Fabric Letters

 I love fabric.  If I were being honest, that "love" might teeter on the edge of having a sick obsession.  Tomatoes, tomahtoes.  Anyway, my friend Laurali's little guy was turning one and I wanted to make him a fun gift.  I found my inspiration on pinterest, of course.  They were adorable fabric letters - love.  For this project you need an assortment of fabric, batting, letters to trace, a fabric pen and a sewing machine.

The first (and most fun) step in creating these bad boys is to get all of your fabric together and decide what order you want it in.  I did mine in rainbow order with some brown at the end.  Theoretically you'll need 26 different fabrics.  The little boy I was making these for has some double/triple letters in his name, so I ended up needing 29 fabrics.

The next step is to cut your fabric and batting into squares/rectangles that will fit the letters.  To make my letter templates, I just did a word document with a font and size I liked, printed them on cardstock and cut them out.

This picture is probably not the best to use for this step, but it was the only one I took.  On the right side of one piece of fabric, trace the letter backward using a disappearing ink fabric pen.  (I realized after tracing this one that my "J" is most definitely NOT backward...)  Then you're going to make a little sandwich of fabric (right side touching the table), batting, batting, fabric facing up.

 Next, you're going to pin it together and sew along the lines.  If the letter has a middle piece that needs to be sewn (A, B, Q, etc.) I found it was easiest to start with that part and then do the outside.  After you've sewn on the lines, use your fabric scissors and cut about 1/4 inch away from your sewn lines.  And that's it!  You could probably use an X-acto knife and cut out the centers of the letters that need it, but you don't have to.  I didn't.

Here's my completed pile of letters! 

And here's the birthday boy's name in his new letters



I also made a little drawstring bag for the letters that I'll post soon.  :)