finally put the book together!

Page 1- matching with velcro and magnetic snaps

Because of all the pieces that are just held on by velcro, I thought it best to enclose everything with a zipper. The cover is also interfaced with a light interfacing, and lined with a plain calico fabric. I sewed on loops on the inside to hold the rings. I wanted to use rings so that it would be easy to take pages out and add new ones later.

Pages 2 and 3 - matching with snap fasters, tying a bow

Pages 4 and 5 - fasteners and finger puppets

To put the pages together, I ironed about a centimetre over on each edge and pinned each page back to back with another, then top stitched around the edges. As I had already interfaced each page with a light-medium interfacing, this worked well. For the binder rings, I sewed two small button holes on each page.

Pages 6 and 7 - dress the dolls - velcro

Pages 8 and 9 - fishing with magnets, tent and sleeping bag with zippers

Pages 10 and 11 - matching/using buttons, a page for Mia's car

Pages 12 and 13 - bead counting and potato head

Page 14 - Potatohead pocket

I still find it hard to believe how many hours and how many materials went into making this book. We're saving the book now so that it's a new toy when we fly to Germany in less than two months time.

The Quiet Book

In June we're going to Germany so that Mia can meet her family on her daddy's side. Two adults and a 19-month old on a plane full of people for a total of 20 plus hours. Not really anyone's idea of a holiday, but I'm hoping that preparation is the key. I did some reading about how to keep a toddler occupied while travelling and found some great ideas about activity bags and quiet books. Although most ideas in quiet books are aimed at children who are slightly older, I thought I'd give one a go in the hope that she (and us, and the rest of the passengers on the plane) might get some benefit out of it. 

Planning the quiet book was loads of fun. As was drawing the designs and playing with a pile of coloured felt. I decided on 12 activities in the end and bought a few metres of calico, some light fusible interfacing, felt in a bunch of colours, and some fusible webbing used for applique. 

I cut out rectangles of calico in the size I wanted (27cm by 31cm) and backed each piece with interfacing slightly smaller so that the seams won't be too bulky when I put together the pages. I wanted to interface each page to make the pages sturdier, especially when sewing the felt pieces on.

Then I worked page by page, drawing the designs in reverse on the iron on applique webbing. This has also helped to make things a lot sturdier, and the finished product a lot neater. As I don't want to risk any of the felt pieces falling off, I've sewed around each, but the applique webbing just gives it a nicer finish.

Once I'd collected all the materials for the pages and done some ironing on, I tackled the barn page. I got inspiration and a pattern from  http://servingpinklemonade.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/quiet-book.html  and used red, white and brown felt, ironing on each piece and then reinforcing by sewing around them. I'd knitted the finger puppets ages ago and never done anything with them and figured they were perfect for the barn. 

Next I made the potato heads. I took some ideas from http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2010/05/mr-potato-head.html. Shown here is Mrs Potato Head, and I also made accessories for Mr which fit to the same potato. All of the removable pieces are double sided to make them more durable

.The shoe came next... using ideas from http://quietbook.blogspot.com.au/ 2010/11/page-24-tie-my-shoe.html

The fishing page was fun... I took ideas from  http://shannonmakesstuff.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/quiet-book-page-fishing-with-peter.html (leaving the religious stuff out). I wanted something simple where the fish would stay in the water, but also be relatively easy enough to catch. I used some tiny little magnets from a craft shop and they work well as long as I pull the fish out a little before going fishing.

The monkey and balloons page is for colour matching and I thought I'd stray from velcro and use some snap fasteners. In hindsight though, I think they'll be hard for Mia's little fingers to handle - they take quite a bit of force to pull apart. The idea for this page came from http://servingpinklemonade.blogspot.com.au /2011/01/quiet-book.html. Love love love the monkey!

The idea for this page came from http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/2010/08/quiet-book-feature.html. I had so much fun making the dolls and clothes. I bought some tiny little pegs, which Mia will love someday, but for now they're just a bit too small to let her play with so I backed the clothes with velcro and sewed a strip of velcro under each line on the clothesline. The velcro is used anyway to stick the clothes onto the dolls.

The last page I finished was this tent page with zippers. One zipper is used for the sleeping bag (where the doll can easily be removed), and another for the tent. 

Still to come are the dog/buckle page, flowers/buttons page, letter and shape matching, and bead counting page and the grand finale of putting the whole thing together into a tidy little book!

Stay tuned!