OK. It is the Thursday before Christmas! A few weeks ago my daughter showed me a picture of a playhouse made from felt. It fit over a card table. Very cute and felt is easy to work with. So I planned one for the girls for Christmas. When I showed my drawings with the measurements to Andrea she said it looked great but asked if I could make it larger to fit over her dining room table. Then all three girls could fit inside at the same time. So when felt was on sale for half price we bought lots of it to make a pretty pink playhouse. It is now the Thursday before Christmas and although I have all the pieces cut out only two sides are finished. They look like this:
It is a fun project though and I will share the outline designs for the pieces I made along with the basics of what I did.
What you need for the side walls:
Heat and Bond Ultra
Embroidery thread
Bobbin thread
Sewing thread
Felt from the bolt
1. Light pink for the Walls: Measure the table sides and from the very top to the bottom Add 2 inches to the height and width for double seams for the four walls (ours was 56"X 56" X36" tall- yes, she has one of those bar stool style tall ones - so my pieces were 58"wide X 38" tall for each of the four walls.)
2. White for the window: Decide how much of the wall should be window - use a little less than half the width of the wall. (I made mine 26" wide x 14" tall.)
3. Brown for the flower boxes: These should be the same width as the window and less than half as high as the window height. (mine were 26" x 6".)
4. Various colors for the flowers, butterflies, birds and birdhouse: We used some scraps and bought some felt squares for these.
You can download the outline designs here.
What you do:
1. Cut the rectangles out of the center of the white felt rectangles for your windows. Cut strips of Heat and Bond Ultra to fit the window frame and iron them on. Let cool and remove paper.
2. Cut a couple strip of Heat and Bond Ultra the length of your window box and iron them on. Let cool and remove paper.
3. Position the window frame and flower box on the side of the playhouse as desired. Pin in place. Iron in place per the Heat and Bond instructions. Then sew around all the edges.
4. Embroider a bunch of the daisies: Hoop felt squares (I did not use any stabilizer on these.) Embroider the first three thread colors using the same color thread. Now put a small square of felt on top of the center circle and embroider the last color to match that square of felt. Remove from the hoop and cut around the small circle and the daisy.
5. Iron small squares of Heat and Bond Ultra onto the back side of the daisy centers. Let cool and remove the paper. Position the daisies on the window box and iron per the Heat and Bond Ultra instructions. Sew an X in the center of each daisy using coordinating thread.
6. Embroider the butterflies the same way as the daisies. Cut narrow rectangles of Heat and Bond and adhere the butterflies as desired. Sew down the middle with coordinating thread.
7. Embroider the birdhouse and bird. Cut a post for the birdhouse from leftover brown felt. Cut and adhere with Heat and Bond. Sew around the edges. (I did not want to sew around the bird so I cut the Heat and Bond Ultra to the exact size and made sure it was well adhered).
Note: I guess you could cut exact shapes of Heat N Bond and do a no-sew version. Or if you are making a smaller version you could just sew without the Heat and Bond but it sure helped keep the pieces in place on the large walls while I sewed.
The back wall will have an apple tree and a little rabbit and the front has the door and mailbox plus a couple other design elements. I will show you the finished playhouse and give you the designs for these next time. It has been a fun project so far and if deadline stress doesn't take over I will enjoy the project. The first two walls did not take much time so I am confident I can finish this by tomorrow with a day to spare before Christmas.
Part two is here.
Happy Holidays to every one of you,
Take care,
DB