Cinderella's Castle

Our wonderful Alphastamps Cinderella sheets were simply crying out for a castle to go with them, in my opinion and as there are plenty of castles here in Scotland they was a lot of choice for the design. Eventually I produced a pattern which is a mishmash of various castles I have been to. The castle itself is build like a fort (as most Scottish castles are to defend themselves from the English invaders!!) but I selected Gothic shaped windows and doors for it (because I love the shape). Not a combination I have ever come across so this is a unique castle, specially for Cinderella. Castle size is 7 x 10"

I made a background of brick fabric, which I ironed onto Fast2Fuse (following manufacturers' instructions). I then machine quilted this, following the lines of the brick.

When this was finished I pinned my pattern onto the back (see picture at left) and straight stitched along all the lines using a thick black thread on the bobbin of my sewing machine. When you turn the piece over the right side, voila, there is your castle (as seen below).

I then cut out the castle along the outside lines and proceeded to cut out the windows. You can do this by either using very sharp, small scissors or alternatively a craft knife and mat. In order to have a proper backing for the doors, iron on a fabric to the back of the doors only (on the back of the Fast2Fuse). I then also cut out the doors by cutting in the middle, bottom and top lines but leaving the side lines intact, so that the doors can be opened or closed!

Select a thick knitting yarn which tones in with the colours of your castle and couch it around the edges of your castle, using a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. If you have a walking foot for your machine, use it as it really helps. When done, do the same with the windows and door. The door is very fiddly to do, you might prefer to couch by hand for this one!

Now comes the fun bit! You get to choose the images you want to appear in your window. For the two top side windows I used images from Alphastamps The Ball#1 collage sheet. In fact the two are from one image only, cut into two pieces. Make sure there is extra to overlap the sides. Put the paper image behind the window, moving it around till you're happy with the way the figures show in the window. Take it to your sewing machine and stitch it down using a straight stitch on your machine and stitching from the front of the castle into the couched yarn which makes your sewing virtually undetectable. These 2 windows also received a layer of Diamond Glaze. The centre window at the top features an image from Alphastamps Cinderella Pining sheet.
Of course the Fairy Godmother also has to be present as well as Cinders in her downtrodden personality and I dedicated the two windows at the bottom to them. I used an image from Alphastamps Fairy Godmother sheet (again this was one image cut into seperate sides, so that Cinderella herself is on the right and her fairy godmother on the left of the castle gates.


Needless to say, the castle needs a prince as well as a Cinderella and he and his happy bride are pictured in the door (image from Alphastamps Happily Ever After sheet), They can be on view (doors open, happy ending) or they can be locked away (door closed, story still in progress)

Now it's time to provide the castle with a landscape. I choose a fabric which has lovely sunset imagery on it, including the setting sun (so that the happy couple can walk off into it as befitting every fairy tale!) I cut this fabric to 9.5 x 13", layered it up with Fast2Fuse, ironed on a backing fabric and then attached the castle by zigzagging over the edges into the background fabric. As birds also figure large into some versions of the Cinderella tale so I wanted to honour them on this piece too.

I stamped the bird image (Doodled Bird from Alphastamps ) onto an acetate (transparent) sheet, using black Staz-on, cut it to shape and stitched it on as shown using transparent thread in my machine.

Finally I couched on a fancy knitting yarn in colours matching the background around all the edges of the background, using a zigzag stitch and matching sewing thread. To make it really stand out, I went around all the sides 3 times to create a really chunky border.