eep! plastic canvas needlework.

my grandfather does this in his spare time. the family is saturated with tissue box holders made out of this, and one lucky family member received an entire teepee village. not sure if that is a sign that he loves her or hates her.

i'm sure it's a fun craft for kids though :)

Plastic Canvas!! I used to do that all the time when I was little. And my grandmother does it all the time. She made my mother a little cottage to hold her tea in. Funny stuff. It has lots of great uses besides doing weird and tacky needlepoint with yarn, though. I use it in knit hat brims and other things to make them stiff.

Plastic canvas.... I learned to do it when I was 7 years old. Tissue box cover villages, toiled paper holders. Coasters...All kinds of stuff. I haven't done it in years! you can find it in Walmart.

Ohhh Plastic Canvas! I used to do this - some of it can be incredibly tacky, but I once made some cottages out of it, that I just loved. It's just a matter of finding the proper pattern.

Tee hee! It can be quite Tacky but there are some REALLY cool things out there for plastic canvas as well. You just have to go through alot of 'tack' to get to the 'tactful'. LOL.

I remember seeing a lot of this when I was growing up--like you said, sort of tacky. Care for some Christmas Kits?
http://www.marymaxim.com/subcategory.asp?CategoryID=1&SubCategoryID=3

Plastic canvas. There are books and magazines devoted to it. My mother did a lot of it. My husband had me try my hand at it this summer devising a tissue box holder for his school bus with his bus' number on it. It turned out fine and not a bit of the canvas showed through. I'm not fond of it, but lots of people are, I guess.

My grandmother used to make lots of things out of that plastic canvas, but mostly she made decorative crosses to hang on the wall, and she usually used pastel pink or blue yarn.

It's quite a popular craft in Malaysia but I've seen bags mostly. The plastic canvas provides a solid base. There are tonnes of gorgeous Japanese bag patterns available here.

Plastic Canvas Needlepoint - tacky is as tacky does! The majority of patterns for this are really, really tacky/ugly/overly-cute/nauseating. But then there are things like the cool spaceship mobile I made for a nephew once, and doll-house furniture, and things like that.

As with any craft technique, it's not the technique that's evil. It's the way people choose to use it. :)

I've seen this in many a home in Pittsburgh, PA. I even know one retired truck driver who does it (whatever it is) to relieve stress.

It's needlepoint on plastic canvas. My mom has been making all sorts of interesting things from this for years including an entire Christmas village and various "home decor" items. She's got more books of patterns for this than I've ever seen anyone have for knitting or crocheting combined.

I thought you HAD to be a grandmother to do it. (My Christmas tree is covered with the stuff - how could I get rid of the hundreds of ornaments my dear Nannie made before she died!)

So everyone else has told you WHAT it is, but I have to tell you my family's version. My mom would cut up the baskets strawberries came in for this craft and my sister and I would weave yarn and ribbons through them. Fun times.

Looks like you got your answer and so many incredibly tactful responses to the "tacky factor" question. heh

Heh! Everyone already answered -- this was something else I dabbled in as a kid. It was a lot of fun as a kid -- I went from this to counted cross stitch to embroidery. My SiL still does some of it -- she makes really cool snowflakes! (not tacky).

I thought that it was only a tacky Southern thing that we did when we were little and that old ladies did at the Senior Center! It's good to hear that the South isn't the only place with evidence of this, and it's good to know there are some decent projects out there too. I have many friends who say they aren't crafty, but love to make things like that. Now, if I could just steer them towards the more tasteful projects...

This was the craft-du-jour at my primary school!

Oh, that stuff's been around forever! Usually it's associated with really cheezy and ugly things, like toilet paper roll covers and the such. I suppose it has the potential for really cool applications, but rarely if ever is used for anything that doesn't make me cringe.

And you know what's super duper spine tinging scary? I swear I had a dream last night in which I was making something with plastic canvas. I've never worked with the stuff. I've never had a dream about it before. It's not something I particularly want to dream about. How spooky is it that I randomly dream about plastic canvas the night before you post about it? I think I'm going to go hide under the bed, now, 'cause I think there may be some big Matrix-esque plastic canvas machines coming to take over the world. ;-)

ohh, my mom makes awesome purses out of plastic canvas. :) it can be fun, but there sure are a lot of ugly things to be made from it. the stuff also comes in COLORS instead of just plain/clear/white/whatever.

Plastic canvas. Kids (4 or 5 year-old boys, perhaps?) love to weave things into it and connect it with yarn and lanyard -- we use it in summer camps all the time. But I guess it's not just for kids, huh?

How could you have missed that aisle in the crap store? :) I heard people mention using it as a base inside a felted purse. Unadorned, just cut to size.

oh the memories, i can't tell you how many tissue boxes, christmas ornaments, and changable calenders (yes, its weird) that i have made from this stuff, all curtesy of my dear great-grandmother

TACKY...unless it's done by someone over 70 or under 10 years old

Yeah, it's great stuff to use in felted or knit bags. Sewn in between the bag itself and the lining, it allows the bag to keep its shape while also allowing you to wash the bag. Chez Chelle from my SNB put it in her Via Diagonale, and it worked fabulously.

http://chezchelle.blogspot.com/2005/07/finished-via-diagonale.html

Gah - plastic canvas! Fun stuff of my youth coz it's so easy to make something with, but some of the most abominable creations in the world of tacky have been perpetuated by people who have too much time and plastic canvas on their hands. Even the fact that it includes yarn isn't enough to save it.

