No Sew Felt Board Set

(This is from several weeks ago. I’m playing catch up now that I’m done with my daughter’s birthday party, there was an awful lot of crafting going on in May, but not so much writing I guess.) Originally I was going to make a book, and it was going to have eight pages, not four, but that was revision zero, and this project was very freeform. I didn’t actually do any planning, I just started cutting things out. What I ended up with was four felt story boards for the seasons, crammed into a folder made out of a manila file folder. Awesome marketing speak right? Also if you notice, I misspelled summer the first time I wrote it… I am so great, right? Rightio. But it was a fast and fun project, and I like how you can stick all the boards next to each other, and ignore the seasons, just play. And what is more summer than pirate ships on fire? I have no idea. That’s why I made a flaming pirate ship. But you could move the fire down to the rocks, or you could tip one of the ships up on end under the little wave piece and pretend it was a sinking flaming pirate ship. Because of course that’s what happens next, right? Or maybe it starts to rain next. And are candy canes traditional snow men arms? I’m not sure, but there they are. What are those strange orange rectangular flowers? Rebecca cut those out.

Yes I had fun making this, and it was a great low stress project. How far wrong can you go when you are just cutting shapes out of craft felt, and occasionally coloring in bits with permanent marker? Okay, so you can misspell Summer. I’ve always had a weakness with double letters. Moving on already.

I made the ‘boards’ by cutting out rectangles of medium fusible interfacing, and ironing felt down to them for the backgrounds. You get tightish ‘seams’ if you push the felt pieces together to make a little mountain along the seam edge before you iron it. When you iron it the slight bump gets shoved around into a tight seam, whereas if you start with the pieces perfectly matched up they shrink away from each other when you iron them. I could have just used solid colors for the backgrounds, but I wanted a ground and sky look. After I ironed the felt pieces down I trimmed them to size with a quilt ruler and rotary cutter. Oh, and I forgot. I didn’t want the cut shapes sticking to the back of the board on top when they were stacked, so I used the super high end technique of gluing-sticking them down to some heavy art paper. It probably would have been cuter to sew around the edges stitching the paper to the felt and interfacing, but I was stubornly resolved to get the whole thing done without resorting to a sewing machine. Because that would have been so predictable or something. Because I felt like it. Maybe I was determined to use No Sew in the title for no good reason, and why do I keep typing New Sew and going back and correcting it? I don’t know. New No Know Sew Knows New No Sew, So Know Sew Knows and No Sew Sews.

Mostly the shapes are just felt, but in some places I wanted some extra detail without adding tiny little pieces, since I was making this for a turning two year old’s birthday. And realistically, half the pieces are going to get lost in the first week anyway. But it’s craft felt. If it’s enjoyed you can always add back pieces later with some scissors and a couple of 25cent investments. So I got out my sharpie collection and drew in the ships masts and candy cane stripes. If you actually wanted to put real time into this project, some embroidery probably would have been great, but then would you cry if the piece got lost? Depends I guess. A line of stitching isn’t that much effort after all. But then it all adds up, and sometimes you just need a really fast freeing project for a birthday party in a couple days.

Check out that ‘leet cobbled-I-mean-stapled together folder. Classy I tell you. It’s so great when you can occasionally lock the perfectionist in the closet and just get something done.