This dump truck was designed to go along with the forklift page I created by request. Since I wrote “Up & Down” on the forklift, I wanted to do another set of opposites on the matching page. A dump truck with “In & Out” sounded perfect!

To make this page I used: green background felt, felt (in brown textured, light blue, gray, gold and black), 3 buttons, 1 grommet, 1 snap, ribbons and embroidery floss.

I started by free-hand cutting out the ground. I set the page beside the forklift while I cut so the ground matched up. I sewed it down when it was done. I then pinned down all the truck parts except the dumpster. That way I knew everything was centered correctly on the page before I began to sew.

I sewed the steering wheel down with it layered on top of the light blue window. Then I layered the gold truck cab over top and sewed it down. I never had to sew the light blue at all. Next I sewed the gray truck bed/bumper down.

The wheels on this page don’t turn because I wanted to have that curving part on them (sorry, I don’t know car parts!) I pinned the wheels down then attached then with a button in the center. I then sewed the gold curves down over the top. The bottom of the wheel is loose, but doesn’t turn.

My next step was to cut out two sides of a dirt pile shape. I free-handed it and just made sure it was narrower than the dumpster. With one end of an ~8″ ribbon sticking out of one side, I sewed the halves together. I then sewed the dumpster into a pocket with the other end of the ribbon caught it the upper left corner. I marked on the pattern where I sewed the dumpster with a dashed line.

To attach the dumpster, I added a grommet in the lower left corner, a snap in the upper right (put the other half where it lines up on the page) and sewed a button through the grommet hole. To keep the dumpster from spinning all the way around, I sewed a scrap of ribbon to the back and attached it to the page. You can see it peaking out in the photos.

The final step was sewing the lettering. I actually just sewed right through the pattern paper then cut it away. Nice and quick! I used stem stitch.

This page goes with the forklift page I made by special request. Stop by the Facebook page if you’d like to make a suggestion. For more quiet book pages click here.

This quiet book page is a special request. If you have a request, leave comment on my Facebook page and I’ll see what I can do.

I knew nothing about forklifts when I started this page, so I had to look at a lot of pictures and figure out how to simplify it down. The basic mechanism on this page is a strip of felt matching the background that a sleeve of clear vinyl slides up and down on. The vinyl gave me a place to sew down the forklift platform and some snaps to attach the pallet and boxes. I added spinning wheels, numbers and the words “Up & Down” to add to the educational elements.

Here is what I used: a 9″ square dark green felt background, felt (in dark green, brown pebble texture, gold, light blue, tan, natural, gray and black, clear vinyl, green ribbon, sew-on snaps, two grommets, two buttons and embroidery thread. I sewed this page by hand, with the exception of sewing it down to the actual page.

I started by pinning everything down to get placement (don’t pin into vinyl – it leaves holes) then sewed down the light blue window the gray steering wheel and the brown ground (cut that out freehand.) Take your strip of felt that matches your background (dark green in my case) and sew the gray bar along the left side. Pin it in place on the page then sew down the gold cab of the forklift. It will overlap the bottom of the gray bar. You can then sew down the bottom of the background strip.

To make the wheels, cut them out just outside of the circle template using pinking shears. Insert a grommet into each wheel and sew a button to the page through the grommet hole. The wheels will be able to spin around but will be held in place by the buttons.

To make the sleeve for the forklift mechanism, start by sewing the gold forklift platform to one piece of clear vinyl. See the pattern and photos for placement. Sew down some snaps for the pallet and boxes to attach to. Sew a loop of ribbon to the top center and another to the bottom center. Place the second piece of vinyl behind the first and sew them together along the sides only. Slide the sleeve onto the background strip then sew down the top of the strip to keep it in place. You should be ale to slide it up and down to look like the forklift is lifting.

For each of the crates, I freehand stitched the numbers to the front and a snap to the back, then sewed the two sides together. For the pallet I sewed a line across the front to add dimension, sewed a snap to the back, then sewed the two sides together. I added more snaps to the ground to give the crates and pallet somewhere to go when they aren’t on the forklift. (I ended up using 1.5 small snap sets per crate and 1.5 medium snaps for the pallet.)

The final embellishment was the words embroidered at the top. To transfer the writing, I pinned my pattern down and basted over each latter with one strand of thread. I left 2″ tails at the end of each letter instead of knotting. I then cut the paper away from each letter and puled off the remaining bits. This left me with a basted pattern to stitch over using stem stitch. When I was done, I pulled out the basting threads, clipping them wherever they were caught in the embroidery.

I am currently working on a dump truck that will be the other side of the two page spread. I think they’ll be really cute together!

Let me know i you use this pattern. I’d love to see your version!