Star of Patience

Usually when I make something for the blog, I need to make it again to photograph the creation process (the first time around it is impossible because I don't know what I am doing :). But not for this one! Because it takes quite a bit of patience to complete it (hence the title). So once is quite enough for me, thank you. 

All you need is some scrap materials to cut the triangles from, and to fill the star in the end.

Choose your favorite geometrical shape, in this case the base is a icosahedron, with a spike added to each face. If you want to reduce the amount of patience needed, go for the tetrahedron perhaps! Then you see how many triangles you need (60 in my case), and cut them out. For reference, I made them with 5 cm base and 7 cm high. Then you saw together pieces to form the spikes, and this is the easy part, because you can do it on the sewing machine. Once you have the spikes, the fun starts :D because you need to hand-stitch them together, and it takes a while... After you fill it and close it, you might want to additionally  straighten the points where 5 spikes meet. 

Good luck if you try this, hope you have better supplies of patience than me ;)

Paper Cutlery

I sewn some cutlery and had a frog for dinner. What can you make by sewing paper?

It's easy and fun shapes arise quickly. You can use the pattern above or just make up your own shapes.

I used thin cardboard (cereal box will do), and a paper napkin to cover the plate. 

A tip - don't make the lines you sew too curvy, because it will be difficult to pass it through the sewing machine.

Soft Baby Toy

For the little ones, when it is all about color, sound and texture, you can easily make many different toys literally in minutes.

You will need a piece of fabric (length twice the width), some ribbons and some scrap fabrics to fill it. Additionally you can sew a bell inside or add a piece of a crinkly plastic bag for sound effects.

1. Fold the fabric in half (good side inside) and sew two sides together. You can already add some ribbons in this step.

2. Turn the fabric right side out. Fill it with some scrap pieces of soft fabric and add materials that make interesting sounds (experiment!). Close the remaining side by putting the two seams together to form a tetrahedron.

3. Add additional ribbons if you wish, and and sew the last seam to close the remaining oppened side.

For additional colors and textures, you can connect several different fabrics to form the rectangular piece you start with. This will also give you more seams to insert ribbons in. Have fun experimenting!