Sewing a Lodge Tapestry with Arthur & Lucas
One spring day in the Lodge Field, Arthur Lamb and Lucas Rabbit were lounging in the grass and looking for shapes in the fluffy clouds above. While enjoying the feeling of spring breezes on his snout, Arthur's gaze settled on the Lodge nearby. It occurred to him then that it was a very pretty building.
"I think the Lodge is a very pretty building," Arthur said.
"I do too," Lucas replied. "I like the flags on top. Look, Oliver put the sunshine one up today and the weather is sunny. He's always right!" (Oliver Mouse raises a weather flag on top of the Lodge each morning to indicate his meteorological findings for the day.)
The friends sat quietly admiring the sunlight shining on the Lodge's roof and its brassy weathervane. Then suddenly, Arthur jumped to his feet. "I've had an idea!" he announced.
Lucas, who is always on board with Arthur's notions, jumped up too. "What is it?" he asked excitedly.
"Let's make a tapestry with a picture of the Lodge on it. Then we can look at it when we're inside too!" said Arthur.
Lucas thought this was an inspired idea, and the friends scampered right off to his house to start crafting.
The Lodge sits in the middle of Hazel Village, and is the animals’ main gathering place for feasts, major tea parties, elaborate projects, and such. If you are interested in other Village buildings and landmarks, we recommend exploring our map tour or taking a gander at our Map Tapestry Play Quilt.
This blog post will show you how Arthur and Lucas made their Lodge tapestry so that you can make your own. We hope it may also inspire you to use this method to create your own tapestry design!
What you will need:
- Felt
- Embroidery floss
- Scissors
- An embroidery needle (on the smaller side if possible)
- A small stick
While most of this craft is in the sewing, we created a pattern which you can follow to cut out your felt pieces. You can download and print this pattern HERE to get started on your project.
First, you will need to make a channel for a stick to go in later. Fold down the top of your banner and pin it in place, then sew straight across with a backstitch. We used 1 strand of embroidery floss that matched the color of our banner. Make sure the channel is wide enough to fit your stick!
The first piece you will sew onto your banner is the white rectangle which is marked LODGE on your pattern. Arrange your felt pieces as shown in the photo above so you are happy with their placement, then pin the LODGE piece into place.
All the felt pieces for this project are sewn on using the blanket stitch appliqué technique, which may sound intimidating but is actually quite simple! You can watch this video tutorial to learn it. It is a very handy stitch to know if you are interested in making textile art, or if you are someone who likes to sew patches onto things.
Sew the LODGE felt piece onto your banner using 1 strand of matching embroidery floss. You will be covering up the top edge with the roof, so you only need to sew the sides and the bottom.
Next, pin your ROOF piece into place so that it slightly overlaps with the top edge of the LODGE. Sew the roof on all 4 edges using 1 strand of matching embroidery floss.
Sew the DOOR piece into place using 1 strand of matching embroidery floss. Then using 2 strands of floss, make 1 long stitch from top to bottom to create the line between 2 doors. Sew a french knot on either side of this line to make the doorknobs.
Now it's time for the windows! Starting in the middle above the door, sew a plus sign shape. Then sew a box around it, covering the edges.
After we had sewn a row of five windows, we went back and added a few more vertical stitches on either side of each one to give the illusion of shutters.
Next, we added some visual texture to the roof. To do this, use a stem stitch to sew slightly spaced apart vertical lines from one end of the roof to the other. We used 2 strands of matching embroidery floss.
To make the weathervane, we used 2 strands of golden-green floss to sew a vertical line about 1cm tall on the left hand corner of the roof. Then we sewed an X shape on top, and on each end of the X we sewed a french knot.
To make the leaf shape on top, we sewed 5 lazy daisy stitches: 1 on top and 2 on each side. Learn the lazy daisy stitch here!
For the flagpole, make 1 long vertical stitch (about an inch tall) on the other end of the roof, and sew a french knot at the top.
For each flag, we sewed a rectangular shape and then just filled it in with stitches. (The little red one at the bottom is a triangle, and we sewed a yellow sun onto the big white weather flag.)
Next we sewed a regular blanket stitch border along the sides and bottom of the banner, using 3 strands of golden-green floss. When we came to the top edge, we switched back to the appliqué blanket stitch and finished the border by sewing on top of the running stitch that we had sewed earlier.
After this we decided that the tapestry needed a little something more to fill the space, so we cut 3 small gray ovals to be flagstones and sewed them in a line leading up to the door.
For some extra medieval-y embellishment, we made two tassels and sewed them onto the bottom corners of the tapestry. You can learn how to make a tassel in this video. We used more of the same golden-green embroidery floss for these tassels, which are each about an inch tall.
Finally, thread your stick through the fabric channel and tie a string to one end. Hold your finger on the middle of the string to make a triangle shape, and tie the other end to the other end of the stick. Trim off the extra string.
Your tapestry is finished! Huzzah!!
Thank you for reading, friend! Did you make this craft at home? Send us a photo or tag us on social media @hazelvillage! For any questions, please email us at hello@hazelvillage.com.
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