Week #24 - Laser Cut Mobile - Under The Sea

For this week's craft I wanted to do something a little bit different and so I approached my absolute favourite arts and craft haven Fred Aldous and asked them if they would donate an hour of time with their laser cutting machine to the project.

For those who don't know; Fred Aldous is an art supply paradise smack dab in the middle of Manchester's Northern Quarter... but you don't have to go to Manchester to visit them. Their website perfectly solves the dilemma many of us face when it comes to choosing between supporting independent retailers and finding great deals online: Fred Aldous started off in 1886 selling cane, willow and yeast, and they now offer more than 25,000 products!

I've used Fred's laser cutter hire service in the past, and always had lots of fun cutting out my various christmas decorations, badges and other projects... so with baby visits still on the brain, I thought I'd approach them with a plan to cut out an under-the-sea mobile for week #24's project.

The Laser Cutter at Fred Aldous

Paul and Elle were really accommodating and we organised an hour of laser-time in their studio, as well as access to enough free scraps to cover my project.

For details on how to hire the Laser Cutter at Fred's click above.

This time I was raring to go and prepared from my past experience... but upon my first visit a few years' back, I was quite a newbie and found the staff gave really helpful advice when it came to preparing my designs and making the most out of my hire-time. Within no time, the machine was cutting away my seahorses, jellyfish, whales, fish, and starfish.

Check out the laser in action:

Within the hour I had a nice stack of shapes cut, and was ready to go home, stain them, string them up and hang my mobile.  Because I didn't trust myself to guess how the pieces would hang, I did not use the laser to cut the hanging holes and instead did that at home myself with a drill... this also made sure I had some adaptability with how I planned on hanging the project.

The mobile is hung with strong brown linen thread, and all of the knots are both tied and fastened with crimped beads for safety.  Please have a look at how it turned out and don't be shy to share your thoughts and comments.

The silhouette of the mobile

Thanks to the generosity of Fred Aldous' donated laser-time and materials, this item will be up for auction with 100% of the sale going to Macmillan Cancer Support, starting tonight, Sunday, July 8th and ending in one week's time Sunday, July 15th at approximately 8:17 pm.  In the meantime, while you are waiting for the auction go live, please browse the two other items I have ending today!

Week #23 - Pram blanket continued...

Thanks for your patience as I solved the technology gap that was preventing me from posting.

I decided not to do a full step-by-step tutorial for this one, as a lot of the basic steps are covered in some of my other tutorials... but I'm going to go through a few of the steps to show you just how I did it.

Firstly, I assembled 6" by 2" strips into a lovely french braid pattern, before trimming it down to a clean 5.5" strip measuring the length of the blanket (31 inches with 1/2 seam allowances).

Then using a 1/4" seam I attached it to some linen pieces to complete the top, and sandwiched the top, back, and cotton wadding layers together basting with pins. (Laying the top and back pieces rights side facing, with the wadding behind it).

Then I sewed around the edges (pivoting at the corners) using a 1/2" seam leaving about a 6 inch gap for turning the project inside out.

Then I turned the project inside out, pressed, and basted about every 5 inches with safety pins. You can see in the above shot that the 1/2" seam folds into the project so that I when I sewed around the exterior with a scant 1/4 seam, the hole is closed up by my top stitching.

I Finished the project with a top stitch around the border, and then some wavy stitches to quilt the layers together... I tied off my ends, trimmed them, and voila!

This linen blanket, and the unsold lavender bag from last week are listed on ebay and will end this Sunday evening, so please bid and support Macmillan Cancer Support!

** please note the auctions above update only once an hour, so there may be less time to bid than you think! please click to follow the link.