Kids Sewing Kit - Make your own doll - Sewing Tutorial

Two years ago I put together a sewing kit for my daughter who was then 2.5 years old. You can read the blog post here: http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/kids-craft-toddler-sewing-kit.html. It has been a really popular blog post and attracts a lot of traffic on Pinterest. 

Over those two years it has evolved and she has now outgrown most of the original items that I put in the kit. She has started showing interest in actually sewing something and having a finished product at the end, so I had the idea of making an easy doll kit that is aimed at her age. 

This is what I came up with, and I have to say I am pretty happy with the finished product. Miss 4.5 is very keen to get started on making her own doll and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

I started out by cutting out all of the pieces. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, and ended up with this design. I machine sewed the pieces together, leaving just two basic pieces for her to sew together - a front and a back.

I invested in a leather hole punch and punched around the edges of the doll pieces. Be sure to pin the front and back pieces together for this step so that the holes line up. I placed a piece of card under the felt while punching to make it a bit stiffer too. I made some small bows for her hair, cut out some felt pieces for the face, chose some sequin beads and added a blunt wool needle and some embroidery thread.

Stay tuned for the finished doll!

Sewing Tutorial: Putting together your Quiet Book pages to make a book

You've spent hours cutting out little felt shapes, positioning them on pages, sewing, stitching on faces and finishing touches and now you have the pages all made for your Quiet Book. Well done! It's no easy task. No doubt plenty of patience, glasses of wine and cups of tea have passed between you and your Quiet Book pages. So let's take a look at one way to put it all together and make a book out of what you've got in front of you.

Work out the order of your pages and then pair them up in front to back pairs. Put them right sides together. Sew around with approximately 1cm/0.5 inch seam, leaving a gap wide enough for turning out the right way. Trim the corners as in the picture below.

Turn out the right way and push the corners out to neaten. It should look something like this:

Then sew a top-stitch a few millimetres from the edge to neaten it off and close off the opening.

Covers can be made in the same way (you'll need front and back covers):

• right sides together
• sew around, leaving an opening
• trim corners
• turn out the right way
• topstitch edges

I like to add a button tab to my cover. The length and width depend on the thickness and size of your book. Cut two rectangles, allowing a 0.5cm/0.25 inch seam and follow the same steps as above.

Of course there are loads of options for putting your pages together, but my favourite way is to use binder rings. I then sew two buttonholes on each page where I want to place them. Easy! Especially if your sewing machine does automatic buttonholes as mine does :-)

Sewing tutorial: Quiet book pages - Bead counter

This is one page I really like to include in my books. Both of my kids love counting and one of their favourite pages in their quiet book is the bead counter. They enjoy moving the beads across, and they also learn their colours by practicing with the beads. It is an easy and effective page.

The starting point for making the page is deciding how wide to make the counter (then cut your thin ribbon in appropriate lengths), to what number to count to (in my larger books, I have include counters that go up to ten), and finally what colours to choose. 

The ribbon I use is very narrow and I do not like to take any chances with safety with beads coming loose, so my first step is to space the ribbons on the page and sew them to the page background. My green felt is about 1.5cm wide, so I sew along the ribbons for about a length of 1cm on one side first. Then I thread my beads on and sew down on the other side to secure the ribbons down and lock the beads in. 

Place the felt lengths over the ribbon ends where you have sewn and pin down. Sew a stitch around the edges. Finally trim off the threads and ribbon ends and your bead counter is done!

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!

The easiest 10 minute stretch pants

I made these red pants recently out of some knit scrap fabric that I had in my fabric stash and they turned out so cute, that I ran up another pair last week.

Made from two pieces, as knit fabric does not fray there's no need to hem the legs or double over the waist casing. Super fast and simple! To cut out I used an existing pair of pants folded in half and cut each leg on the fold.

Works in progress: Quiet Books (Alphabet, Counting, Colours, Shapes)

So much cutting out....

It's taken me a bunch of evenings in front of the television to get all of these little shapes cut out, and my scissor hand is very tired.

I started out by drawing each picture (in mirror image) onto the heat and bond lite paper and then ironed it onto the felt sheets. The following pieces will all go into my counting book.

Here are the pieces for the shapes book:

And these will all go into the alphabet book...

Finally, we have the pieces for the colours book!

Next I'll arrange the pages, peel off the paper and iron the pieces onto the pages.

I can't wait :)

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.