Back to school.  Everyone is saying it - it is posted in every store and website that we visit.  Our girls have school at home but still our daughter is in the back-to-school rush trying to get everything ready.  Some of our girls are young and recognition of letters and numbers are the first thing she will need to teach.  So, we spent some time this summer making an uppercase alphabet to add some variety to the learning.  These can be used in many ways and I believe would make a fun gift for any young child.  We used leftover batting pieces, leftover fabric scraps and almost all those colored bobbins that were left over from other projects.  So, as a bonus I now have a bag of empty bobbins.   Here is what our final set looks like:

Here is what you need for each letter

Lightweight tearaway stabilizer

Lapel stick or other temporary adhesive

Two scraps of fabric approximately 4' X 4" (and a few that are 4" X  5" for the wider letters)

One scrap of batting the same size

Rag letter design (you can download the PES files we used below but Annthegran has lots of applique alphabets if you want a plainer style for yours.) 

Here is what you do for each letter:

1.  Hoop the stabilizer in the appropriate hoop for the letter.  Embroider the first color. 

2.  Remove the hoop and lay face down on a flat surface.  Adhere the edges of the wrong side of one fabric scrap and place face up covering the letter on the back of the stabilizer. 

3.  Flip the hoop over and lay on the flat surface.  Adhere the edges of the batting and cover the letter on the front of the stabilizer.  Adhere the edges of the wrong side of the second fabric scrap and place face up on the stabilizer covering the letter.  Carefully slide the hoop back onto the machine and embroider the second color.

4.  Remove the hoop and remove the embroidery from the hoop.  Carefully cut the letter out around the stitching.  Repeat for the rest of the letters.

You can download the rag letter designs we used here.  They are in PES format.  If you have Catalog Xpress you can save them to any other format you might need.  There are also lots of great appliqué alphabets that would work on Annthegran.

For the bag we used the leftover half of a t-towel.   The accent strip already formed a casing so we just embroidered the A again on the front center turned upside down, folded it in half and sewed three sides.  Turned it right side out and ran some piping rope through to make a draw string.  That's it.  Instant gift.

We made extras of some of the letters so they could make words later on.   Hopefully, we will find time to make a set of numbers and lowercase letters.  Maybe even some beginning sound cards  would be fun.  We'll have to see.

Another easy and fun thing that kids love is this fishing game.  You could add letters, numbers or do them in the colors they need to learn. This button snake is great for keeping little ones busy.  And I took these I spy bags to VBS last month. The kids loved them and the preschool teachers all want some for their classrooms.

Take care,

DB