Choosing Fabric Using Illustrations from a Kids Book

There's nothing like getting a Halloween-related post published in early November, right? But although this is a post I've been planning for well over a month, the topic is applicable around the year.

So like many folks on Etsy, I sell there partly to support my habit. And lately my habit for secondhand books, something I've had for years, has grown. As a result, I've started selling books in my Etsy shop. But many of my finds go directly into our household library and some have become very popular with my kids. The Vanishing Pumpkin by Tony Johnston with illustrations by Tomie dePaola is one of those books.

A recent secondhand book find -- it was in much better shape before repeated readings over the past month or so.

This is a fun book to read aloud and kids seem to really enjoy it. After reading it a few times I started to notice dePaola's autumnal color palette.

I liked how well the soft shades of orange, green, brown, and yellow with added blue and purple stayed in a similar value range while varying from one another, sort of a like a great scrap quilt. Soon I had taken the book out of my kids' room and into my fabric room to use as a guide in pulling fabric. Matching my stash to the pictures sounded easier than it ended up being, giving me a whole new appreciation for dePaola's work.

Matching just the right shades was a challenge, and even then I rarely had exact matches. I quickly realized that even the "darker" olives and browns in the book were actually in a medium value range, and I had few fabrics that matched. Above are some fabrics that made it through the first round but that got cut when I reevaluated in better light.

The blue of the old woman's coat was particularly hard to match -- the blue swatch shown above is from Lizzy House's 1001 Peeps line.

In the end I found I mostly had orange and green fabrics that would work, with a few yellows/golds, some neutrals and only one purple. It certainly could work specifically for Halloween, especially with more emphasis on the purple with maybe some black mixed in. Or I could take out the purple and blue and still have a nice selection for an autumn quilt or table setting.

I also have a Kona Solid charm pack -- I think it's the Dusty collection -- that had fabrics that would work, particularly for the olive green range. Which should come as no surprise, really.

I think I might cut some charm squares from the fabrics I pulled from my stash so I have my own precut  set ready to go the next time I want something soft and lovely for fall. And now I'm already eyeing other books in my kids' room for possible quilt inspiration. I wonder what's next?

Happy Birthday to Me!

I know, I know, I haven't blogged about anything of substance in well over a year, and yet I think I can just waltz back in to talk about my Etsy shop?

Well, yes, actually, that's exactly what I'm doing.

I just want to put it out there that my little shop just celebrated its second anniversary, and to mark the occasion I decided to offer free shipping to the U.S. on any orders placed before midnight (Mountain time) on Sunday, August 11. However, I've been meaning to get this blog post up for the past day or so and am getting to it so late that I'll probably leave the $0 shipping charges in effect through Monday evening.

I've been adding items to my inventory lately knowing that this is the time of year when most people are starting to look for seasonal fabric. Hence, I have some Halloween fabric:

Halloween fabric Spellbound from Maywood Studio 4 fat quarters

Halloween fabric Trick or Treat from Northcott

Halloween fabric Harvest Moon border stripe from Northcott 1/3 yard

And some Christmas fabric:

Christmas fabric 6" charm squares w/gold metallic accents

Christmas fabric 5" charm squares w/snowmen & snowflakes

Christmas fabric Confectionary Stripe from Michael Miller 1/2 yard

And I'll be adding some more I expect.

I also have more vintage items -- to be specific, I have vintage illustrated children's books. I've been collecting kids books for years, and while I love bringing them home I don't always have room to keep them. Actually, at this point I have more vintage items in my shop than I have fabric for sale.

Here are some of the books:

Kid Camping from Aaaaiii! to Zip by Patrick F. McManus

Cat (hardcover book) by B. Kliban

Bernard of Scotland Yard by Berniece Freschet

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, adapted by Diana Stewart, illustrated by Charles Shaw

 I also have four volumes of the Best in Children's Books series from the late 1950s to 1960: volumes 22, 25 (including illustrations by Richard Scarry), 32, and 37 (also with illustrations by Richard Scarry). I love this series -- each volume offers a fantastic cross-section of mid-century illustration styles.

And there are more. There are some interesting, unique books in there: Bernard of Scotland Yard is wonderfully illustrated throughout but the story and text are involved enough to make it a great book for an early reader to tackle on her/his own. And the illustrations in Tales of Edgar Allan Poe are not for the little ones; in fact, that book would be a great addition to any horror fan's collection. Kid Camping from Aaaaiii! to Zip is a fun guide to what a kid might expect to find while camping, covering silly topics (like the "crouch hop" one does after hammering one's thumb setting up a tent) as well as important ones (like, for instance, bears in the wilderness). And the illustrations by Roy Doty bring me right back to my Judy-Blume-reading youth -- I half-expect Fudge to appear every time I turn the page. You can see examples of the illustrations in the Etsy listings.

OK, I'll stop now. Thanks for reading.

Homemade Halloween: DIY Piglet costume

Last year I was determined from early on that the toddler would go as Piglet for Halloween. The officially licensed retail Piglet costumes sell for over $30, and there was no way I spending that much money (yes, I'm cheap) for what amounted to a photo op since she was still too young to trick or treat.

Plus, it's more fun to make these things on your own, right? I mean, right? OK, it's definitely more time-consuming, but I put together what I thought was a pretty darn cute costume for about $8. I needed three things: pink footie pajamas, a striped sleeveless sweater, and Piglet ears on a headband.

I decided to go with Disney's version of the sweater (that is, pink with horizontal stripes) and not the classic E.H. Shepard version (which usually is blue or sage green), just so the costume would be more recognizable.

The pj's and sweater were fairly easy although I did have to make a few thrift store runs throughout October to find pieces I could work with. [Note: thrifting a costume is not a last-minute project in my experience; it takes planning and persistence. I think of it as a treasure hunt!]

Not a great photo, I know. I removed the sleeves from the sweater and used a pink fabric pen to color in the white stripes.

The ears required more work. I started with a $1 pair of bunny ears from the thrift store.

This is a shot of the back; the front of the ears had shiny white polyester "inner ears" for lack of a better term. The ears got their shape from a loop of thin wire. I experimented with trying to pinch the wire into more of a pig shape but finally decided more deconstruction was needed:

1. I used the toddler's Piglet plush toy as my guide and traced one of the ears onto paper to make a template.
2. With a seam ripper I removed the white fabric from the pink "outer ears," exposing the support wires. Using my template as a rough guide, I trimmed the pink fabric leaving about 1/2" all around.
3. With wire clippers, I snipped the support wires where they connected to the headband closer to the center, straightened the wires out, and then snipped the excess so there would be some support going almost to the tip of each ear.
4. I cut 2 ear shapes out of light pink crafting felt backed with fusible web, and cut 2 more ear shapes from hot pink crafting felt about 1/4" smaller also backed by fusible web.
5. I positioned the light pink felt ear shapes with the fusible web facing down on the wrong side of each outer ear, sandwiching the support wires, and fused in place.
6. Then I positioned the hot pink ear shapes in place, and pinched the excess outer ear fabric over the light pink felt and under the edges of the hot pink felt. Once the contours were right and the raw edges were hidden I fused the hot pink felt in place.

Ta-dah!

Piglet ears, front and back.

Trust me when I tell you, the toddler was the cutest darn Piglet you've ever seen. But then again, I am biased.