I Just Want You To Admire All My Wool Felt Mini Quilt Blocks

I genuinely have nothing relevant to say about them. Just, I was feeling sad and anxious after dropping my kid off at college, which is a totally normal way to feel but is also unpleasant and just generally sucks, and for whatever reason, spending a few evenings listening to a scary-ass podcast about the dangers of meditation while gluing together itty bitty quilt blocks literally fixed my life. Like, the colors and patterns are pleasing to look at and satisfying to organize, getting them precisely cut and precisely into place required a lot of enjoyable concentration and left me with a comfy feeling of mastery, and the project as a whole was absorbing enough to distract me from worrying that my kid forgot her Woozoo and thinks her Intermediate Macroeconomics class will be hard and also she lives 12 hours away now.

Y'all, did I just diagnose myself with autism?

Whatever. Please just look at how pretty these wool felt mini quilt blocks are.

Shoofly, from the book 5,500 Quilt Block Designs

Red Cross

Nine Patch

Snowball

Friendship Star

Eccentric Star

Bear Paw

Fun anecdote: I sent the kid a pic of some of these quilt blocks, because living 12 hours away doesn't free someone from having me yap at them constantly, and she replied, "They're so cute! Are they coasters?"

I had to be all, "Lol! They're 1.5" square!"

Instead, I made them into a banner:

Actually, coasters for American Girl dolls would nicely intertwine with my other perimenopausal, possibly autistic hobby...

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I Finished the Wool Felt Moveable Alphabet (and the Dolch Sight Word Cards!)

 

Once upon a time, waaaay back in January 2023, Past Julie thought, "Ooh, I have the perfect idea for a cute Christmas gift for my niece! I'll hand-sew her a moveable alphabet out of the rest of my stash of wool felt. I'll just sew, like, one letter a week and she'll have SO many letters by Christmas!"

June 2023 rolled around, and Past Julie thought, "Hmm, no big deal. I'll just start stitching a couple of letters a week."

During the October meeting of my mending group, I happily cut out letters and burbled to my fellow menders that "I just need to sew one a day and they'll be done in plenty of time before Christmas!"

During the November meeting, I said, a little more grimly, "Just two a day and I can squeak them into the mail just in time for Christmas."

Those last couple of days in December, it was more like six a day while binge-watching Chicago Med DVDs, but look at the glorious result!

I am SO pleased with them! 

Here's a rooster for size comparison, because the entire flock could not get it out of their heads that these colorful nuggets were perhaps made of delicious chicken food:

My favorite part of this project is that even though yes, it took a lot of me-hours to accomplish, the materials are ENTIRELY stash!

The felt is a really nice merino wool felt that I bought long ago for projects with my own kids (it's this exact set, but I bought 8"x10" cuts instead of the 4"x6" cuts shown here). I blanket stitched the letters with basic-grade Amazon embroidery floss and I stuffed each letter with snips of that same felt, and won my own personal game of wool felt chicken because after the very last letter was stuffed, I had less than a handful of little wool felt snippies left. 

I even had all the colors left! I managed a complete rainbow to start the set--

--and also had enough grey, brown, black, and white to make a nice variety and multiples of every letter (except for X and Q, ahem):

My partner handled creating all the Dolch sight words in the same font and size, and I backed each one in pretty paper and laminated it so my niece can use them as templates to make words with the wool felt letters:

Wool felt has such a lovely feel, though, and the colors are so pretty, that I'm hoping that the letters alone are a fun sensory experience. Sensory experiences build intrinsic knowledge and increase one's love for a topic.

It's clear that the chickens, at least, appreciate the sensory appeal!

Even though this project took a loooong time, it was not hard at all, and I actually would recommend it as a beginner-level hand-sewing project for absolutely anyone. Over Thanksgiving break my college kid sewed a perfectly acceptable "I" after about five seconds of instruction, and it's now mixed in there somewhere with the rest of the letters, completely indistinguishable from the lot (well, *I* can distinguish it, but definitely nobody else could)...

Best. Christmas. Yet. Now, to figure out something even more unwieldy to make for next year!

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November WIPs

 

All this year I've been trying to be more organized with my various craft projects--including, you know, *actually* completing the projects that I start. 

I've been doing a fairly good job with it, too... until November. Things seem to have run off the rails a bit this month.

Here's what I'm currently working on, trying to finish, or at least determinedly not abandoning:

Skull Quilt Block

I actually sewed this skull quilt block back in October, a couple of weeks before Halloween. I was wanting a quick little homemade holiday thing to give to my teenager and put in my college student's care package, and I thought that this skull quilt block would be lovely as the front panel of a zippered pouch big enough to hold their ipads. And while I was at it, I could make one for my nook, as well!

