Cutting cake circles out of rectangular pieces of foam leaves
little wasted corners. So here's project #4 - what to do with
the odd-shaped leftover bits..... well, what I did with mine,
at any rate. I cut cubes from them
and made baby blocks.
plus the precious, for-special-occasions-only Very Good
Wool Felt (except the purple dress applique is fleece
because I didn't have purple felt).
I've always felt that if I ever made a quilt, I'd use a lot of
white in it and maybe only one or two other colors. Since
these blocks are a bit like a 3D quilt, I used a lot of
white and gave each block a color scheme.
Several years ago when I made the sofa, I made the leftover
bits into blocks, too. I was into ribbon-tag baby toys then,
and with just the one child and all the time in the world,
the prototype blocks had ribbon tags
applique
and some ric-rac craziness.
Some notes about making these blocks:
- The bigger they are, the more stable they tend to be when stacking. The 3" ones are the best.
- Like with the cake, I did not consider stuffing them with polyfill because I wanted them to be able to stack well (and not frustrate the poor children trying to practice this developmental skill).
- I've put bells in the middle of some of them, but the density of the foam does muffle the jingle. The bells work better in blocks stuffed with airy polyfill.
- To sew the fabric cases, I cut the foam cube first, then measured one face and added quarter-inch seam allowances all round. So the 3" cube would need fabric squares of 3.5".
- There are many ways of putting the fabric squares together but the method that was least stressful for me was
- to sew four squares in a row, then join the short edges of the first and last square, to make a sort of cylinder
- then attach the top square, sewing around all four sides
- then attach the bottom square, sewing around 3 sides and leaving the fourth open.
- Snip the corners, turn right side out and insert foam cube
- and ladder-stitch the opening closed.
I found that this method allowed the corners to meet nicely.
Bit of risky self-disclosure: for a brief and dangerously
silly moment, I also thought of sewing circles onto
them and turning them into giant dice.
Fortunately, the moment passed.
Clever! I can't bear to waste as well.
ReplyDeletehow fun! and I love how you grouped the colors and made similar sides on each die (e.g. terrycloth side, applique side, etc.)
ReplyDeleteand what's wrong with huge foam dice? : ) If i ever make another kids game board, I think I make a huge foam die to go with it!
K: Nothing wrong with foam dice! It's just that it reminded me of those furry dice that used to hang from the rear-view mirrors of cab drivers in Singapore, ha ha! I knew our Singapore readers would snort when they read that bit. Now foam dice for real game purposes are very cool!
ReplyDeleteThese look great! I really need to get my hands on some foam (because I don't have enough projects in the works as is, of course...)
ReplyDeletehullo,
ReplyDeletethey look lovely. Please where did you get your foam? Yvie