Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Adventures in Upholstery - Ducks on a Wednesday Afternoon

I love it when we get to do really creative fun stuff every once in a while.  This was one of those super fun projects.  You'll never guess what we ended up doing with these duck faces.  We made 2 opposites, and put them at the top corners of a customer's winterfront for his big truck.  Weird combo, hey?  Their company name is Duckeez, so it's actually very appropriate.  Fun!

First, we picked out a simple duck face, a la Donald himself, and printed him out at the right size.
Next, we cut out around the outside lines, and cut out his mouth.  You can see by the white piece I'm tracing around on the right.  I had to get artistic and fill in the other lines freehand.  Just like art class! 
For the first layer, we decided to do the beak in yellow, so we put a layer of yellow vinyl under a layer of black, and stapled them together.
I sewed on all the lines for the beak, and I left the eyes for the next part.
We worked as a team on this one, cause we wanted to get it done fast!  While I sewed the second one, Dad trimmed the first one.  The idea was to trim closely on both sides of the black, to get a thick black line.
On the back, he trimmed the yellow very close to the stitching line so it won't show from the right side at the edges.
Next, we layered some white vinyl for the eyes, and did the same thing.
Lastly, we sewed in a little red tongue.
I love how cool it looks from the back.  
And here it is!  Now you can see what I meant by the thick black lines.  
In order to sew it to the winterfront, we sewed it to a piece of matching vinyl and made a "plaque" out of it.
And finally, the very last step was to sew the finished plaque onto the corners of the winterfront.  I had to roll the whole thing up and shove it under the arm of the sewing machine.  I made sure to trace around my plaque so I could sew it in place without it shifting.
And here it is in all its glory!
Just what I needed to pick me up on a Wednesday afternoon.  Cool, hey?

2 comments:

  1. Wow that is so cool!!! Such a lovely finish!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Super terrific tutorial! I am going to try this in felt layers. And nice job on the truck cover!

    ReplyDelete