Constructing a Fabric "Gingerbread" House

A fabric "gingerbread" house...

For a small item, this project has taken quite a long time, both in my mind in the visualization and planning process and in the "doing" part.

In mid-July, after our real gingerbread house crumbled to pieces, I took out my notebook and started drafting up a fabric version. I completed the initial planning work at the beginning of August and posted about it here at month's end. (I provided the dimensions for the pieces that I used in that original post.)

I then didn't pick it up again until the last week of September. Oddly enough, it actually felt like "work" that had to be done. I don't often get that feeling about a sewing project, so I was hoping that once I got started again, it would go away.

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Unfortunately, the laborious nature of the first steps did nothing to alleviate my ambivalence. Of course, I refer to the tedious task of cutting fabric and interfacing. 

Cutting: never my favourite part...

For this particular project, not only did I have to cut around the shapes, for the interfacing pieces, I had to cut out the "windows", since it was my intention to wrap the fabric to the other side in those openings and then glue them down.

My process for cutting the window openings...

Peltex was used to stabilize the exterior fabric and Decor Bond for the interior.

Openings cut for the front panel...

Once complete, the two halves are put together with whatever needs to be between them; for example, something see-through for the windows, and – in this case – a fussy cut penguin for the front door.

Two halves of the front door panel...

For the windows, I repurposed a tulle-like material from a gift basket and some scrappy bits of lace.

I glued some "snow" under the window...

The leftover white trim that I showed here in my original post got repurposed as snow under all of the windows (and eventually around the base of the house).

I started the project with the roof. I took a 6.25" x 7" piece of Decor Bond and cut a large piece of the exterior fabric to wrap around it, beveling the corners. (Do this by folding in at the corner first, then fold the adjacent sides inwards.)

By the way, it may seem that the piece of fabric is unnecessarily large; I wanted to ensure that one of the geese was oriented a certain way along the peak of the roof. (I may not have needed this much, but I didn't bother cutting off the excess since this was just a dinner napkin.)

Making the roof panel...

After the Decor Bond was fused into place, I took two pieces of 3" x 7" Peltex and fused them to the underside of the roof panel, leaving a small gap down the middle, for ease of folding the peak.

Note that before adding the Peltex, various trims can be installed along the roof line and fused in between the two layers. I was thinking that eyelash trims, tiny tassels, or mini pom-poms would have been ideal; but alas, I have no such items and wasn't about to buy them.

Las Vegas beads being repurposed...

Instead, what I ended up doing to the roof panel was to add some rivets and some beading. The Mardi Gras style beads (that are glued to the string, so can easily be cut) came from 1990s Fremont Street in Las Vegas.

[For those of you who did the "Vegas thing" back in the day, do you recall when you could go from place to place just collecting freebies? I still have mugs, dice and magnets among my stash of old Vegas souvenirs!]

Rivets applied...

The rivets had a dual purpose. They are decorative, to be sure, but they also keep the two sides of each panel together. (Not so much for the roof, which was fused, but the sides of the house.)

Adding beaded "streamers"...

The beads were added by cutting an "x" shaped hole into the panel (as marked in red in the above picture), which would then allow an end bead to be pushed through to the other side. After cutting the holes, I decided to use the gold beading for the roof panels and used the green segment to decorate the back of the house.

The panels are joined by a wide zigzag stitch, sewn with the panels butted up against each other, side by side, flat. (If you use an appropriately coloured thread, the whiteness of the Peltex will be less evident, although any whiteness can also be interpreted as snow.) The top and bottom edges are also finished with a zigzag stitch.

Oops!!

Of course, I was merrily sewing along and did not notice that one of the side panels was sewn on upside down. If the "snow" trim had not already been glued on, I may have been able to leave it, but as it was, out came the stitch ripper.

View of interior without the roof...

Sewing the last two panels together had to be done just a tad differently. Since they cannot be laid flat against each other at that point, I just stacked them and zigzagged both layers together, keeping a good portion of the stitching off the edge so that it wouldn't be too tight to bend back.

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Oh, I did add one final decoration to the front panel before sewing it all together. See that heart shaped jeweled button near the bottom of the pile in the photo below?

