Thursday 6 June 2013

Birthday wishes

The eldest in our family celebrated a birthday today.  And while we didn't get much of a chance to see him, what with work and ball games, a garden to be watered and children to put to bed, we did try to carve out a bit of time to show him how special he is to us. 

Chris had complained around Christmas time about our oven mitts wearing out.  We've managed to survive the last six months with what we had, by either strategically placing our fingers in just the right spots so as not to burn ourselves, or else just giving up on baking altogether.  It's time to change all that, though, so the girls and I made Chris some oven mitts.

The pattern we used was from Reinvention:  Sewing with Rescued Materials.  While we didn't do all the stencilling that the pattern describes, I found that painting the fabric was just the right thing for the girls to help out with.  Making sure all had their paint shirts on and the table was covered, we set to work using potatoes, cookie cutters and apples as our stamps.  We used standard fabric paint that could be found at any craft store (I think our paint came from Michaels).

To make a stamp from a potato and a cookie cutter, simply select a potato that is large enough for your cookie cutter.  Cut the potato in half, then press the cookie cutter into the cut side of the potato.  With the cookie cutter still in the potato, use a paring knife to trim the outside edge away from the cookie cutter.  Pull the cookie cutter out and voila - you have a ready to go stamp.  Paint the stamp with the fabric paint and you're off!


 
 
Astrin used an apple as her stamp.  We cut the apple in half horizontally, as the core will look like a star.  This stamp was ideal for a toddler, as it simply requires paint on the entire cut side of the apple.  It doesn't need to be pressed well to get the desired look. 


When it came to assembling the mitt, I found the instructions in the book needed to be tweaked.  Rather than placing the pockets on top of the wool, I found the fabric needed to be sandwiched together as follows:

  ~ painted full-length rectangle - right side up
  ~ pockets - right side down
  ~ plain full-length rectangle - right side down
  ~ wool

All in all, I'm hoping the  mitts can be used by all for a long time to come.



Happy birthday, my love!

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