Point of View: Burlap

Welcome to this month's Point of View reveal! The theme for October is "burlap". This is the first time that I have ever made anything using burlap. Luckily I had a remnant of it sitting in my stash, just in case I ever needed some :) Take a look at the great ideas the members of Point of View have come up with this month...

Leanne from Organize and Decorate Everything
Camilla from Rosy Red Buttons
Gwen from Gwenny Penny (Click HERE to find the tutorial for my Embroidery Hoop Turkey) 

Amy from Ameroonie Designs

Angie from The Country Chic Cottage (Our guest this month... Thanks for joining us, Angie!)
Michelle from A Little Tipsy

As always, you can check out each of the tutorials by visiting each of the blogs listed above.

My project this month is this cute Thanksgiving decoration...

I love this chubby little guy! This is an easy, no-sew project. Want to make your own for Thanksgiving? Click HERE for the how-to.

Now it's your turn. Do you have a burlap project that you would like to share? We would like to invite you to join the Point of View Burlap Link Party over at A Little Tipsy. Any project that includes burlap is welcome at the link party. It doesn't have to be a new project... If you have something in your archives that's made with burlap, link it up! We want to see any and all burlap ideas. And remember, by linking up you have the chance to be featured by one of the members of Point of View next week! Hope to see you there!

Embroidery Hoop Turkey Tutorial

I know we haven't even gotten through Halloween yet, but I'm moving on to Thanksgiving :) I saw Betz White's embroidery hoop snowman on Pinterest, and that got me thinking about what other wall decorations I could make with embroidery hoops. I decided that a Thanksgiving turkey might be possible. Since "burlap" is this month's Point of View theme, I thought this might be a good project to put together this month. So... here is my project for the October Point of View reveal...

This turned out better than I ever imagined it would. Isn't he adorable?!?  This is an unbelievably quick and easy project, too. There is no sewing involved. All you need is a glue gun. Want to make this cutie for Thanksgiving?

Here's the how-to...

Materials:

• 4" and 7" embroidery hoops
• burlap, 7" square and 10" square
• felt (Scraps will do for the face and feet. You'll need larger pieces for the feathers.)
• cardboard (I used a Cheez-It box from the recycle bin.)
• glue gun
• scissors

Instructions:

Step 1: Print out these templates at 100% (no scaling, do not "fit to page")...


Step 2: Stretch your burlap inside of your embroidery hoops.

Trim the burlap to 3/4" from the edges of the back of the embroidery hoops. Use your glue gun to glue the edges of the burlap to the inside of the back of the hoops.

Step 3: Take your two embroidery hoops and place the smaller hoop over the top portion of the larger hoop, making sure that the screw on the smaller hoop is at about 5 o'clock. The felt snood will cover the screw. Use your glue gun to glue the two embroidery hoops together like so...

Step 4: Using the templates from Step 1, cut out the beak (yellow), snood (red), two eyes (black or dark brown), and two feet (brown) from your felt.

The red piece is called the "snood". Ignore the feet in this picture... I ended up cutting the legs shorter.

Use your glue gun to glue your felt face pieces to the small embroidery hoop, covering the screw on the smaller hoop with the red snood.

Flip your hoops over and glue the feet onto the back of the large embroidery hoop.

Step 5: Cut out your felt feathers using the large feather template from Step 1. You need five feathers. I used green, yellow, purple, red, and orange felt. Cut out 5 cardboard feathers using the smaller feather template.

Use your glue gun to glue one cardboard feather to the back of each felt feather. This will add stability to the feathers so that they won't flop over when your turkey is hanging up.

Step 6: Fan out your feathers to your liking. Set your turkey body on top to make sure you like the look of it and that it fits. Remove the turkey body. Starting with the bottom layer of feathers, begin gluing the feathers to each other everywhere that they overlap until all five are firmly attached together.

Glue the back of the large embroidery hoop of your turkey body to the feather assembly. You're done!

* In order to hang my turkey, I glued a paper clip to the back of the center feather at the very top of the cardboard. Also, I was a little concerned about how stable the turkey would be using my glue gun to put it together, but I was pleasantly surprised by how sturdy it feels.*

Doesn't he look similar to my Thanksgiving place card printable that I designed last year?

