One of my favorite crafts is felt craft. It originated in Hungary and has a wonderful warm feel to it. Our project was to create a queen from a deck of cards. It's a simple process.

You'll need:

-Felt in black, yellow white and red (wool felt looks the best but can be hard to find. Here's a good source for it: A Child's Dream Come True
-Scissors
-Stitch Witchery (Fig. 1)
-Iron
-Various trims (optional)
-Fabric glue
-Curtain rod

Begin by picking out your card. We created a queen. That's a bit ambitious because of all the detail. You may want to start with something simpler - perhaps an ace from each suit. An easy way to begin is to blow up a card to the size your finished piece will be. This can be done by scanning it into your computer and then resizing it in a photo-editing program. You can then print it out if you have a printer big enough to accommodate the finished size or you can print out sections of it and tape them together to create the full size. Then cut up the print out to create pattern pieces for your card. Once you have your patterns cut out you can cut them out of the felt. Before cutting the felt out lay the Stitch Witchery under it and cut both layers at once. Then lay them out on the ground piece (Figs. 2 & 3). The process is similar to color forms, that felt game from when we were children. Once they're all laid out you can use your iron to set them in place with the Stitch Witchery (Fig. 4). Add the trim using a little fabric glue and your card is finished (Fig. 5). To hang, stitch a 2" to 3" piece of white felt onto the back of the card (or you can glue it with fabric glue along the top edge and the bottom edge of the 2 to 3" piece) to create a rod pocket at the top of the card and thread your brass curtain rod through, then attach some bullion cord to the ends of the curtain rod and hang from a decorative nail.

Episode 202 Main Page