I think it's kind of nice when it's totally covered by petit points, so you can't see the plastic. My late mother in law on Iceland used to make quite a lot of this. We always got plastic canvas decorations for the holidays.

QUICK--step away from the plastic canvas!!

Generally tacky...
But I would love to see what you could do with it...cause I have no doubt it would be clever and fabulous!

Donna

I made some fabulous coasters with plastic canvas. I used handspun dyed with random plants and did a geometric desing based on a Renaissance needlework pattern from a Dover book. I backed the work with craft felt, and I've used them ever since. Like every other "craft", it's all in the execution.

I use it for felted bag bottoms too. Nice because you can reomve em and wash the bag when needed!

i've done a fair share of plastic canvas in my time, and have actually contemplated it once or twice since i've gotten past my "tacky" stage. i used to do a wedding gift where i'd do the bride & groom's name and wedding date in their wedding colors (the hard one was silver & purple!). now, i don't care for the unadorned bits myself, so when i'd do this, i would cover the entire thing, and then deposit it in an appropriate picture frame.

still a bit cheezy, eh?

herrschners (don't hiss at me!) has a christmas village done in white on plastic canvas that is actually quite pretty, to me. not interested in gashing myself trying to trim this stuff up any more (i've got arthritis, and everthing makes my tender hands hurt more).

they even sell this stuff in shapes. i bought rounds for the boys to make coasters for their grandmtoher one year. kinda cool.

Ah, yes...the staple of church craft bazaars everywhere. And the stuff never dies.

Yup, I also did that when I was a kid :] Now-a-days, I've found plastic canvas to be good for putting on the insides of knit bags, and then covering that with fabric. It makes them more sturdy :]

This would be a great thing for the boys - give em plastic needles, yarn, and some plastic canvas and they can go to town.

Apparently you've never been to a church Christmas bazaar before this.

...Memories...
This takes me back to elemntry school...but it is kind of kewl for gift wraps.

Wow, so many responses! It seems like this plastic canvas stuff was/is pretty popular. How did I manage to go so long without ever seeing it before?! (Nope, Colleen, no church Christmas bazaars in my past.) I can totally see the tissue box covers and toilet roll covers but tepee villages and pastel pink crosses? Oh my. It does sound useful to give a felted bag some form though and I love the idea of Christmas ornaments out of it! And judging from the few examples I've seen and from what many of you have said, it seems like in the right hands, it really can be lovely.

Brings back memories! Back in High School it took me AGES (because I lack focus sometimes) to make a gingerbread house for my Mom (roof comes off--candy goes inside). The stuff REALLY can be tacky. Needlepoint goes 3D.

The canvas is also great to add to the bottom of bags to add structure. I tack a piece to the inside bottom of my felted bags before I add the lining.

Hehe... yup, it's a little tacky, but when I get the Annie's Attic catalogs, I'm always drawn to it. I want to make some of the stuff, but I wouldn't want to have it, and I can't think of anyone who'd be interested in it as a gift.

I do think it'd be a great project for kids, though... those holes seem like they'd work well with the fat plastic darning needles I bought before I got a Chibi, which would make it a pretty safe project, and an easy way to introduce kids to needlework. Plus, they DO have some really cutesy cute things... and while that is so NOT my decorating style, I still really do want to make some of them... crazy, eh? Maybe coasters or place card holders for holidays wouldn't be so bad (and maybe I'm deluding myself, who knows).

Here's a link to the Annie's Attic site. They have a lot of cute little plastic canvas projects:

http://www.anniesattic.com/plastic_canvas/index.html

I just used the stuff as bottom reinforcement in the large tote I made for backtack II - the holes allowed me to sew it together to make a pretty big shape. It worked really well

I can't believe you never saw plastic canvas before! You must lead a very sheltered life, my dear. ; )

My husband's aunt used to make little birds (just the heads) out of 2 or 3 small squares sewn together so that it made a 3D head that you could pinch the sides and make the beak open (like those old fashioned coin purses). You could then put a chocolate kiss inside. She would make them for Easter in pastels and for christmas ornaments as cardinals and blue jays - the kids loved the hidden surprise.

Oh yeah, it's all about grandma's house--or in my case, my step-granddad's trailer. I remember fake-Barbies with crocheted dresses over the toilet paper more than the plastic canvas, and was always totally fascinated. Oh but it's so fun anyway!

This was my first craft addiction as a child. I hit my prime in middle school and then upgraded to counted croos-stitch.

*shudder* you just brought back my childhood and every visit to my aunt's house at Christmas. I think if she could wallpaper with the stuff she would.

Leisel hit the nail on the head. Plastic canvas is one of those crafts that is fun to do, but you usually don't want to display the finished project in your house. Another use that wasn't mentioned: it makes a sturdy Bible cover.