Big ol' dish of buttons...

It has a shank on the back of it, so I cut a slot near the top of the front panel to accommodate placing it into the Peltex. 

All that remained was to go out to the nearest dollar store and pick up a battery operated votive to put inside.

A peek through the window to the interior...

I got a pack of two lights for $1.25. Note that not all battery operated votives are alike. Some require two batteries and some require three. Check what kind are needed and whether or not you can easily get replacements before making a choice. (And of course, you can opt for string lights too; a bundle of them inside would look kind of neat.)

Low light photo showing glow from the battery operated votive...

With a removable roof and everything being collapsible to a flat state, storing this house will not be an issue. 

Stores flat...

While I did not decorate it to the level of our old gingerbread house, it's a charming little Christmas dwelling that will do quite well as a substitute. (By the way, I gradually warmed up to the project as it went on.) 

For those who are truly motivated, several houses in varying sizes would make a nice fabric Christmas village.

'Til next...

Math in Sewing [Pt 2]: How to Make a Fabric Icosahedron

An icosahedron (ai·kow·suh·hee·druhn)...

"Without mathematics there is no art."

So said Luca Pacioli, the fifteenth century mathematician who worked closely with Leonardo da Vinci, the renaissance artist widely assumed to have employed the golden ratio in both his science and art creations. Because this is a sewing blog and not a math class, I am not going to go into any deep explanation of what the golden ratio is, except to say that it's an irrational number equal to 1.6180 (...); visually, it's similar to the rule of thirds that's often recommended for good composition in photos and art.

If you're actually interested in the math, look up phi and the golden ratio. Back in August, I picked up a (e)book by Gary B. Meisner called The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics and am finding it quite fascinating. (The author's musings can be found on goldennumber.net.)

Illustration of Platonic solids from The Golden Ratio:
The Divine Beauty of Mathematics by Gary Meisner

When I saw the above diagram in the book, I felt a strong pull to make that twenty-sided polyhedron, because... well, why not? It reminded me of origami and I was taken with the idea of being able to sew a 3D object that had its basis in the golden ratio.

Thus begins part two of my series about math in sewing. (My stats last week showed a 29% drop in click-throughs from the week before. Obviously many readers weren't/aren't interested in the topic... LOL... which is too bad because there's so much more to come!)

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An icosahedron is made up of twenty faces, each one being the same size equilateral triangle. There are twelve vertices, each formed by five triangles coming together. (Apparently if you're into role playing games, you'll recognize the shape as that of a twenty-sided die.)

It's actually not all that difficult to make out of fabric scraps (you can actually use as few as three different fabrics and not have any same touching, but you'll have to work out the "how" of that by yourself), as long as you also have some single-sided fusible Peltex to spare. You'll also need some clear glue.

Make Template (Using Math!)

But first you need a triangle template, preferably made out of lightweight cardboard. (I glued my paper template onto a piece of a tissue box.) Go with whatever size you want, but all sides must be equal.

 

Follow the method shown here to draw an equilateral triangle.

Start by drawing the base horizonal line. (I made mine 8cm long, which is just a tad over 3".) Mark the midpoint of this line (in my case, at 4cm) and draw a vertical line up from there. Then place the bottom of the ruler at one end of the horizontal line and let the other end of the ruler cross over the vertical line. Measure out the required length (again, 8cm in my case) and swivel the ruler so that the length is correct right where it touches the vertical line. This marks the second side of your triangle. Repeat the process to draw the third side.

Cut Peltex Triangles

Once you've got your template made, put a bit of double-sided tape on the back of it – to keep it from sliding around – and use it to trace twenty triangles onto the Peltex.

Make twenty triangles...

I managed to find twelve scrappy pieces of Peltex that fit my needs; the remaining eight were cut from a larger piece.

Fuse Fabric and Cut

Fuse the triangles onto scraps of fabric, let cool and cut away the excess. Arrange as desired, in five groups of four as shown above. Take a photo and get ready to sew.

Sew Pieces Together

You'll use a zigzag stitch to join the pieces together.

In each grouping of four triangles, butt one piece up against the next adjacent piece and sew together with a medium wide zigzag stitch. Don't bother stitching right to the end points, as the resulting vertices need to be somewhat flexible.

