Category: craft

Today is really special – it’s Sherri’s birthday!

I was trying to think of what she might like (got Robin’s input, too), and I was thinking, well – you know, everybody likes to have a birthday cake that’s just a little different. I decided to try to do something really special and make a birthday cake out of felt to commemorate Sherri’s special day!

Materials:
1 yard pink felt (there will be some left over)
3 sheets 8-1/2″x11″ white felt
2/ea embroidery floss in white, pink, and hot pink
embroidery needles
rotary cutter and self-healing mat
scissors
ruler or clear measurement guide
cottony stuffing

To make this particular birthday cake, there are six main pieces to cut out. Two are the top and bottom round pieces, one is the long side that wraps around the cake, giving it height; one is the part that has the name hand-stitched; and the other is a decorative circle to set-off the embroidered name piece. The last is the felt that’s used to make the decorative ‘icing’.

Directions:
I cut out all my shapes first – I took a supper plate and cut out two circles from pink felt to make the top and bottom round of the cake. Then I cut out the side of the cake (this wound up being about 1/3 the height of what you see here), and took a bread plate (to use to cut around as the 2nd biggest circle) and a cereal bowl (to use to cut around as the smallest circle – the one that’s embroidered on).

I cut out 2″-wide strips from white felt to cut the icing circles out of. The icing circles turn out to look like the icing that’s piped along the edge of a cake – this is sooo easy too… Just take two circles that you’ve cut out – these are a little bigger than a quarter – fold the two circles together like a taco, then sew the folded edge together:

Then, I just sewed all the icing to the edge of the top of the cake:

Next, I took the smallest circle (the one that I cut out using a cereal bowl as the guide) and hand-stitched Sherri’s name. After that was done (it’s not ultra-perfect, but not bad!), I stitched that circle to the 2nd largest circle. After that, I used white embroidery floss to stitch to the top of the cake. See how it’s all just a little off-center? It makes it look just a little more interesting than if it were all just piled perfectly in the middle:

Next, I sewed the long piece that serves to give the cake height. What I do is just cut this length longer than I know it needs to be, then I cut it down to make it right once it’s all sewed together at the top….it’s so much easier than stressing over exact measurements. Here it is, sewed it to the top of the cake, and sewed the seam also. Getting close – I sewed 3/4 of the bottom circle on – that’s to leave room for me to put the stuffing in:

Here it is, all done! My needlework can use some help (the icing circles – where they meet up with the cake top – is pretty rough but it’s not…distracting) but overall, I’m really happy with it – and most importantly, I hope it makes Sherri happy on her birthday!

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with a couple of the yarns I bought at The Knit Shop in Montgomery – the Berocco in Quest, color 5813 (dark copper), and Trendsetter Yarns in Joy, color 1329 (which has nice bronze and turqoise ‘flags’ as the detail).

Although my knitting skills really aren’t up to making anything even moderately hard, I thought I might try to make a necklace. Here are the results.

I cast on 12 stitches.
I knit the next row.
On the third row, I bound off one stitch from each end.
On the next row, I knit all stitches.
From then on, I continued binding off one stitch from each end, and knitting all on the following row until I was left with two stitches. This gives a nice tapered look:

Then I cut the yarn and wove the ends from the top & bottom into the work.

Next, I took some brown woven jewelry cord, wrapped the Trendsetter Joy around it a few times, and then ran those strings together through the two stitches that had been left on the knitting needle. I cut the strings to the length I wanted the necklace to be (which is about 28″ – I thought it would be the perfect length to wear with a long-sleeve, button-down shirt – a little longer than I usually wear necklaces, but I was going for something a little different this time):

Once that was done, I very loosely wrapped the Berocco Quest around the other two strands so it had just a little more volume. Then, I just added the crimps, jump rings, and lobster clasp, and it looks really nice, I think:

This is the felt doorhanger I made – I just made two similar-size (but not *exactly*) hearts cut from felt – pink and white. I made them just slightly different so when they were sewn together, one would ‘peek out’ from behind.

Some pretty pastel beads went on one side by poking jewelry string through the first layer – and on the other side I stitched in a smaller contrasting-color heart. Inside I put a little cottony stuffing, and finished sewing it together, adding a ribbon to hang the heart by. The whole thing took about thirty minutes!

There are lots of wonderful Japanese craft books (you can find many of them on eBay or Amazon’s Japan site) that show how to make all kinds of things out of craft felt…especially mascots (little animals, etc), flowers, and food items.

I’ve been wanting to try to make a felt cupcake, and as it turns out, I just did a little Google search and found instructions on Craftster. I’m making other things out of felt right now – including a cake I hope to have finished next week – but 100% of the credit for the pattern on this particular cupcake goes to the tutorial by AOI (here). It is just great!

Here’s my version, a little different because I used ‘sprinkles’ rather than the cream puff and strawberry AOI used (I really like hers too!):

Materials:
Scissors
Two colors of felt – one for the cupcake (cake part) and the other for the color icing you want.
Embroidery floss in each of the two colors (or you could even use complementary colors if you like)
Needles
Cottony stuffing
(if you make my version then you’ll also need clear jewelry string and some pretty little beads for the ‘sprinkles’)

Directions:
Cut out circles from both colors – you can use anything circular as your pattern that’s about the size you want the bottom of the cupcake to be.

Cut out a length of the cake portion equal to the circumference of the circle, and as wide as you want the cake part to be tall. (BTW, you can cut the lengths longer than the circumference, then cut them down once you get sewing in case you’re afraid of making them too short to go around, which would be a problem)

Cut out a length of the icing portion equal to the circumference of the circle, as wide as you want the icing to be, scalloping the edge so it looks pretty.

Sew the bottom circle and the cake strip together at the bottom, then sew up the edge of the cake.

Next, work on the icing part. Sew the icing circle and the icing scallop together, then sew the edges of the icing scallop together (just like you did with the cake).

Here’s where I did the cupcake differently – I thought pretty little pastel beads would be pretty as ‘sprinkles’ on top. I took some clear jewelry string, made a knot in one end, then poked it through the felt (it’s strong enough to poke through the felt without a needle or anything). Just take the end through the felt, string on a bead, then poke the jewelry string back through to the back side. Just repeat that over and over until you like the amount of sprinkles and tie off with a knot on the back side again.

Just stuff the cupcake bottom (on mine, the white part) with lots of cottony stuffing, and sew the top on, by threading the scallop edge to the cake part. Voila! I need to work on my needlework super-bad, but I am *so* happy with how they turned out.