Page 18: Weave a Tower

*This page is SUPER easy to make- we're talking 15 minutes here! Also, I have boys, so I stuck with the building/tower theme, but I also thought that this would be an excellent page to "weave a blanket, "especially if you are wanting to make it girly. The tower when weaved together, kind of looks like a quilt, and you could do it so that you have a headboard/baseboard and pillow sewn onto the page, and the blanket is the felt pieces that you weave together. One of these days I'll try to put together this idea and add it as a page to the book.

Items Needed: 2 pieces of felt (although oilcloth or vinyl would work as well) in different colors (about 6" x 5.5" of each). If you want to put a text box at the top too (mine says "Weave a tower"), then you will need a square of white pellon to write on the words and then sew onto the page.

Teaches: Color recognition, weaving, "above"/"up" and "under"/"down" concept.

Cut out the following pieces: If you have a pair of pinking shears, use them to cut out the tower pieces. The zig-zag edge that the pinking shears give to the fabric make the individual weaving pieces more durable and won't fray.

Now to cut out the pieces: there is a template for the felt tower pieces in the back of Ann F. Pritt's book (go to this link and scroll down to page 17). You can use that, or you can use the following measurements I give from mine. The felt tower pieces need to be cut into 2 sort of trapezoid shapes (one will be longer and one will be wider). Here are the measurements for mine: my purple trapezoid (the longer one) has a base of 5", a top of 2.5", and a height of 5.25". My blue trapezoid (the wider one) has a base of 5.5", a top of 3.5", and a height of 5". When you cut these out, you are going to want to make the base of the trapezoids curved slightly (like in Ann F. Pritt's templates), and not a straight line across. I know Ann F. Pritt's templates show the trapezoids pre-cut into strips, but I didn't cut my trapezoids into strips until AFTER I cut them completely out. I think it was easier this way. So once you get those trapezoids cut out, then you are going to want to cut the longer trapezoid (purple) into four strips lengthwise (up/down).

Then cut the wider trapezoid (blue) into six strips crosswise (left to right).Directions: *It's interesting because this is probably the easiest page to make in the quiet book, but it is probably the hardest one for kids to do when playing with the book. I usually have to walk my boys through it when they get to this page as weaving is kind of a complex process for a 2-3 year old. My almost 5 year old is finally kind of getting it down. I patterned this page after one I found in Ann F. Pritt's "How to Make an LDS Quiet Book", page 1, "Tower of Babel" pattern which can be found here (0r template seen below).

To make this page, you will want to first take your strips from the longer tower (in my book these are the purple strips), and sew across their bottom to the page. I spaced my strips out just a tad (maybe 1/8" is all), so the weave isn't too tight. After you get these strips sewn on, place the opposing strips from the wide trapezoid (in my book these are blue strips) on top (you might want to weave them in now, just to make sure they are placed appropriately) and sew them to the page down the right side, as shown in the picture below.

Once you get these sewn on, you are done! You can also sew on a little text box like "weave a tower" if you'd like too.