Zigzag stitch the pieces together...

Refer to your photo if necessary as you sew. Once you have five individual strips of four triangles, join them all together as shown above and below.

All sewn up in flat format...

You should now be able to play with this piece and know how it fits together to form a 3D shape.

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Here is where it gets a tiny bit more challenging.

Sew as many other edges together as you can manage...

You probably already know that sewing by hand is required to finish this. To minimize that, see how many other edges you can join by machine. I managed to sew six more (I think), to get to the point where it looked like a clamshell.

Embellish

Before closing it all off, however, you can add some embellishments. I added a couple of brads (to piece #5 and #17 — they are opposite one another on the finished polyhedron).

 

View of the interior after embellishing with brads and rivets...

On pieces #6 through #15, I installed small bronze coloured rivets. If you have a lot of flat buttons, they would also be appropriate to use as decorations.

If you want to add centered embellishments, take your original triangle template and add two other lines to it: from the midpoint of each of the other two edges to the opposite corner. The intersection of all three lines is the middle of the triangle. Punch a hole in that spot and then you can use the template to make marks on the desired faces of your icosahedron. (See bottom right corner of next photo.)

Finish

Begin by sewing a long basting stitch to pull the final edges of the icosahedron together.

Baste before final hand sewing...

Use a basic slipstitch to close off the remaining edges and then remove the basting thread. Hand sewing through Peltex isn't all that enjoyable; go slowly, take breaks, and use a thimble.

This brad shows a snippet from a page of a book...

When the sewing is done, use a pair of detailing scissors to snip away any untidy thread ends. Dab some clear glue to each of the vertices and to any edges that you feel could use some extra stabilizing.

And there you have your own icosahedron!

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For those of you who are interested in how the triangles make up the twelve vertices, here is the "layout" per the numbering format that I added to one of the photos above.

The unique arrangements around the twelve vertices...
(Spot the mistake! Fifth up from bottom, one of those 16s should be a 6.)

Using my 8cm (close to 3") triangles, the finished icosahedron is about 5.5" (13.5cm) high and 6" wide. (Kind of hard to measure accurately.) It's a nice size, both in terms of being scrap friendly and for turning out an object that's not too big and not too small; it can be held comfortably in one hand. Oh, and the reason for mixing imperial and metric is because I'm a Canadian of a certain age. ʘ‿ʘ

This is about 6" measured between widest points...

I made this as a memento of my decade of blogging. Each of the fabric scraps used to create this very cool polyhedron represents a specific memory for me. (No more space to recount those memories in this post, but maybe sometime in the future!) But you can probably see how if you were to choose some coordinating fabrics – i.e., not random ones like I did – this could be a very pretty item. (And by the way, as a die, it rolls very smoothly.)

Did you enjoy this? Well, whether you did or not – ◔ ⌣ ◔ – I'll be back with part three of this series in a couple of weeks. I'll be sharing a more traditional sewing project, but still one that relies on the principles of mathematics.

And now, it's time to do some math of a different kind; as in, starting a...

As of next Saturday, I am officially down to my final ten weekly entries for this blog. Yes – as I've strongly hinted at for some time now – my regularly scheduled involvement with this platform is coming to an end. The past ten years have zoomed by at a clip. On the one hand, I remember the uncertain beginning like it was just yesterday, but on the other hand, so much has happened since then that it's quite clear that many years have indeed passed.

An important lesson learned along the way is to compare yourself only to yourself. (Because comparing yourself to others only makes you miserable and envious or prideful and supercilious.) In that sense, what I've managed to do here this past decade has brought me happiness and a tremendous sense of accomplishment. There were surprises galore and feedback from perfect strangers like none I ever dared to expect.

When I completed my first term as a teacher, one of my students – who was actually older than me – came up and said, "It's been a slice." What apt words for me to close out this chapter of blogging.

'Til next...

Make a Fabric Bud Vase in One Hour

Fabric pieced bud vase...

One of my pet peeves is when someone stretches the truth about a sewing project by describing it as "sew a whatever in x number of minutes".

