Wow, little contemporary art pieces from a medium most people associate with coasters. A new shape for some old-school plastic canvas-easy enough for young starting stitchers to make. If the bottom isn’t perfectly flat (or they seem wobbly) you can stick them over some wadded-up tissue paper or construction paper. When they are done, simply stand them up on a shelf or tabletop to look like weird little emerging plants or animals. Make a couple of these of different lengths or even color schemes. It will seem like you are building a cool little tower or tentacle. Once the bottom is established, just add more and more of the little colorful pieces, sewing them together with black or white. Sew the edges of the shapes together, like a puzzle, to form an abstract, pillar-like shape. Otherwise, be as weird and irregular as you want. When you are starting the shape, try to keep the bottom edge slightly flat, so the final shape will sit well on the table. This will be your bottom part that will determine the width and shape of your piece. Do the same with one or more other shapes, so you get a complete square or circle. To make the “alien” shapes, use black or white yarn to stick together two of the pieces on one side. Make several of these plain, one-colored pieces until you fill all of the cut pieces or have as many as you want. Here’s one of many, many short videos on how to start and finish a stitch, if you need it. No fancy stitch patterns, just the simple slant stitch. Take one color of yarn and fill in the entire piece with that color. I am going to keep the stitching process as simple as possible so even younger crafters can do this well. One of the advantages of the plastic canvas is it is both sturdy and soft enough to cut through, so even some school Fiskar scissors will work well. Make sure to cut off any little plastic pieces that are sticking out. Don’t forget to grab one or more sheets of plain old plastic canvas, depending on how big you want to make these.Ĭut one regular sheet of canvas into several irregular shapes with straight angles. You can even find some of this at places like dollar stores if you look. You’ll need about three or more colors of cheap yarn. Cut a plastic canvas sheet into various simple shapes and fill in each one with a separate color, using a simple slanted stitch. Since plastic canvas is always so “practical,” we’re going to do an easy fun summer project creating these little stand-alone pieces that could look like alien landscapes or creatures. Let’s take the plastic canvas from boring to wonderfully weird with a colorful, easy way to take a plain or plastic canvas and “think outside the box” with easy alien landscapes reminiscent of a Meow Wolf environment or Tim Burtonesque movie. I’m willing to bet somewhere in your world today-be it the home of a grandparent, older friend, or coworker-there’s a little plastic canvas-covered tissue box in a bathroom or kitchen near you. This makes it stiffer for sturdy items like tree ornaments, blocky little animals, bookmarks, and, of course, those groovy tissue box covers. It was made from lightweight vinyl, and precut into paper-size sheets, circles, or other, just like pieces of writing paper. This meant it was “something new” and, in the crafty world, that means everyone wants to try it. This makes sense because, according to the Textile Research Center, plastic embroidery canvas was first really commercially available in the 1970s. Remember these plastic canvas coasters? You’ve likely known a few people whose grandparents have these in their homes. It seemed like these were a rite of passage for grandparents in the ’70s and ’80s. My friends, regardless of their ethnicity or upbringing, all had some little piece of plastic canvas art in their house (usually in the bathroom) given to them by some grandparent or aunt.Įven both my and my husband’s grandparents had plastic canvas tissue box covers and little round coasters in their homes. This was something that was just part of most houses during my childhood. Those are the big, thick plastic grids where you could use an equally big plastic needle to make clunky shapes with yarn. There is one form of “yarn art” that still doesn’t get very much artistic respect: plastic canvas. Fiber arts like knitting, crochet, and cross stitch continue to be popular with every generation, with everything from punk rock knitting designs to yarn bombers in street art festivals.
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