With lockdown and time off work during the past few months, many of us have be trying out new things: workouts, reading challenges, baking (my Instagram feed consisted of only banana bread for while), etc. Being furloughed from work meant that I should have been able to get some of my many incomplete sewing projects finished, but instead I’ve created a bunch more instead. Oops. I’m sharing a few here on GS that you lovely readers can try yourself!
If you think you can’t sew, think again. It’s not too tricky and these crafty little projects don’t have to be neat and perfect to turn out amazing. Also, you’ll be surprised at how much glue I’ve used for a couple of these pieces! First up on the list of crafts is this framed patchwork R2, made from small bits of scrap fabric. If you don’t have an endless supply of scraps like me (many MANY carrier bags of tiny pieces of fabric), then you can use old clothes that were destined for the charity shop, or old curtains or duvet sets, to name but a few. These can also make great gifts for people too and don’t cost the earth!
To start, I made a pattern for my little droid. When drafting the pattern, make sure it sits nicely in the frame you’re using- you don’t want to to be too big or too small. You want to try and make the shapes as simple as possible. Droids are great for this, as they’re primarily made of very few colours and normally a series of circle and rectangles. You’re not going for massive detail. These are meant to be simple images that will be instantly recognisable from the colour and shapes! Everyone knows what R2 looks like, everyone knows his basic shape. If you are more confident with sewing, why not keep the simple shapes to start with, but then add some more details with a bit of embroidery? Once you have a basic pattern and have made any notes for things you need to remember, it’s time to get cutting. Handy tip: before cutting all the fiddly shapes, why not trace them onto a new piece of paper and cut them from there? That way you can still use your original pattern as a reference guide later on.
Once you have all the paper pieces cut, it’s time to choose fabrics. This is where you can get creative with texture and the effects that different fabrics give. I opted for some silver cracked pleather (fake leather) that I had left over from my uni days, a light blue wool for the panels, red and black felt for his light and lens, a white cotton from an old shirt for his main body and finally, a pale blue cotton to use as a background. He looks so angry in this picture.
I arranged all the piece in the formation I wanted, then grabbed a bottle of PVA glue and started sticking them all down. Some stuck better than others: PVA is not the best, but it’s all I had to hand. A fabric or superglue would’ve been better! To properly anchor the pieces down, I handstitched the tiny pieces using a stab stitch (an almost invisible stitch that can be pretty strong, plenty of video tutorials about that explain it better than I could in writing!). For the main body, I machine stitched around the whole of the outside of the white cotton using a running stitch, then when over places where R2 would have panels, where his legs were separate from his body, etc. You can’t make them out from far away, but up close, it gives a bit more definition to the bigger pieces of fabric. To mark these out beforehand, I drew on the fabric using an erasable pen, which disappears with stream from an iron. If you sew, I highly recommend getting a couple of these, they are a gamechanger. Just remember to do a test patch first to make sure it comes off the fabric you’re wanting to work on!
Finally, I added a little speech bubble to the picture. I completed this project on Twitch and my followers suggested I write the text in Morse Code. Seeing as R2 communicates in a series of beeps and whistles, I thought this was a great idea! So I googled the phrase I wanted, drew it on with erasable pen and handstitched over the top. It says “bleep bloop bleep.” I like it. All that was left to do was frame it and have my bigger R2 take a picture with it. I’m so happy with how it turned out and I hope you try this out at home! They’re fun to make and you can collage anything you want with scrap fabrics!
Look out for the next GS Lockdown Craft for you to try out at home! What new things have you tried out in lockdown? Let us know and send us your pics via social media!
GS Blogger: Jess Hawke