More often than not, I look at the item and think to myself, that's going to take way more than x minutes. Or, worse, if you only take x minutes, the result is going to look awful.

You probably know that such projects are often named like that to promote click-throughs. I recently came across one that was titled "5 minute whatever" but further along in the description, it actually stated that "you can make this in 10 minutes". Perhaps had I read further still, it would have turned into a twenty or thirty minute project.

Fudging aside, I suppose if you make enough of whatever these are, at some point you'll be sufficiently skilled to make one in the shortest time frame. Otherwise, unless something is truly small and simple — like my 5 minute lip balm carrier — most things are going to take more than mere minutes to make.

Anyway, now that I've babbled on about this, let me show you how to make a bud vase in about an hour.

◔ ⌣ ◔

(It may actually only take about thirty minutes, but I don't want to be an example of one of my pet peeves!)

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Several weeks ago, I showed you a fishbowl vase that I made with some Tim Holtz fabric. There was still some of the fat quarter left over, so the week before Mother's Day, I decided to make my mom a bud vase out of it.

A small vase of tulips for Mom...

Actually, let me backtrack. My first plan was to make her some tulips. Then it occurred to me that maybe I should put those tulips in something.

To make this, you'll need to round up two pieces of (single sided) fusible Peltex interfacing, one 8" x 8" (20cm x 20cm) and one 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm). You'll also need the same amount of fabric and some matching thread.

Cut Peltex to size, draw lines and and fuse to back of fabric...

On the non-fusible side of the large piece of Peltex, draw lines to create four vertical sections that are 2" (5cm) wide. Fuse the interfacing onto the back of the fabric. As you can see, I had a bigger piece of fabric, so was able to fussy cut. 

I would suggest that for best results, fuse and then trim up the fabric, rather than cut the fabric to the exact size as the Peltex and hope for perfection. In the same way, fuse together the small 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm) square of interfacing to a corresponding piece of fabric.

Cut along the drawn lines to create four identical panels measuring 8" x 2" (20cm x 5cm). Whether or not your fabric has an obvious continuous print like mine — but especially if it does — mark the bottom of each panel with a number from 1 through 4, so you can keep track of which one should be attached to which.

Slice into four panels and zigzag stitch...

Zigzag stitch around all four edges of the small square piece and along the short edges of each of the four panels. Then zigzag stitch panel 1 to panel 2, and panel 3 to panel 4. (If you're unsure of how to proceed, check out this post.)

Attach the small square to the end of one of the panels in the same way.

Zigzag stitch all of the short edges...

I was moving along so quickly when I sewed this up and took these photos that I forgot about the bottom edge of the panels. So in the photo above, the three edges that are marked with a black line should be zigzag stitched also. (The fact that I ended up doing them afterwards means that it's not a critical error.)

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The next step is to join the two pairs together.

Once joined, fold the entire thing in half so that panels 1 and 4 are stacked on top of one another (this is shown below as the edge next to the black line); zigzag stitch together.

The last bit of machine sewing...

All that remains is to hand sew the bottom base piece to the remaining three sides.

Hand sew the base...

Since the edges have been zigzagged already, whatever stitch you employ to secure the base won't be visible as long as you use the same colour thread.

Now Mom has a slice of our home city too...

Final suggestion is to put a small bag of pennies or rocks into the bottom to weigh it down before using it. It's very light and may fall over otherwise.

View of the bottom...

What do you think? Is it doable in an hour? I believe so, even with the hand sewing at the end.

I was originally going to try for a cylindrical vase, but ultimately decided against it. I wasn't sure that the Peltex would maintain the shape all the way up. However, perhaps my selvage project shows that a cylindrical vase is possible using other materials? Food for thought.

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I ended up using my selections of Dollar Tree green fabric to the fullest extent. Including the four leaves attached to these three new tulips, I managed to get eighteen leaves in total. Not too shabby for three bucks and some scraps of fusible fleece.

Yellow (vertical) striped tulips...

The three tulips were made out of remnants from my other half's old duvet cover. I made one of each style from Almudena's YouTube tutorial, this time ensuring that the stripes ran vertically.

P.S. Mom appreciated the gift.

'Til next...