A few months ago a very good friend asked me for my opinion on some hand made height charts she was deciding between for her little lass. None of them were quite what she was after but she was hesitant to make her own. So I suggested I make them one as their Christmas present. We discussed themes and details and I set off on my creative merry way, thinking all things trees, birds, hand-stitched string, buttons and leaves. Here is the result (a month late mind you), a fabric height chart that they can take with them wherever they go and keep for nostalgic purposes for as long as they wish.
The result is a sweet combination of calico, fabric pens, salvaged buttons, original bird artwork via iron-on transfer, pretty backing fabric and wool.
I began by adding all the detail to the front panel of calico. I choose the calico with the little specs in it and washed and ironed it to remove any residue. The original tree and bird were hand drawn in ink on paper and the bird was coloured digitally.
I had a basic plan I suppose, enough to know I was going to be doing a few different ironing steps and the order in which I did them was likely to matter. So I began by hand-drawing the tree with fabric pens (fabric pens are happy to be ironed over). I then cut leaves from the backing fabric and attached them with iron-on hemming tape (also happy enough to be ironed over). Finally I printed out my birds and numbers onto transfer paper (in mirror image of course), cut then out with my longtime best friend “medical scalpel with blade # 11”, and ironed them on…making sure I did not double iron any of the tansfers by accident (iron-on transfers definitely don’t enjoy being re-ironed).
I hand stitched little lass’s name and the circling wool with, ah.. wool, and added the buttons. Then after a good iron (reverse side only) I machined sewed the front panel and backing fabric together, added a few hems, added a rod to hold the top straight, doubled up some wool for hanging and my “tallish keepsake” was finished.
Oh, and some custom made measurement tags attached with salvaged garment safety pins rounded off a ‘job well done’.
