Sewing Tutorial: Quiet Book page - Old McDonald had a barn and some finger puppets

The barn page is page three of my Quiet Book. I adapted the idea from the template on Homemade By Jill (http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/quiet-book-templates.html).

STEP ONE
You will need red, white and brown felt. Draw each shape on the transfer paper - red barn, brown window, white stripes and two brown rectangles the size of the barn doors. Iron the paper onto the felt and cut out the shapes. Cut between the doors and fold them back. Iron on the brown rectangles to the back of the doors. Peel off the rest of the paper, leaving the adhesive on the back of the shapes. Iron shapes onto the page fabric, starting with the red barn, then the brown window and finally the white stripes.






STEP TWO
Cut out the finger puppet shapes. Fasten on the noses and cow spots. Embroider some eyes on all and nostrils on the pigs. I usually fasten down each piece by sewing a top stitch so that it doesn't fall off. Sew the ears, horns etc onto the back piece of each finger puppet and then sew the fronts and backs together.





STEP THREE
Sew top stitch around each piece of the barn and white edging to be sure it does not come off. Cut another piece of brown felt to fit inside the doors and hold the finger puppets in place.Sew it down on the sides and bottom.

Done!

Put it aside and get ready to prepare the next pages!

Part IV: Finished quiet book - Colours/Colors

By coincidence this book turned out to also be an animals book: a blue whale, green frogs, yellow chick, orange fish (goldfish), pink pig and red crab.

The blue page has a whale that unbuttons from the book. It can be removed, and also swiveled around on the button to flip up its tail.

The orange fish can be caught with the magnetic fishing rod and the pink pig finger puppet attaches at the back with velcro.

The green frogs are attached with snap fasteners and are an activity in size matching. The yellow chick lives in an egg that can be opened with a zipper.

The red crab is a velcro matching puzzle of sorts.

See more here:
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/RichesandRoses

And see my other books here:
http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/part-iii-shapes-quiet-book.html
http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/part-ii-alphabet-quiet-book.html
http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/finished-four-new-sets-of-quiet-books.html

Part III - Shapes Quiet Book

Here is the third kind of Quiet Book that I finished over the last week. It's the Shapes activity book.

The Triangle page has a cute little tent which opens with a zipper to a little sleeping bag, also opening with a zipper.

Next is the Rectangle page which uses velcro to match colours and sizes. Next time I might do a sky background and make it look like a cityscape.

The Square page has the pieces of a house that stick on with velcro. Just the square pieces can be taken off.

The Circle page has a bus with wheels that come off (velcro again, but next time I'll use buttons to add some variety). The Oval page is the cute little chicken in a egg page that I've used in a couple of my other books.

The Diamond page is a little puzzle.

You can find my other two books here:
http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/part-ii-alphabet-quiet-book.html
http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/finished-four-new-sets-of-quiet-books.html

And a closer look at the Shapes book in my Etsy shop:
https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/167005046/toddler-quiet-book-shapes-theme?

Finished - four new sets of quiet books! Instalment one: Counting

Last night I felt like I had accomplished something big. It's taken several weeks of half an hour per evening to get these eight quiet books (two in each of the four new designs - counting, alphabet, colours and shapes) finished. 

Miss almost 3 loves counting. Almost to the point of obsession at the moment. We're a bilingual family and she now manages to get to 13 in both English and German. Most numbers beyond 13 come out something that sounds a lot like sixteen. Anyway, the point of that is that her bead counter is her favourite page in the Quiet Book that I made her more than a year ago. I wanted to find a way to include one in this counting book, so I decided to just go up to five.

One shoe... two people...

And my two favourite pages: three animal finger puppets and four balloons.

And finally, five fish!

Check it out in more detail in my etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/167004470/toddler-quiet-book-counting-theme? and stay tuned for some patterns and instructions in the coming months.

Lesley :)

Miscellaneous projects

With my Etsy shop getting stocked and Mia kitted out with some very cute dresses for the upcoming months, I decided to do some gift-making.



First, a baby shower gift. I found this lovely soft cotton with colourful elephants and thought it would be perfect. I was very happy with how it turned out. The diaper change pad rolls up nice and small for the baby bag, and the diaper and wipes case is the perfect size. I used just a bib of Mia's to cut out the pattern for these bibs and they turned out perfectly.

Then, a gift for a 7 year-old soon to embark on a long plane trip. I wanted to make the stationery bag as compact as possible, so none of the existing patterns for fold-out stationery organizers were really appropriate. I cut out four long rectangles on the fold and sewed around each of them separately, before putting them together and sewing around all four of them together. With some home-made binding, I enclosed all the rough edges and added a zipper to keep everything in. On one of the layers, I sewed a pocket, in this case to hold a pencil sharpener.

Next, a cute doll for a friend's new baby, although with the hair and dress, she won't be able to play with it until she's quite a bit bigger. I found a doll pattern and tutorial on http://missyballance.typepad.com/crafty_carnival/2007/02/free_doll_patte.html and thought she looked very cute.

Finally, another baby present. This chicken comes from http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2009/04/spring-chicken-pattern/.








I've made extras of the stationery bag and baby shower gift and these can be viewed in my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Utsukushiiya?ref=pr_shop

Next? To combine some ideas and come up with a new project! Stay tuned...