The King and All of His Friends

I made this terrible thing.  Like no… whatever you’re thinking, you don’t understand.  I made a terrible thing.  It was a castle tower out of plastic canvas that I covered with felt and stitched shut.  I also bought a bunch of little wooden people to play in it.  I never finished it because even though my method for working with the plastic canvas and felt worked theoretically, in actual practice, there are significant reasons why no one does it, even though both materials are inexpensive and plentiful.  It was like stitching together wooden planking.  Awful.

And my son would sit at my work table and play with the unfinished tower and march the unpainted people into onto the different floors.  I’d feel sick with guilt.  I should have done better for my son.

Finally, this spring, I accepted that I was not going to finish the tower.  Then I decided that I would buy him a wooden castle, but I was loath to just go to a store and buy one.  I let the idea float in my mind like a hot air balloon and waited for a birthday or Christmas to come.

So, I was driving and I got the idea to pop into a Salvation Army thrift store.  They had a Melissa and Doug castle there with no people for $15 (usually retails at around $100).  It had been on the shelf for about 15 minutes when I snapped it up.

From the picture, it looks like it’s in pretty good shape, but it wasn’t.  The floor looked pretty rough.  A child had been writing on it and pressing so hard erasing it was not an option.  So, I decided to redo the floor.  I used a type of faux black leather contact paper.  I wanted to use it everywhere, but the paper wouldn’t stick to the stairs, so I painted them black.  That worked beautifully, so I painted a few of the rooms blue.  That was fun.  And taught me a lot about paint quality.  I don’t think I will ever buy craft paint from a dollar store again as long as I live.

Next, I had to work on the people.  I started with the king.  What needed to be done for him was the most straightforward.  I had to make the patterns for the clothing, so I used a compass from a child's geometry set to get the perfect curvature.  I have a coupon organizer filled with tiny bits of felt and I was mostly able to use scraps for the clothing.  I'm good with a needle and thread, but I had to use a surprising amount of fabric glue, but I'm okay with that.  I had it on hand.  So, still talking about the king, he took an hour to do.  My expectations were low, but I was pleased the fabric glue worked well enough to keep his crown on.

I, then, made knights.  I've only pictured one, but I made three.  Since they were all basically the same, all three of them took an hour.  The shape of the piece of felt that covers his head laid out flat is fascinating.  Their feathers are made from me mutilating a piece of felt to make it look like a feather.  I wish I'd had actual feathers small enough.

The girls I made day two, starting with the witch.  I think she's the best one.  Her pinkish red hair was because I had a scrap of red yarn left over from a shawl I crocheted.  It was hardly anything, the tiniest bit of yarn, but she turned out so good.

The princess is the only one who got lace (thank you HP) and I'm pleased that I chose to make her crown pink instead of yellow.  That's all we need is gold crown, gold hair.  Her hair in braids was difficult.  She's like two inches tall.  She's also the only one in this set who got a pearl at her throat.

The last one was the fairy.  Her wings are amazing.  If I was doing a post on only her, I'd show you how hot the stitching on her wings is.  I did seed beads in veins through the wings.  There is almost no thread showing because every time I dove through the fabric with my needle, I put another bead down.  When I got to the end of the line, I had to go back with the needle exactly the way I came.  That is fastidious work.  My hands cramped at the end, because yeah, she's two inches tall and I had sadly already attached her wings to her back.  Let's talk about her hair.  It was way harder than it looks.  I tried half a dozen things before I decided to give her a huge bun (and I know it almost looks like a chef's hat), but I'd already committed to the white hair by that point and there was no going back.  Thanks to HP, I had the green ribbon and only about as much as you're seeing in the picture. 

And now the plague of my guilt is lifted.