Well, this little sucker was a LOT more challenging and fiddly to sew than I'd anticipated, and it took me two days of seam ripping and swearing to get this one wonky, crooked block.

I DO know what I did wrong, though--when a pattern tells you that the seam allowance is 1/4", they mean it!

Even though it's well past Halloween now, I'm determined not to abandon my project. After all, I have the kind of kids who'd welcome a patchwork skull ipad cozy in their Christmas stockings just as much as they would in their Halloween candy buckets!

Weaving Loom

This was also technically meant to be an October project. In early October, I taught a workshop to Girl Scout leaders on the topic of upcycled cardboard crafts. I'd wanted to include this simple corrugated cardboard weaving loom, but ran out of time to demo it and write/photograph a tutorial. 

I DO actually have plenty of process photos now, so at this point I could write the tutorial up, but now I've gotten wrapped up (ahem) in various weaving patterns, and I checked out a ton of pattern books from the library, and I want to make a few more long braids to use as hangers for all the Christmas ornaments I hope to make.

England Travel Journal

For Mother's Day, Matt and the kids gave me a beautiful blank book and some themed stickers and accessories so that I could keep a travel journal during our upcoming trip to England... which I did!

After I got home, though, I realized that I had plenty of room to intersperse many of my trip photos, as well as other embellishments I'm cutting out from old travel guides and National Geographics. It's... gotten a little out of hand, to be honest. I'm only about halfway done with it, and it's already so fat that Matt's talking about finding a larger set of book rings and rebinding it for me. 

Hand-Sewn Wool Felt Moveable Alphabet

This might be my most unwieldy project to date. I've had a partial package of very nice wool felt (I got it from this shop 11 years ago, and the shop is still in business!) kicking around my stash ever since I got on that Waldorf materials kick back when the kids were small, and I settled on the plan of using it to make a hand-stitched moveable alphabet for my three-year-old niece's Christmas present. 

While fabricating this plan, I conveniently forgot about my extreme myopia and my newly-middle-aged eyesight that means that there are a few specific distances at which I literally cannot focus my eyes... one of them being the distance to a piece of embroidery held in my hands. 

Nevertheless, I am nearsightedly soldiering on! I finished cutting out all the felt letters just a few nights ago, while Matt plied us with cocktails and read me crossword puzzle clues, and my benchmark goal is completing two letters per day--a couple of days ago, I completed three! Alas that currently, most of these letters are being sewn while the teenager and I listen to 12 Years a Slave, which is the most harrowing, saddest, emotional book I've read in I don't know how long. I can't think of a better book for making the human cost of slavery tangible, and it's the best possible book to read with a teenager, but I do feel a little weird sewing away on a three-year-old's toy while listening to Eliza's screams as she's torn away from her small daughter in the New Orleans slave market. 

Hopefully, all these WIPs will be finished by mid-December, and I will try very hard to discipline myself not to start anything new until they are!

I mean, though, I DO need to make some Team Mouse gifts for my own mouseling's fellow Nutcracker warriors, and I've got a couple more handmade Christmas gifts in mind, and we were thinking of really leaning into the Christmas cookie game this year, and I have some England photos that I want to print but first I need to thrift and makeover some frames for them...

Maybe I'll just start the Team Mouse gifts and the Christmas cookies...

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Team Mouse on the Christmas Tree

 

The Nutcracker battle is fought not just on the stage, but also on the Christmas tree this year!

And Team Mouse is finally winning!

I bought these super cute felt Mouse and felt Officer patterns thinking that they'd make adorable gifts for the other Mice and Officers in my teenager's Nutcracker casts. I only thought that because I sew by hand so rarely that I had completely forgotten how time consuming it is, oops!

First, you cut out all the tiny pattern pieces:

Then you figure out what color you want everything to be. I still have plenty of felt wool scrippy scraps (I just checked my gmail, and I originally bought this felt way back in 2017--definitely time to finish using it up!), and this kind of small felt figure is the exact perfect use for them. Wool felt is much more beautiful than acrylic felt, and has such a nicer texture, that it's worth it to use it in a project where both of those features are really highlighted.

Cutting out all the little felt pieces wasn't super fun because I was too cheap to go out and buy a proper pair of tiny scissors, but I did get to use my favorite heat-erasable Frixion pens to trace most of the patterns, and that's never not thrilling:

Finally, just spend a million hours hand-stitching the cutest little Mouse Soldier in the world!

