At the end of the summer I was wandering around one of my favourite shops: Natural Edge in Leigh-on-Sea (UK) and they had lots of lovely things in there, as usual. I bought a couple of little wooden boats at very reasonable prices. However, I was attracted to a larger wooden yacht and found myself thinking, "I could make one of those!" and so instead of forking out £28, I set to making my very own sailboat.First I took an ordinary piece of pine and using a belt sander shaped it into a hull. I'm sure you could use an ordinary hand held electric sander or even sand paper if you cut out more of the shape with a hack saw. It will just take longer! I used a bamboo skewer for the mast and boom and my Dad kindly made the little stand and cabin from wood off-cuts lying around in his workshop.
Although I thought the natural wood looked lovely, it wasn't quite right for my sail boat, so I decided to give it a lick of paint. I found some nice matte acrylic paints in the sale in my local art shop (Graphigro Strasbourg - huge range of materials for all your crafting needs!) for ony €1 each - bargain!
Time to start thinking about the sails. I did some research online into what shape the sails should be and then sourced some great stripey fabric from a cute little shop in Bath (UK) called The Makery. They have an online shop too. As well as a range of lovely fabrics, they also have a basket of scraps in store, which was just what I was looking for to make my little sails out of.
I cut the scraps into triangles and turned the edges over and sewed them on my sewing machine. I then threaded some twine through the seam and tied them to the mast and boom.
I then added the finishing touches of a name and home port to my sailboat.
