Saturday, March 5, 2011

Eric Carle Needs to Stop Releasing Fabric

Last year Eric Carle (or his company) released yet another batch of fabric based on his books, this time incorporating characters from several stories. I wasn't going to make another quilt -- for one thing, I had run out of Beadboys to give them to. The panel design however, with one picture of a sun and daytime critters and the other a moon with nighttime critters seemed perfect for pillowcases:
Originally I was going to use a Lotte Jansdotter pattern from Simple Sewing, but something seemed wrong about the pattern. It is for an enclosed pillowcase, with a flap sewn in to cover the end of the pillow that would normally be exposed, but no matter how many times I read the pattern it made no sense. Finally, I took a scrap of fabric and made a 2" by 3" pillowcase following her directions, and yup, there was an error. The flap needed to be placed between the two sides when sewing, not folded over the opposite side.

And yet, after figuring that all out, I ditched the pattern anyway -- because the panels were not big enough by themselves to serve as pillowcases, I'd have to add fabric, and taking into account the fold would complicate it needlessly. So I just bought batiks in appropriate day and night colors and sewed them to each side, and sewed the two panels together. I added extra to one end to make a neatish hem, and I zigzagged the seams to keep them from fraying in the wash.

The Beadboys were suitably pleased, although I made the mistake of calling them "presents," which led Beadboy2 to expect a new robot or sword or shark with a laserbeam attached to its head.

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