Growth Charts

I have a fun and easy sewing project I would like to share with you today. I was looking for a quick sewn gift I could make for my friend's children and came across this project in Alicia Paulson's wonderful Book "Stitched in Time". I used her Dollhouse Growth chart project as my inspiration for this project.

Here's how I made my Growth Charts:

1. I cut 16 strips of scrap fabric, each 8 1/2" X 3 1/2" (I didn't even need to dig into my stash). That's another great thing about this project, you can literally make it from fabric scraps.

2. I stitched each strip together along the 8 1/2" lengths. I use 1/4" seam allowance for these types of projects.

3. Once all strips were stitched together I pressed the seams flat and cut out felt numbers for 2,3,4,5. The chart is designed to be hung 2 feet or 24" from the floor. I added the felt numbers to the chart every 12" (or 4 sewn strips) to represent 1 foot.

4. I decided to glue the numbers onto the chart with fabric glue because they were a bit small to sew. I'm not sure if this is cheating or not, but it was nice and quick!

5. For the top strip (same size as the other strips) I embroidered the child's name.

6. Instead of sewing a bias binding around the edges of the chart like in Alicia's project, I decided to line it with muslin to give it more stability. I just cut out a piece of muslin the entire length of the sewn strips and stitched around the top and 2 sides with right sides together.

7. I left the bottom open so I could turn the chart right side out. I pressed it nice and flat and then topstitched around the top and sides of the chart at 1/4" and closed the bottom with an edgestitch.

This was a super fast and easy project that could easily be completed in less than 2 hours, including the embroidery. Oh and one last note - yes these charts were meant to be written on! Be sure to choose fabrics that are not too dark. A felt pen works best for marking the height and date.