Introducing Our Summer Picnic Look Book!
This week at Fancy Tiger Crafts Co-op we are not just incredibly excited to celebrate our Sweet Sixteen Anniversary (Saturday, July 16th...get all the details here) but we are also nearly bubbling over with happiness to share our first ever Summer Look Book (see below our downloadable book)! We have been working up projects and inspiration focused on the theme of summer picnics. We love this Look Book so much because it offers a ton of ideas and FREE (yes, free!) patterns that you can download from our website and get started on today. Summer is such a wonderful time to make and create in the wild while also enjoying the weather, good food, and good friends.
Just a note: If you download the pdf Look Book below, you will have all of the links within the document to work on the projects. If you would prefer to view this on your phone, you may also want to use this link to our mobile app for this Look Book.
What is more special than the picnic centerpiece, the picnic blanket? Well, Marta worked up a new free pattern for the FTC Picnic Quilt. It's beautiful and easy to make and we hope you love it! Our Look Book gives you links to all of the fabrics used for this perfect addition to your summer projects.
You will need a way to transport all of your food, blanket and crafting projects to the picnic and we think there is no better way than our FTC Market Tote. This has been a popular pattern for awhile, but Bethany gave it a gorgeous update by using some of our most colorful and sweet oilcloth fabrics in the store. Durable and waterproof, oilcloth gives this tote bonus points because it is stain resistant, keeps all your things dry on that wet grass or your blanket dry if you have a spill or leak inside of your bag.
Kim designed and created some of the sweetest Reusable Utensil Pouches so that you can pack your picnic tote and never leave home without your utensil set. Kick that plastic to the side! You won't want to leave these pouches at home because these sweet embroidered pouches will have all of your friends jealous. The pattern is free!
Anna and Danielle helped us envision napkins three ways - woven, mitred corners and simple frayed edges. All three are the perfect summer project to up your picnic presentation and will be reusable all summer. Make your own unique cloth napkins by following our tutorials. Here is a link to the simple frayed edge napkins and here is a link to our "fancy" mitred corner tutorial. Good luck!
Our Look Book isn't just about sewing and knitting. We have included some recipes, a Summer Reading List and we started a Spotify channel and created a nice Picnic playlist to get you started!
We hope you enjoy our Look Book and hope to see you on Saturday!
Comments on this post (3)
Hi Deborah,
There isn’t a written pattern for the Woven Napkins that were shown in the Summer Picnic Lookbook, but I’m happy to answer any questions you might have to make your own! If it helps, I roughly based them on the Skyline Tea Towels pattern by Anett Hrabovszki, but customized them quite a bit.
To keep the project at 4 skeins of Mojave, I largely let the amount of yarn I had remaining determine the stripe colors & the number of picks/stripe widths as I went. I’m normally a perfectionist & follow patterns to a T, so this was an exercise in “letting it be” for me (including leaving mistakes) and that’s largely why there isn’t a written pattern for them either. I did follow some of the sections from the Skyline Towels because those sections were what originally sparked the idea for these, but the rest came about organically as I saw colors together and realized what I would run out of, lol.
I’ll add some additional notes that I took below:
Reed: 10 dent
Ends: 185
Width at reed: 18"
Warp Length: 120"
I was aiming for somewhere between 22"-24" warp length of each napkin-depending on how much funem weft I used in that napkin since I assumed those areas would pull in more.
6" lost to sewn hems of the 4 napkins
Oh, and I kept a continuous weave going for the entire length to reduce the amount lost between napkins & then did two straight stitch passes (spaced slightly apart) with the sewing machine to anchor the weave on both sides (between two napkins) before cutting them apart, adding a narrow serge & then hemming.
I hope this isn’t too confusing. I’m still new to weaving without a pattern, so there was a lot of just seeing what would happen in this project. Please feel free to reach out with any questions you have though & I can’t wait to see how yours turn out!
Happy crafting, Danielle
— Danielle Bralley
Is there a pattern for the woven napkins and hand towels? The links only seem to go to the supplies.
— Deborah
I absolutely love the summer look book. Thank you for these great projects! 😊
— Danielle Bauman