Mayflower centerpiece.

Yes. I know it's too late to really do any good this year. But. I thought I'd share my "process" pictures of how I made my Mayflower centerpiece for Thanksgiving before I forgot. :) This way, too, I can just link folks back to this post come next November. 

So. Here's what I did:

1. Gather materials and inspiration. I don't know about y'all, but I love looking through the Pottery Barn catalogs. Such beautiful things, but just way too expensive. Here's the centerpiece that caught my attention. I *wanted* one. But, I wasn't willing to pay $40 plus shipping. Instead, I hit my local craft store and spent less than $3. Here's what you need:

• two 12x18 sheets of stiff felt, black (I'd have gotten brown but they were out)
• three 9x12 sheets of "normal" felt, tan (you could also use canvas)
• three wooden dowels (I think mine were about 1/4" diameter and each was 1 yard long)
• one block of floral foam for dry arrangements 
• one skein of brown embroidery floss (I already had some on hand)

2. Make the hull. Cut the two big felt pieces into the hull and sew the outside edges together with the embroidery floss. I just eyeballed it. You could make a template out of paper first and then cut along that, but I was feeling in a bit of a hurry. ;)  

(Click on any of these images for a larger version.)

3. Make the sails. Fold one of the short edges over to create a small lip...maybe 1/2 - 3/4 inches (enough that, once sewn, a dowel will fit through). Before you begin sewing that, though...fold the felt in half lengthwise to find the middle. Snip a small hole so that you'll be able to thread the vertical dowel through later. Now, stitch the "lip" down (leaving room for the dowel) and continue around the other edges just to make it look pretty. I didn't do anything fancy...just a straight stitch. I did, though, start at the middle (just left of where I snipped a hole for the vertical dowel) and then continued around from there...ending just shy of that spot where I snipped the hole so that the vertical dowel doesn't have to contend with any stitches. If you aren't fearful of your sewing machine like I am, that's probably easier. ;) (I'll mention here that I opted to have all my sails the same size so used each piece of felt just as it was. By all means, feel free to shorten some of the sails or have a double mast or whatever.)

4. Attach the dowels. My boys informed me that my sails aren't how you'd find them on an actual sailing ship. I opted not to delve into history here and exercised artistic license...going with what I thought looked nice. ;) I had my lovely husband cut my dowels to 23, 24 and 25 inch lengths (for the vertical) and three 10 inch lengths (to hold up the sails). (Yes, I could have done this myself but I was busy stitching the sails at that point, lol.) I placed the 10" lengths through each sail and then added the uprights. I left about 1.5" at the top of the vertical dowel. To keep the horizontal bar from slipping down, (and I thought this was rather ingenious if I do say so myself) I simply added a little rubber band to the vertical dowel. I've heard that hot glue works as well, or you could get fancy and try to notch the two dowels together. 

5. Arrange your sails. Stick your sails into your floral foam block, spaced as you like. Easy peasy. Because floral foam can be crushed to shape, I then just stuck this whole thing into my hull and squished it all to the bottom.

6. Weight it down. At this point, I began to realize that my boat was a bit top heavy and lacking in stabilization since my base wasn't large in the way of surface area. My sweet Micah volunteered to go gather me some rocks. I just set them on top of the floral foam. I probably could/should have glued them in some way. I didn't. It was fine. :) (In retrospect, you could use clay instead of the floral foam and then the base would be heavier on it's own. I liked the floral foam, though, because I figure I can just buy a new one each year...and then everything's easy to store, nice and flat.)

7. Fill it up. I crinkled some kraft paper (had some from a recent shipment anyhow) to cover up the rocks and floral foam. Tucked it in loosely. Then, I just took miscellaneous things that were already on my dining table centerpiece/bowl and filled the hull...with small gourds, indian corn, decorative flowers, etc. Voila! 

And that's my version of a Mayflower centerpiece. :) 

Comments

[Paula Roberts]

Your ship is beautiful and your directions are terrific. Thank you so much !