#159...3D fabric letters

My client Kresta had some leftover fabric from her nursery bedding, and I thought I could make her a custom 3D decorative fabric letter for her baby's room from the scraps, inspired by these letters from Anthropologie. Here is how I made the above letter "G."

First, I chose the sans serif font Arial and printed it in 10% gray scale. I played around with enlarging it, and when it got too big for my printer, I cut up pieces of the enlargement and transferred it onto poster board with the help of my French curve ruler. Below is my posterboard pattern.

Next, I traced and cut two letter faces out of mat board (I used scraps of black and white) and I cut up a cereal box into 2" strips for the sides of the letter.

Using my hot glue gun, I began gluing the side strips to the back "G." I added tape to the corners and inside walls just for extra support.

I added batting to the front "G", making sure to glue the batting to the right side of the letter.

I trimmed the batting to the edge of the letter and began wrapping it with the fabric, using hot glue and tape to hold the fabric taut. For curved edges you have to clip the fabric every inch or so, to insure that the front of the letter stays smooth and taut.

I similarly wrapped the bottom "G", however instead of gluing to the back of the letter; the raw edges of fabric got glued up onto the sides.

This picture shows the front "G", back "G' and the fabric strip I made to cover the sides. For the sides, I cut a piece of fabric 3" wide and turned under 1/2 " on each, slipped some batting into the turned over edges for a more padded look, and machine sewed down the two sides of the long strip. 

Above you can see me gluing the side fabric strip onto the sides.

The final step was to place the front "G" onto the base. I used a little hot glue to hold it in place, and then I used a curved needle to hand sew around the entire letter. This letter took me about 3 hours to make. Overall, it was easy and fun to create. There is a lot of measuring, cutting, gluing and you have to take your time and go slow because of the curves and small spaces on the interior of the letter.