I'm still thinking of other embroidery hoop ideas. A Santa Claus or a reindeer might be next!

Now it's your turn... Check out this month's Point of View collage and link up your past or present burlap-themed projects at the Point of View Burlap Link Party!




I'm linking up...

Vintage Postcard Pillow

I have this adorable little vintage Thanksgiving postcard that I bought in an antique shop in Plymouth, Massachusetts about four years ago. It has a drawing on it of a Pilgrim family and the Mayflower, and there is a little poem written on it. The poem reads...

Thanksgiving

What am I thankful for today

For strength to walk on the world's highway

For a hope to hold and a work to do

And the blessing of a friend like you

The postcard sits out in a frame at Thanksgiving time, but the postcard is so small that you don't really notice it. I started thinking about how I could draw more attention to it. I've been seeing all these projects lately where people print directly from their inkjet printer onto fabric, so I decided to give it a try. Here's what happens when you enlarge a cute vintage postcard and print it on some muslin...

It turns into a pillow!

This may be my favorite pillow so far. I've read about printing on fabric on several blogs, but I'll send you to this tutorial because it has lots of pictures. In order to be able to print on your fabric, you have to iron a piece of freezer paper onto the back of it first. That's really about it! If you want the image to be permanent and washable, you need special ink or a product called Bubble Jet Set that you treat the fabric with first.

When I think of Thanksgiving, I always think of brown, but the postcard uses black, so I had to go with a black fabric border. I was going to go directly to the green after that, but both the black and green fabric are so dark that I decided to try a second border with a lighter colored fabric (left over from my first Sadie Shirt), and I'm really glad I did. It gives the pillow a little extra something.

The back is plain muslin with an envelope closure. And I added a homemade tag, of course. I've had a couple of requests for more information on how I do these, so I think I may do a post about it in the next couple of weeks.

So my little framed postcard went from this...

to this...

I love this pillow. I wish it was going to sit out for more than two weeks, but I have something to look forward to when I get out the Thanksgiving decorations next year!

Linking up here:

Quick Thanksgiving Table Runner

As I put away my Halloween decorations last week, I realized that I was going to need to make a new table runner since I had to pack up my Halloween table runner that I made this year. I had grand plans to make something quilted and possibly reversible. Well, that plan quickly went out the window when I looked at the calendar. I don't have time for that with all the Christmas gifts I need to make and Christmas ideas I have swirling in my head.

I started looking through my fabric and noticed that I had quite a bit of the Saltbox Harvest fabric left over from my Acorn Patch Pillow. I decided to use the same basic design that I came up with for my simple Halloween table runner. I made one major change, though. Instead of single strips of fabric sewn to the linen, I made patchwork strips. Here's how it turned out...

I used chocolate brown linen this time, although it doesn't look very dark in the pictures. The Saltbox Harvest fabric came from a charm pack, which made things pretty easy. Here's a basic rundown of what I did...

1.  Cut 5" x 5" charm pack squares in half. You will need six pieces of fabric for each patchwork column on your runner. If you aren't using a charm pack, cut strips of fabric 5" x 2.5".

2.  Placing right sides of fabric together and using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew strips together to form a column. Press your fabric.

  

3.  Cut the column in half lengthwise to create two patchwork column strips for your runner. 

 

4.  Repeat steps 1 through 3 to create however many strips you want to sew onto the linen.

5.  Fold the long edges in 1/4" and press. Do this on both long edges of every patchwork strip you just made.

6.  Cut a piece of linen 13" x 38". Lay your patchwork strips out on top of your linen. You can measure if you want them perfectly spaced.

7.  Pin your patchwork strips to your linen.

8.  Topstitch your patchwork strips to your linen about 1/8" from the edges of your strips.

9.  Hem the edges of your linen, and you're done!

Quick and easy project! Love the way it looks on the table, especially with my new Mayflower centerpiece sitting on it.

I think I'm about done with Thanksgiving projects. I have one more little thing that I'm working on, but then it's time to get on my Christmas list. I hate starting so early... I always feel like I'm neglecting poor old Thanksgiving. I hope she understands.

Linking up here: