How to make a mobile: kites tutorial

It’s a taster of our fat quarter projects in Simply Sewing magazine, which are great for beginners.

You will need

• Cotton fabric: four fat eighths or scrap
• Bondaweb: 50cm (20in)
• Heavy weight iron-on interfacing: 25cm (10in)
• Monofilament
• Bakers twine: 3m (120in)
• Ribbon: 1.5cm (5/8in) width, short lengths
• Embroidery hoop: 25cm (10in) diameter
• Air erasable marker pen
• Basic sewing kit

All materials available at Sew Crafty.

Notes

Before you begin, download our Free kite template (PDF). Scroll down to get sewing your mobile!

Step-by-step: how to make a mobile

Step one: Iron the interfacing onto the back of all of the fabric scraps. Iron a layer of bondaweb over the top of the interfacing with the paper side up.

Step two: Remove the paper backing then fold one piece of fabric in half and iron again to stick all the layers together and create a fabric sandwich. Draw round the template with erasable marker and cut out.

Step three: Repeat steps 1 and 2 to create each kite.

Step four: Cut a 15cm (6in) length of bakers twine and four ribbon scraps. Tie a knot in the ribbons around the bakers twine to make little bows, spacing them evenly along the length of twine. Snip off any excess ribbon to neaten. Tie a knot in each end of the bakers twine.

Step five: Repeat step 4 to create a tail for each kite.

Step six: Sew one end of the tail to the longer point on the kite.

Step seven: Sew all the way around the edge of the kite, 5mm (¹⁄₄in) in, to keep all the layers together permanently.

Step eight: Tie two 75cm (30in) lengths of bakers twine to your hoop, crossing over in the middle to create a loop for hanging.

Step nine: Sew 20-25cm (8-10in) lengths of monofilament to the three top corners of each kite.

Step ten: Tie each kite in place on hoop where the bakers twine is knotted to it.

Samantha Claridge

Samantha is a busy craft blogger, sewist, artist and handmade advocate. She lives in Berkshire and has been running her online store, Samantha Claridge Studio, for almost 18 years. She designs her own products from sewing journals to pin badges and blogs with her best friend Heather over at Live it. Love it. Make it. She works as a freelance designer and has had her work featured in magazines including Sewing World, Simply Sewing, Reloved and Mollie Makes. You might have seen her on TV as she’s a regular guest designer for Sewing Quarter, where she demonstrates sewing projects and techniques. Find her on Instagram @samanthaclaridge

See author's posts