Introduction: A Yarn VW Cabriolet

About: I'm a designer/fabricator working in the Waterloo Region of Ontario, Canada. Currently working on practicing my TIG welding, CNC production, and working on bringing some small stainless steel products to marke…

Hello Instructables!  This is my entry for the Lion Brand Yarn Architecture Contest.  It is a Volkswaegen Cabriolet made from a cardboard base and covered in yarn.  If you are doing this craft with children you should either do the glueing for them, or you should skip that step and just paint the cardboard or colour it in markers.  Hot Glue is used in this craft, so please! avoid burning yourself during this instructable.

Step 1: Materials

To create your very own miniature, soft, yarn covered replica of a volkswagon cabriolet, you will need:

-Yarn (Approximately 3 colours)
-A Hot Glue Gun (AND GLUE, silly goose...)
-A Cereal Box or a tree, whichever method of attaining cardboard is easier for you
-A Corker ( is sort of like a miniature circular loom, it weaves the thread to make a larger rope, I will not go over how to use one of these, you can find instructions somewhere else)
-Something with a straight edge, a ruler preferably
-A Pen or Pencil
-Tape
-If you wish, you may also use markers or paint

Step 2: Make the Net of the Car

Part of the reason I chose to make a Cabriolet is because they have a simple, geometric shaped bady.  This way I dont have to make any curves and the car can still look like the real thing!  If you think you have more skill at creating cardboard nets be my guest, create a buggati or something real curvey, but for this instructable, I will be creating something simple.  I didn't have a ruler on hand, so I dont have the exact measurments.  I just eyeballed everything and used some math knowledge, and trimmed everything when I was fitting it together.  Just think of the car that you are creating taken apart and layed on the ground, and draw all of those parts attached in the right places.  Then cut it out and score along the lines where you will fold with the blade of the scissors.

Step 3: Putting It Together

This is the simple part.  After you have cut out the net, use your tape to stick it into its final shape.  Don't worry if some parts are slightly off, you are going to be covering this in yarn, and that will disguise any minor imperfections.  After it is put together, you may want to colour code it as I did to give yourself a better perspective of what colour yarn you will be putting where.

Step 4: Now for the Tricky Part...

Now we come to the actual process of the glueing.  If you are doing this craft with young children I would do this part for them so that their fingers don't get burned.  Other than the fact that it is nearly impossible to avoid burning yourself in this step, the rest of the theory is simple, or is it?  Basically, all you have to do is glue the string down in patterns that will give the finished car a nice look and feel.  But, there is a problem.  Do all you can to avoid letting your finger touch the glue when you are pushing the string down, otherwise you will get burnt and you will create the little cobwebs that the hot glue loves to turn into, and that will ruin the overall finish of the yarn.  You can tell if you look carefully at my photos where I touched the glue.  The pattern is usually messed up a bit and there is a big chunk of glue with cobwebs coming off of it.  Trust me, you will want to avoid this.

Step 5: The Wheels/ Bumpers/Windows

Lets start with the windows.  Do the same thing as you did with the body of the car, but use a different coloured yarn.  I chose to use blue, the stereotipical non-clear window/sky colour.  After you have finished filling in the windows, it is time to finnally make use of the corked thread.  With my design, the front bumper was a double layer of corking, the back bumber was a single layer of corking, and each wheel had approximatkly two layers from the middle.  The corking will peel of if you are not careful, because it is thicker and therefore has more resistance to bending.  The solution is just to hold the corking in place for a minute or so until it dries.

Step 6: Your Finished!

Once all the

Lion Brand Yarn Build with Yarn Contest

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Lion Brand Yarn Build with Yarn Contest