Um, I did NOT end up making felt Mice and Officers for every kid in my kid's casts. I did make a different present for just the Team Mouse kids, but it was a lot quicker and easier than hand-sewn felt ornaments!

I do think this sewing would go a lot more quickly the second time, now that I know what I'm doing, and I DO have another Mouse and an Officer already cut out and ready to go. Frankly, though, I think I need to have an appointment with my optometrist first, because I'm not sure I've got the eyes for hand-sewing anymore...

How to Make Realistic Felt Leaf Silhouettes

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

If you're in the mood to decorate your home for autumn, there's no better inspiration than the real leaves right outside!

You can bring them inside and they'll last for a while, preserve them and they'll last for longer, or you can use them as templates to make these easy and beautiful felt leaf silhouettes that will last as long as you like.

Supplies

Leaves

My kids and I have used both completely fresh leaves and pressed leaves. It's more difficult to trace an accurate outline of a leaf when it's fresh, but it does turn the project into one that can be done in less than an hour, instead of one that requires cooling your heels for a few weeks while your leaves are in the leaf press.

Cardstock, Pencil, Scissors, Chalk.

You could trace your leaf directly onto the felt, but I like to trace my leaf onto card stock, cut it out, and then use that template on the felt. It's an extra step, sure, but it's much easier to make more leaves using a single card stock template than it is a slippery leaf.

Felt

You can go two ways with your felt choice, and both are eco-friendly. Wool felt is a natural material, and Eco-fi, the most readily available type of felt found in big-box craft stores, is a recycled material, made from post-consumer plastic bottles. I own and use both types, although I do prefer the weight of my wool felt for this particular project.

Embroidery floss and needle (optional)

Sometimes, I enjoy embroidering the veins on my leaves.

Instructions

1. Go out and collect some leaves! Although this makes an especially fun autumn project, you'll likely want green leaves still on their trees. Give them a look over to make sure that they're whole, but don't freak out over small irregularities. One of the things that makes this particular leaf project so nice is that since you're copying actual leaves, each leaf will be different. None of that militant uniformity that you get from artificial greenery!

2. Press the leaves, if you're going that route. Even if you don't put them in a leaf press, you might decide, midway through trying to trace your first curvy, fiddly leaf, that you want to press your leaves for just a couple of hours, at least. Leaves are NOT perfectly flat like paper.

3. Trace the leaf onto card stock and cut out. Felt can hold a lot of detail, so really dig in and try to include as many of the interesting edge details that you can. Cut out the cardstock template, and if you're into it, now is a great time to stop, ID your leaf, and write its ID on the card stock. That way you'll know if you're making a felt red maple or silver maple leaf!

4. Trace the card stock leaf onto felt using chalk. I like using chalk because it shows up well on felt, can be brushed off or washed off with a little water, and is generally a LOT easier to find than the water-soluble marking pencil that I own but loathe because chalk works so much better.

5. Cut out the leaf silhouette from felt. You'll want fabric scissors for this, and even tiny thread scissors, if you've got them. The smaller and sharper the scissors, the easier it will be to capture all the details.

You can simply enjoy your felt leaf silhouettes as-is, or fancy them up with embroidery or fabric paint. You can string them into a garland, or tack them together to make a bunting. Add a loop and use them as name tags on gifts or as Christmas tree ornaments.

What will YOU do with your felt leaves?

How to Sew a Poodle Skirt

I  originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

You guys, if you have never read about the history of the poodle skirt, I need to start you off with the information that it is just about the most fascinating thing EVER.

Basically, back in 1947, a woman wanted something awesome to wear to a holiday party. Being of a DIY mindset, she made herself a circle skirt out of felt (no seams!), then decorated it with cute appliques.

As you can imagine, knowing how ubiquitous the term "poodle skirt" is today, her creation went over very, very, very well.

What you might not have imagined before, however, is that it's not just poodles that were on the poodle skirt. In fact, that first Christmas skirt didn't even have poodles on it at all! Throughout the poodle skirt's massive popularity in the 1950s, people felt free to personalize it in whatever ways that appealed to them.

Think cacti. Or horses. Or Elvis Presley silhouettes. Cartoon mice. The Eiffel Tower.

So when you think of a poodle skirt, you really should be thinking of a simple felt circle skirt with novelty felt appliques.

Easy to make. Endlessly customizable. NOW you want to make one, don't you?!? So let's do it!

