18 March, 2012

Book Reports On Fabric


 My nephew sewed a pillow to demonstrate his affection with the book he read.
{Silly school projects}.

He read Peter and the Starcatchers, written by Dave Barry who used to write all those newspaper columns of epic parody for the Miami Herald and Ridley Pearson who probably wrote something important but I've never heard of him.


The kids were asked to make a quilt representing their book. Suggestions included puff paint and fabric markers.

My sister was asking for advice and I told her about freezer paper fabric transfers. Basically, that's where you cut a piece of freezer paper to the size of your printer paper. Iron it shiny plasticy side down on your fabric, cut that to size,  and then feed this through your printer to print out wonderful graphics, words, & book reports.
The freezer paper gives your fabric the stiffness necessary to feed the fabric through your printer.


When your printer is done printing on the fabric, you peel off the freezer paper and iron it to the next sheet of fabric. I think the freezer paper is re-usable four or five times.
You could buy expensive transfer sheets at any office supply store or even get them at Joann's with your 40% off coupon, but this is far cheaper and easier. And different. Impressive, really.


First; he drew out his pictures and printed the words
{{hey! these words are in english. I thought he was in spanish immersion school???
}}. 
Nephew decided to print the words around the drawings.


Secondly; colors were added.


Thirdly;  They scanned in the papers and made a file on the computer.


Fourth;  He sent the file to the printer loaded with the fabric attached to freezer paper. Load only one fabric piece at a time.




Fifth; It printed.

Heat set the inks. Dry iron (no steam). High heat.





After cutting the squares - as squares-
he sewed them together with, I believe, a quarter-inch seam.



 Proudly holding his creation, ahem, book report.


 The back side was this perfect pirate fabric, ordered from etsy, which arrived just a few days before the book report was DUE.




Graded A+




The second book in this series is Peter and the Shadow Catchers. These are about Peter Pan before he knew how to fly and the island and the pirate and all that stuff before Wendy became famous.


***You can google "Freezer paper fabric transfer" and you will be directed to multiple sites featuring this easy-to-use technique. Suitable for all book reports.

9 comments:

  1. Wow, that is a very cool way to do a book report. Great job!

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  2. I was still fussing with the blog posting when You commented. Fast. Your boys would get a kick out of this porject.

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  3. Wow! Great pictures to go with a fun activity. My favorite one is the artist at the sewing machine. I hope this inspires others to incorporate sewing with a school project!

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  4. February's book report was in English. This month's is a Spanish book. Thanks for posting Ian's project.

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  5. Your assistance w/the technical aspects of printing/transfering the image really make this an excellent project for Ian. Many thanks.

    Patrick

    p.s. Just for the record, his father is damn handsome.

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  6. Great blog! Good job to Ian! You have excellent genes on both sides (he he he) -auntie Karen

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  7. Ian with a little help did a fantastic job. Egad, a book report quilt. What will they think of next. Congratualtions Kathy and Ian and also Marcy and Patrick.
    Ian's grandfather and grandmother, bill and sallye

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  8. April 5, 2012 Thank you, Ian, for your book report which was fun reading and also I really enjoyed the illustrations of the story. Love you, Ian, from g/ma Sallye

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