| | Create a simple, pretty game that will help children remember the treasured little details of family life. Then make a cute matching drawstring bag to store your tiles. | | By Alicia Paulson | MY PINK BEDSPREAD with its tangle of flowers, Dad’s chair, our old oak front door—when I close my eyes, I can almost see these familiar ob-jects from my childhood. I say “almost” because while they are as meaningful to me as the images of people and vacations that fill my albums, no one in my family ever thought to take photos of such everyday items. So when I wrote Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share from the Creator of Posie Gets Cozy, I created this take on the classic memory card game as a way to capture those little things that make up the patchwork of daily life—the wall-paper, the pets, the furniture. It’s an especially great gift for your kids, who can play it now, and then save it to remember home once they’ve moved away.
Make This Game!
You’ll need:
18 digital images, sized at 2 x 2 inches (if you don’t have photo software, try shrinkpictures.com)
6 sheets ink-jet-printable fabric
Scissors
1 yard 36-inch-wide wool felt
½ yard 45-inch-wide printed cotton fabric
Acid-free glue stick
Sewing machine
Zigzag pinking shears
1. Print out two copies of each picture on photo fabric; cut out the image, leaving a white border around all sides so that you end up with a 3 x 3-inch square.
2. Cut wool felt into seventy-two 4 x 4-inch squares.
3. Cut printed cotton fabric into thirty-six 4 x 4-inch squares.
4. To make a tile, stack the fabric layers as follows: Place the cotton printed side down. Place two layers of wool felt on top of the cotton. Then center the photo fabric, image side up, on the stack. Before you sew, dot a bit of glue between each layer to hold all four pieces together without pinning (a pin might leave a hole in the photo-fabric layer).
5. Machine-stitch through the tile layers around the outline of the photo. (The bottom layers are a bit larger than the photo fabric, so it’s easy to keep all the layers lined up.)
6. Trim all the layers of the tile at once with pinking shears, leaving a narrow white border around the image.
MEMORY GAME RIBBON-TIE BAG
You’ll need:
Sewing machine
Two 10 x 12-inch pieces of cotton calico (for the bag)
Scissors
Two 10 x 12-inch pieces of contrasting cotton calico (for the lining)
3/4 yard of 1/4-inch-wide ribbon
Needle and thread
Finished size: 9 x 11 inches
Seam allowance: 1/2 inch (13 millimeters), unless otherwise noted
1. With the right sides of the front and back bag pieces together, stitch the long edges of the bag. Stitch the bottom edge of the bag. Trim the corners, press the seams open and turn the bag right-side out.
2. To make the lining, place the right sides of the front and back lining pieces together and stitch the long edges. Stitch across the bottom of the lining, leaving a 5-inch opening through which you will turn the bag. Trim corners and press the seams open.
3. With right sides together, place the bag into the lining (the outside of the lining will be facing you). With the top edges even, stitch around the top of the bag through both layers. Pull the outer bag through the opening in the lining. Turn in the edges of the opening in the lining and stitch the opening closed. Stuff the lining inside the bag and press the top edge.
4. To make the ribbon tie, fold the ribbon in half. At the fold, hand-stitch the ribbon to the outside of the bag at one of the side seams—about 2 inches below the top edge of the bag—being careful not to stitch through the lining. Wrap the ribbon around the bag, and tie in a bow to close.
This project is taken from the book Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share from the Creator of Posie Gets Cozy by Alicia Paulson, published this month by Potter Craft ($23). |
|
|