Tools & Supplies

To make a poodle skirt of your own, you will need the following:

• Felt. In Step #1, you'll do the calculations to learn how much felt you'll need for the skirt. You'll also want felt in the appropriate colors for all of your appliques.
• Matching thread. I don't use interfacing when I sew, because it's costlier and less eco-friendly than doing without, so you'll want a matching thread to sew your appliques to the skirt.
• Measuring supplies. Get yourself one of those yardsticks with a hole at one end (or just drill the hole yourself). You also need chalk and scissors.
• Stencils and templates. I freehanded some of the appliques on the particular skirt that I'm showing you in this tute, but other appliques came from Google Image searches. I'm not selling the skirt, so it's cool.
• Sewing notions. See Step #1 for these, too.

Directions

1. Calculate the measurements for your skirt. A circle skirt is exactly what it sounds like--a skirt in the shape of a perfect circle, with another circle, cut out for the waist.

So first, stop and think about how you want to get the skirt onto your body and keep it there. The skirt in this tute has an elastic waist, which means that I cut the center hole large enough for my kid to pull it up over her hips, and then I sewed 2" elastic to it for the waistband. This is a great solution for a kid or a teenager because as the kid grows, it's possible to remove the waistband, enlarge that center hole (provided that you've left the room and the skirt is long enough), and add new elastic. I  fully expect my kid's poodle skirt to last her through adulthood.

If you're already an adult, however, you can instead cut that center hole to size and install a zipper. It's more work, but the skirt would be less bulky at the waist and you could make it with a smaller piece of felt.

Either option is totally up to you!

So decide that first, so that you know the measurement for the center hole. The measurement will be the circumference of the circle that you want. In this case, I want a measurement of 24" so that my little noodle can get the skirt up over her little noodle hips.

Now, either do the math or plug that number into this circle calculator. The number that you want to get from this calculator is the radius. A circle that is 24" in circumference has a radius of 3.8". If you're going with the elastic waistband method, go ahead and round up to the nearest inch, which makes my new radius 4".

Next, decide how long you want the skirt to be, measuring from the waist to where you want the bottom hem to hit. I wanted another 20" of length. To find the total radius of the circle that you need to cut, you need to add that radius to the radius of the center hole. In this case, the total radius of my circle is 24". Double that number, and you'll have the total dimension of felt that you need in both length and width. Fortunately, felt comes in up to 72" widths, so you can make a pretty good-sized skirt from a single piece of felt.

Once you have your yardage, fold it into quarters. The very center of the piece of fabric will now be one of your corners. Place the hole in the yardstick right at this corner, and use it as the pivot to mark your total radius measurement in chalk. You'll see a perfect quarter of a circle marked out. Do the same thing, this time measuring the radius of the center hole. Cut them both through all four layers of fabric, then unfold the fabric and marvel at your perfectly-measured and cut circle skirt!

2. Add felt appliques. With the skirt unfolded, create and lay out the appliques until you're happy with their placement. You can also add other embellishments, such as the necklaces that I put on both of the unicorns, and a rope ladder from one of the caves.

When you're happy with the placement, pin all of the appliques to the skirt.

3. Sew the appliques to the skirt. Felt doesn't unravel, so you don't have to satin-stitch these appliques in place. With matching thread installed, I set my sewing machine to a stitch length of 3 and a width of 3, then zig-zagged around each applique. I highly recommend a walking foot for this.

4. Add a bias tape hem, if you'd like one. Again, felt won't unravel, so any kind of hem is completely optional. However, I thought that this skirt did look much more finished with the addition of a double-fold bias tape hem in a complementary color. I'd have had to stitch the appliques all around the hem, anyway, so it wasn't that much more work to add it.

5. Add the waistband of your choosing. For the elastic waistband on this skirt, I cut a piece of 2" elastic in a complementary color to the exact waist measurement (22.75"). I lapped the ends, marked both the elastic and the skirt waist at the quarters, pinned them together at the marks,  then zig-zag stitched them together, stretching the elastic to match the skirt as I sewed. It took less than ten minutes!

While felt is a very sturdy fabric, if I were you I'd remind whoever plans to wear the skirt that felt is also quite delicate. I know people were wearing these all throughout the 1950s, but people took better care of their clothes then, and also Velcro wasn't commercially available until the late 1950s. Velcro will pull at felt something terrible, so be careful when it's around.

Felt also doesn't wash well in a washing machine and doesn't dry well in a dryer. It'll be okay if you wash it on cold and hang it to dry, but it's better yet if you pretend like you're wearing your poodle skirt to a sock hop every time you put it on and treat it accordingly.