DIY Fabric Alphabet with link to free template

A lot has been happening in our household, including a few pretty major things. In addition to the birth of our second, beautiful baby girl, I finally finished a project! For the first time in a long time, I was able to wrap up all loose ends and make something. While a baby was on my lap. Literally...

S was probably not the best letter to sew one-handed. Let's hope my children like an alphabet with "character"

I added little circles to my alphabet so it can double for Finnish and English

This was a trial run for a possible new product in the shop. I used a combination of tutorials from Happy Together By Jess and Sugar Bee Crafts.  The letter pattern is from the latter. Go there to download the template for free.

​Unfortunately, I don't think this will be possible for me to make economically for Victoria Jean unless you ask me really nicely and are willing to pay a rather pretty penny. So, I'll pass along what I did in case you want to create your own.

Instead of using scraps, I used a charm square pack from Missouri Star Quilt Company (my favorite fabric source) that I just love. This made the whole process incredibly easy since it was all matched and coordinated already. You can also use scraps, but let's get real, here. If I had to dig through my scraps to find enough that were big enough for letters... I'd still be digging. I used the same stripey fabric for the back of each letter, with a layer of batting between. I'd use a thinner batting for round 2 (though perhaps this will flatten out with time). I didn't iron the letters, but I may give it a whirl one of these days if I feel like it.

Ha. You just let me know if you iron yours and tell me how it went. But only if it's not worth it, since I will never iron these things.

I just stuck the letters on the adorable fabric, right side up, traced, then pinned it in strips with the backing fabric and batting (wrong sides together, batting between). I sewed a line of letters production line style, cutting the length off after a letter here and there to make it a bit easier to work with the strip. I definitely got to know the knee-lift feature of my new Bernina. There's a lot of curves and turns in the alphabet!

I used pinking shears to cut out the letters. I'd change the font for another round or edit the letters a bit so that the holes in them (especially the A's) would be larger - easier to cut and more visible. 

One more change - I thought an alphabet would be more useful if there were multiples of the letters, so I made 2 of most letters, and 3 of the ones I'm guessing are used the most in English or Finnish. Only time will tell if I correctly guessed what words we will be spelling in our home...

The finished product is both cat and toddler approved! It was overall a fun project for me, too. Hopefully this will be a great toy to help us all learn spelling for years to come.