Friday, September 17, 2010

Alphabet soup

I mentioned in my profile that I come from a long line of creative people.  My sister, known now as Auntie in our house, does not disappoint.  One of her latest creations is this wonderful play on the old school plastic letters.  She crafted these beautifully stitched fabric letters from old jeans and scraps of bold quilting fabric (like from this AMAZING quilt she made for Kieran's first birthday).  


Backed in jean with contrast stitching.
These letters are so much fun.  I've been coming up with games to play as the little guy grows up.  Obviously they will be good for learning the alphabet and spelling.  What I'm looking forward to is crossword puzzles and "scrabble like" games.  Yes, I am getting excited about spelling games.  I'm sure they will turn into spelling bees and spelling wars as Kieran gets bigger and our competitive nature rubs off on him.  My mom, sister and I were able to make a crossword puzzle using all of the letters except for two, pretty good right?  Especially because we only had one set of vowels to use! 



The texture and colors of these fabric letters inspire creativity.  There is no way a set of plastic letters would get me excited enough to stay up late "playing".  That's why it is so important for us to take the time to show our children that not everything comes from a store looking one way, made of one material, only having one use.  A pretty good lesson to learn as a little one.  

What are your favorite handmade inspirations?

3 comments:

  1. I just love having a chance to reuse materials! It's such fun!

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  2. What an amazingly great idea! My little guy is 7mo old and I may have to borrow this Alphabet idea! He'll be 1 in April so I've got time to work it out :-) Thanks for stopping by my blog too!

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  3. You should make the letters for sure! I would suggest that you finish the edges though. The denim fringe is cool, the deconstructed look is hip afterall, but the strings are a little annoying to pick up.

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