Felt and Plastic Canvas Castle

I often use Lego in storytelling. There are so many cute little pieces and it is easy to photograph them with my recently-acquired iPhone.

However, very young children find it difficult to make Lego buildings large enough to house the figures. So I designed this collapsible castle to extend our Lego storytelling. It's made from felt and plastic canvas and yes, the gates are real Lego gates.

Plastic canvas, 2 sheets, gray if possible but clear or black are also fine

Gray felt, 2 sheets light and 2 sheets dark

Large sharp needle

Dental Floss (It is STRONG!)

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Scissors

wax paper

Using the attached PDF pattern, cut out the front of the castle.

Use the same pattern to cut out the back, but on the back, do NOT cut out the large door. Cut a few more windows if you want!

Cut out FOUR side pieces. They are as tall as the front and back pieces, and fifteen squares wide.

Sew Lego gates into the opening.

If you don't have Lego gates, you can just use the leftover pieces of plastic canvas to make your own.

HOWEVER, I think the "real" gates really add some pizzaz to this castle!

I bought my gates on eBay.

Cut a piece of light-colored felt to match each of the six plastic pieces.

Do not bother to cut out windows. They are easier to cut after sewing the fleet to the plastic.

Using white dental floss, sew felt to each piece of plastic. Sew around the edges of each window.

Do this for all six pieces of plastic canvas.

Place two pieces together, felt touching felt, and stitch them together.

(Note: for the side piece, I got lazy. I didn't sew the felt onto the fabric first. I just made a plastic-felt-felt-plastic sandwich and sewed it all at once.)

Continue attaching pieces until they are all in a row.

(Yes, I know that one of the pieces of felt doesn't match. We shall pretend that the first quarry ran out of stone and our castle-builders then shopped at a second quarry....)

You MAY have noticed that one of the pieces is green....

I bought the only two pieces of gray canvas they had in the store... then I made a mistake cutting the castle back. The inside is going to be covered with felt anyway, so I substituted a piece of green that I had on hand.

If you are REALLY detail-oriented, you may also notice that the castle back does not match the pattern. My green piece was two rows too short, but I used it any way! The method of "building" with plastic canvas and felt is pretty forgiving.

If you are a very tidy person, you may have woven all those loose ends in. Good for you!

Otherwise, carefully tack down all the loose ends with a tiny bit of hot glue.

Cut out a piece of the darker felt to match each of the plastic canvas pieces.

Just cut out the basic outline. Don't try cutting out all the windows. It's easier to cut them post-gluing!

Line your work area with a large piece of wax paper.

Working a 1-2" wide section at a time, place a thin layer of hot glue on the plastic canvas and quickly and carefully pat the felt in place.

NOTE: Be sure that the first row of holes on either end remains open, so that the canvas can be stitched together later. I neglected to do this on my first castle, and it was extremely difficult to get the needle though the canvas, felt AND glue...

If you have never worked with felt and plastic canvas and hot glue before, practice this with some scrap pieces before you work with your project pieces!

Once all the felt backing is in place, trim.

I use a small pair of sharp scissors, but if you are skilled, use an x-acto knife (or "the knife of exact zero....")

This is how the "almost finished" piece looks.

If you stitch perfectly neatly, you can place the pieces together as shown in the second picture and sew.

If your stitches aren't so perfect, you will need to sew with "right sides together." and, when the stitching is completed, you will need to carefully reverse the piece.

The finished castle is collapsible. It takes up very little space when stored.

Add Lego figures and start playing.

Be sure to print the storybook that accompanies this castle.

The link above will take you to the instructions for the storybook.

I've also included the PDF here.