I've been reading Amy Karol's blog. and since I love her writing style, decided I needed to get her first book: Bend the Rules Sewing.  This book starts off with bunch of basic information on sewing.  This is the book I was looking for a couple years ago when I got started sewing, but I don't think it existed yet.  It's really great book for getting started with sewing, because it has both details on essential techniques, plus a bunch of projects so you can actually get started and make stuff.

The first project that caught my eye was the puppet theater in the Small People section of the book.  Evan isn't likely to sit still long enough for a puppet show anytime soon, but the puppet theater is just so cute I had to make one.  Well, actually two.  My nanny's son is going to be three next month, so he might be willing to watch puppets, or maybe even put on a puppet show. 

The project itself is pretty easy; it's just a bunch of straight lines.  The shopping for this project was pretty involved, requuring multiple trips to the fabric stores (not that that's a bad thing ).  There are three fabrics: a background, valance, and curtains.  The directions call for all cotton fabrics, but I wanted something that seemed more like theater curtains, so I used a stretchy shiny velour kind of stuff.  I got the solid background fabrics and one of the valance fabrics from the crazy fabric store ($2/yard, whoo!), but didn't find anything I liked for the second valance on that shopping trip.   This project requires a lot of notions/accessories: bias tape, ribbon, twill tape, wood dowels, ball fringe, a button, and a tension rod.   I decided to skip the twill tape, and make a pocket for the wood dowels out the background fabric instead.  I found the wood dowels at Joanns, the tension rods at Target, the bias tape at the crazy fabric store, and the rest of the stuff at Hancock.  I didn't realize that the ball fringe is a "trim" and therefore not eligible for the 40% any "fabric item" coupon at Hancock, so I had to pay full price (the horror!)

Once I had all of the parts, it didn't take long (in actual work time) to put it together.  It did take a while in calendar time, since I only had time to work on it in short stretches.  Both puppet theaters are now rolled up in the matching cases in the closet, patiently awaiting the holiday season.

For Evan:

For my nanny's son: