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OT: Michigan family growth chart

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May 15th, 2010 at 3:51 PM
#1
billsquared
billsquared's picture
Joined: 06/30/2008
MGoPoints: 121
OT: Michigan family growth chart

Okay, at the risk of becoming "the OT Michigan-related arts and crafts guy" (see http://mgoblog.com/content/ot-michigan-stadium-graduation-cake for the previous iteration), I just have to show this off.

We've been producing fabric growth charts for close family and friends for several years now. It was originally inspired by all the stories you hear from people talking about the saddest thing in moving out of a house being leaving behind the pencilled marks in a doorway chronicling the heights of the kids at particular ages. We figured we could put together a fabric family-style growth chart with a writeable area so our loved ones would never have to experience such anguish. Each family member gets their own "emblem" with their name and birth date (and in the cases of the kids, the birth weight and length) to put at their current height, and the "ruler" area is writeable canvas.

Several years ago, we made one for one of my wife's family. Unfortunately, it was in green velvet, embossed with the block S and Sparty heads. Truly, it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life... but it looked BEAUTIFUL. The embossed velvet effect is fairly simple to execute, but really damned difficult to execute WELL. Basically, you take (or in our case, MAKE) a rubber stamp, lay the velvet on it pile-side down and put a hot iron to it for a few seconds. When you take the iron off, the velvet is more or less permanently compressed in that area.

When we started discussing what we were going to do for our own growth chart, I realized that we could make a matched set of them -- one for us and one for a friend -- in a U of M theme. The friend's chart got emblems in the shape of a football, ours will eventually be a fleur de lis pattern.

Football emblems


MGoUser tpilews graciously responded to my request for the winged helmet design, and we obviously chose the simple block-M for our second stamp. MrsSquared carved the rubber stamps herself, since we couldn't find officially licensed ones. After a half-hour or so of layout marking on the rear of the fabric and an hour of stamp-ironing, we had two panels of deep blue velvet that looked like this:
 

Michigan Embossed Velvet


Oh. My. God.

I mean, I knew that it was going to look good, but this... this was simply beyond my imagination. I literally got goosebumps. The next step was to embroider the family names down the sides, stitch the front and back together, then the actual ruler part and the velcro strip to hang the emblems on. What we ended up with looked like this:

Williams Growth Chart

Growth Chart Top Detail

Brayden with Growth Chart


I really couldn't be happier with how they came out. Owing to the whole embossing process and the (apparently) typical troubles caused by sewing with velvet, they took quite a bit longer than our standard cotton fabric designs, but MAN do they look awesome hanging on the wall.

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May 15th, 2010 at 3:56 PM
#2
YakAttack
YakAttack's picture
Joined: 01/20/2009
MGoPoints: 26848
I'm pretty sure my nephew has the same Cars

shirt that's in the last picture!

 

True Story

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May 15th, 2010 at 7:17 PM
(Reply to #3) #3
billsquared
billsquared's picture
Joined: 06/30/2008
MGoPoints: 121
Cake pricing

How many people do you need it to feed?

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May 15th, 2010 at 9:20 PM
(Reply to #8) #4
billsquared
billsquared's picture
Joined: 06/30/2008
MGoPoints: 121
At a guess?

At a guess? Maybe $75, give or take. You could also add a half sheet cake under it as a base if you had a crowd.

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May 15th, 2010 at 4:56 PM
#5
Zone Left
Zone Left's picture
Joined: 07/03/2008
MGoPoints: 16278
I'd vote for a customized one

I'd vote for a customized one with the the height sown in on the date of The Game each year.  It's the most important measurement for Michigan each year, so why not us?

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May 15th, 2010 at 7:27 PM
(Reply to #4) #6
BlockM
BlockM's picture
Joined: 07/03/2008
MGoPoints: 28426
Good point.

I'm actually only 21 *days* old because the day of the Michigan/OSU game is the only day of the year I'm really alive.

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May 15th, 2010 at 7:51 PM
#7
bluewave720
bluewave720's picture
Joined: 07/17/2009
MGoPoints: 2967
The growth chart is pretty awesome.

But that cake is absolutely incredible.  I missed that thread the first time around, so thanks for posting the link.

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May 15th, 2010 at 10:58 PM
(Reply to #7) #8
billsquared
billsquared's picture
Joined: 06/30/2008
MGoPoints: 121
Thanks!

*grin* Thanks! She did an awesome job on it, nobody really wanted to cut into it at the party. I guess if I'd been thinking entrepreneurially, I'd have re-posted that thread six weeks ago, who knows, we could've drummed up some business for graduation. Of course, there's always football season...

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May 15th, 2010 at 11:34 PM
(Reply to #10) #9
A Case of Blue
A Case of Blue's picture
Joined: 03/22/2009
MGoPoints: 577
Haha, I made a buche de Noel

Haha, I made a buche de Noel last year for Christmas (http://gwbertlady.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/buche_de_noel.gif for reference, although I made my holly & berries out of marzipan) and no one wanted to eat it because it looked really cool.

That said, my cake decorating skills are nowhere as good as your wife's.

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