Category: Sewing

Felt Hot Air Balloon Mobile

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So coming up this September (or so) I will be MIA for a bit, and the shop will be closed temporarily while I’m on maternity leave! In preparation for the baby I’ve been working on a few handmade items. I found this fantastic tutorial, complete with patterns, on how to make a felt hot air balloon mobile. I’m not much of a sewer, but since this didn’t require a machine I thought it would be worth a try.

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The setting is not so great since it’s currently hanging in the living room where I assembled it, but it will be going into our bedroom and then the nursery as the baby grows.

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I made a few changes from the original tutorial. First, instead of a large embroidery hoop. I created a frame using sticks of craft wood from Michael’s that I nailed and glued together, and then added screw eyes to suspend the balloons/clouds since I had them leftover from the craft show card display.

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For the patterns on the balloons, I followed a couple of the ideas from the tutorial and tried a few of my own.

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Another change I made was that instead of using cork for the balloon baskets, I made tiny little felt baskets and suspended them from the balloons with embroidery floss.

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I’m happy with how it turned out, and hopefully the baby will enjoy it too.

Sewing Box Organization

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I’ve had the same sewing box since I was a kid, and some of the thread and needles are only slightly younger than me. I don’t sew very often, so I’ve built up a collection of infrequently used thread. During a recent project, I decided I was sick of the mess of spools with loose threads everywhere and took some time to clean it up.

Nice and organized! I cut some cheap takeout chopsticks to fit the width of my sewing box and strung the spools of thread onto each chopstick. There is a little ridge around the parameter of the box, so I used that to rest the chopsticks on.

Under the spools of thread are some smaller notions that I’m keeping “just in case” but likely won’t get used anytime soon. Now I can see what thread is available at a glance.