Tuesday, June 15, 2010

It's about time

     Here I gave my lovely blog a makeover and haven't yet posted anything on it.

That is changing today. I am going to post a project I did a while back. I had been wanting a measuring chart for my growing boys for some time. I remember measuring myself as a child on the paneled walls of my family's dining room. I would just scribble it in pencil or pen, whatever I could find laying around the house. And it was done at sporadic times of the year- nothing scheduled.

I envisioned doing something similar for my children. But what if we moved? My dad still lives in our family home, but unfortunately the dining room was renovated in my high school years and the paneling came down. How sad is that? So there is no guarantee it will stay there even if you don't move. Here is my solution.


I started with scrap fabrics that I had used to make each of my 4 boys a little quilt. I also had some scrap muslin and some sweet School House Rock fabric I had got from a bag a friend had given me. I designated how big I wanted my project to be and cut the background fabric (School House Rock) a little bigger than that size.

I cut the muslin into long thin strips. These will be where I mark the measurements. The scraps I cut into rectangles and then sewed them into long strips.


Then I sewed the muslin and scrap strips together- alternating them.


I ironed on interfacing to the front and back to make it more sturdy.


I had made the front piece thinner than the background piece so that when I sewed them together, there would be an edge of the cool School House Rock fabric on each side of the front. I reinforced it all by ironing it flat and sewing along the edge and in between each row.


Before putting it together, though, I had personalized each column of muslin for each of my four boys. I used fabric from their baby blankets for their initial.


I did fun little things by their initials to really dress it up and make it a little more interesting.


The denim was used to finish the ends. I sewed it on and left loops on the ends to slip a wooden dowel into it on the top and bottom to help keep it straight and reinforced.


On the top I sewed a rope into the denim to use for hanging it up.



I measured from the floor up and put marks for 2ft, 3ft, and so on along the sides. That way, if we ever move, I just have to measure from the floor up and hang it accordingly. I mark the measurements of the boys on the white muslin with blue fabric pens. It shows up great and has been an awesome addition to our school room.

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