My friend Diane over at Crafty Pod has a love for plastic canvas. She’s made many remarkable projects from it, buys vintage and Japanese books on it looking for ideas, and generally lifts this material from the realm of church-bazaar crafts to something fun, bright, and hip.
There are two tremendous virtues to plastic canvas that are showcased well in Diane’s pieces. First, since it’s rigid, you can use it to make useful things, like this box, and finish them yourself. Second, because the mesh size is large, plastic canvas projects are quick to stitch.
Because there are so many wonderful knitting yarns out there, your project can be made in bright colors and the natural fibers we’re used to as needlepointers.
Diane’s box tutorial over at CRAFT magazine is simply marvelous. She begins by explaining how to measure items and size your box. Then she goes on to talk about yarns and different materials for stitching. She also covers how to find different stitches and shows you how she stitched the box. The tutorial really shines at showing you how to construct the box, with close-up photos of each step.
But my absolute favorite thing in the project is the way she incorporated fabric panels on the sides of the box. This is so inspired and such fun. It’s also a great way to come up with a color scheme, by matching your threads colors to the fabric.
This is a project that has everything: it reflects your style, uses your stash, can be finished yourself and, best of all, makes you more organized. Great stuff, Diane!
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I totally agree Janet, she has raised the bar.
Wow, thank you so much for this lovely post, Janet! I love having you as a kindred spirit in plastic canvas!