I
finally finished (stopped) Maggie's quiet book. It's almost entirely felt. I love felt. I bound it by sewing button holes on the side of each page and tying it together with yarn. That way I can easily add more pages when I get around to it. I only have five pages done so far. Click on any images to view them larger.
Gumball page: color matching. Each little circle is velcro-ed on. Maggie can do this one herself and loves to pretend to get the colors wrong. I pretty much copied this exactly from
Crafty Chic.
The idea for the Seasons page came from
Sew Can Do. Maggie is obsessed with the seasons, so this was perfect for her. My Spring umbrella turned out ugly, so I did Easter eggs instead. I embroidered the name of the season on each section using my trusty darning foot.
Some of the pieces snap off. Maggie likes to take them all off so I can put them on again for her. I used sew-on snaps.
The main thing I looked at while making the button-on flower page was an etsy listing that isn't up any more. The flowers are the only thing in her book made from fabric. I topstitched two layers wrong-sides together and sewed button holes in the middle of each. This was my first attempt at button holes.
Maggie can't do this one at all yet, but she'll learn.
Another one of Maggie's obsessions: "cuckoo clocks." To make the hands, I sewed two layers of felt together, then added button holes. I sewed the button on loosely so I could put the hands on (they're pretty thick) and they would still turn. I am thinking of adding some words (anything but "Time for Church!") but I haven't decided what.
This is the page for Maggie to do her felt puzzles on. I got the idea for the felt puzzles from
Crafty Chic, but I didn't copy her puzzles and I'm glad I didn't: the puzzles are a LOT harder than you'd think! I don't have anything to keep the puzzle pieces in. I couldn't decide how to do it, so we're going to just use a baggie for now.
These are the first puzzles I made, months ago. The dinosaur one is really hard to do.
Here is my most recent puzzle, the fish. I thought about it a lot before I did it, and here are some felt puzzle tips:
- Fill as much of the square as you can. White space makes it difficult to figure out where the piece goes. This is the dinosaur's problem. That's why I added the bubbles and seaweed to the fish puzzle. Also, the seaweed anchors the puzzle and it's easy to tell Maggie that it goes on the bottom.
- Sew everything down before cutting the puzzle up. Then stitch again around any open edges.
- Use a rotary cutter, if you have one. This should have occurred to me much sooner than it did.
- Don't make a 7" square puzzle. Seriously. Just make it 6 inches and you can easily cut it into 2" squares. This is the "beep beep"'s problem.
Here are some more homemade quiet books I looked at for ideas while making this. A lot of these are for very young children so I didn't use them. I wanted something very interactive for Maggie.
ABC quiet book
How to make a quiet book - very detailed instructions and some great ideas.
Homemade by Jill
Naptime Journal
Rachel and I made a dress! We were trying out her sewing machine to see if it was worth keeping (ended up selling it on KSL in about 1/2 an hour) and also teaching Rachel how to sew. We used the Coffee Date Dress pattern from BurdaStyle. The instructions on BurdaStyle are not working, but available on the designer's website. We left out the ruffle, and added a lining. Adding the lining made the whole project a big pain, but our [free] fabric required it. Not bad for the price of a zipper!
John came up with this idea this morning while I was sleeping in and he was entertaining Maggie. They strung styrofoam pellets onto a piece of ribbon and made a necklace for Maggie. She decided the styrofoam was "ghosts".
Of course, Maggie had to make a card too. Hers will go to her papa.
Maggie is wearing a shirt I made her from an old black T-shirt. I kept the neckline intact to make it easier on myself, and appliqued a candy corn shape out of a scrap of fabric from last year's candy corn pants. I made one for Dalton too, but John found this cute glow-in-the-dark ghost onesie, and we couldn't resist.
Got to meet his great-grandma today.
Ember was timid about holding him, but did great.
Snuggling Uncle Brook.
You can read all about it on our regular blogs (links to journals in the sidebar).
Proud Papa!
Happy to be clean and dressed
Family of Four
*Snuggle*
Me and Grandpa Dalton on my first birthday... right before I put my foot in the cake.
The idea for the Seasons page came from Sew Can Do. Maggie is obsessed with the seasons, so this was perfect for her. My Spring umbrella turned out ugly, so I did Easter eggs instead. I embroidered the name of the season on each section using my trusty darning foot.
Some of the pieces snap off. Maggie likes to take them all off so I can put them on again for her. I used sew-on snaps.
The main thing I looked at while making the button-on flower page was an etsy listing that isn't up any more. The flowers are the only thing in her book made from fabric. I topstitched two layers wrong-sides together and sewed button holes in the middle of each. This was my first attempt at button holes.
Maggie can't do this one at all yet, but she'll learn.
Another one of Maggie's obsessions: "cuckoo clocks." To make the hands, I sewed two layers of felt together, then added button holes. I sewed the button on loosely so I could put the hands on (they're pretty thick) and they would still turn. I am thinking of adding some words (anything but "Time for Church!") but I haven't decided what.
This is the page for Maggie to do her felt puzzles on. I got the idea for the felt puzzles from Crafty Chic, but I didn't copy her puzzles and I'm glad I didn't: the puzzles are a LOT harder than you'd think! I don't have anything to keep the puzzle pieces in. I couldn't decide how to do it, so we're going to just use a baggie for now.
These are the first puzzles I made, months ago. The dinosaur one is really hard to do. 
Here is my most recent puzzle, the fish. I thought about it a lot before I did it, and here are some felt puzzle tips:
Here are some more homemade quiet books I looked at for ideas while making this. A lot of these are for very young children so I didn't use them. I wanted something very interactive for Maggie.
Peek-a-boo!
Posing on the cow bench while John and Jodi conquered the Iguana of Death.
Tractor ride.
Corn Box.
Corn Stocks.
Lost in the maze.
