rosiepink

Felt and Stitch Spring Flower Bowl, Art Yarn, Spring Felt Beads, a Birthday Gift and a New Tutorial

 

- By Lyn - 

Spring is in the air and I’m still using my Christmas holly bowl as a fruit bowl on my table. I love it but with spring colours and flowers now appearing in the garden and the days getting brighter I decided to make a new bowl for the new season.

To make my bowl I laid out a three layer circle of sky-blue Merino wool fibres, 50cm diameter (20”), then added a fourth layer of Spring colours and topped it with a few sprinkles of silk fibres for some extra interest.  I enjoyed using the uplifting colours and the bowl looks very pretty on the table, ready to receive some easter chocolates, fingers crossed!

Despite the turn of season, Annie wanted to make a second Winter Trees Table Centre for a friend’s 80th birthday. Our friend had said how much she liked the original and wanted to commission one, so we thought it would be a nice idea to make it as a gift, and she was thrilled with it!

As an added bonus Annie photographed the whole process and we have created a new tutorial, Winter Trees Table Centre, available in our Etsy shop if you would like to have a go at creating your own. The tutorial is suitable for beginners and experienced felters alike. You will be very ahead of the game if you make a cosy project now for next winter season, for yourself or for gifting! :)

She wanted to start a spring project as well and had enjoyed making the autumn beads last year, so decided to try some beads in spring colours. This is a work in progress...  3 done, several to go! They most likely will be made into a decorative home item, perhaps in a vase again, or maybe a hanging decoration.

Lastly, you may remember this ball of fluff and fibres and odds n ends…. from when Annie had decided a work in progress just was not going anywhere and had screwed it up into a fluffy ball of bits for reuse in a new project at a later date.

Recently she decided to spin it up into some art yarn. It is deliberately under spun, over spun, and messy, to make it interesting in wet felting or possibly in weaving, but really not any good for knitting with!

She wrapped it on white board, rather than making a skein or a ball so that she can pick out colours that she likes and cut a short length for including in wet felting. The yarn is quite springy, it is not plied and has a lot of tension!

Do the spring colours that are popping up inspire you to make something new?

Winter Gift of Berries - A Felted Robins Picture

Winter Gift of Berries

By Lyn

My robin wreath has now seen two Christmases so I decided to retire it to make way for a new one for 2025, but as the robins were so cute I decided to re-cycle them into a new project, this wet-felted picture called ‘Winter Gift of Berries’.

This is the original felted and wire wreath:

One of the robins up close, with her wire legs that I swapped for yarn legs in my new picture:

I was so happy and in the moment making this cute project that I didn't photograph the process.  The background was made from many layers of drum-carded wool fibres – it needed to be substantial to accept the needle-felted robin shapes.

After wetting down the thick base of wool fibres, I put in place the branch (pre-felt with added white yarn), twig of berries (yarn and pre-felt circles), robin legs (yarn) and then sprinkled on some snowflakes (wool nepps).

The piece was rubbed on both sides until it made pre-felt. 

Then I added the robins, minus their original wire legs, and sprinkled a few snowflakes on them.

The felt was then rubbed only on the reverse side until the robins had bedded in and everything was secure, so as not to disturb the delicate robin features.

The robins are very slightly proud of the background but that gives the picture a bit of depth.

It was a very enjoyable picture to make 😊

 

Happy New Year! And a wet felted winter trees table centre!

Winter Trees Table Centre

By Annie

Happy New Year! I hope your year is going well so far. We had snow in the New Forest yesterday which is very relevant to my first make of the year - this hand felted, snowy winter trees table centre (size: approx 60cm / 24in).

I used the artwork of Eric Ravilious as inspiration in response to the Q4 challenge set over on the felting and fibre studio forum 

This was a double challenge for me as I chose his woodcut work for my inspiration, using a monochrome palette, and I usually like to go mad with colours, and the more bonkers the better!

The subject of the two pieces above, and the way he stylised it just really appealed to me, and the over sized snow flakes are fab!

It is made from white Merino wool tops and for the majority of the trees I used some very fragile t-shirt material to get the look of the woodcut. I’m really pleased it didn’t disintegrate since I couldn’t be bothered to make a sample! I also used some other reclaimed fabrics from various old garments and some yarns to add details.

 

I had begun this project with the idea of making a bowl but once I’d felted it I decided I liked it as it was, for now anyway.

I found it hard to keep the design simple and ended up taking it apart several times after over complicating it, but I got there in the end.

 

I’m surprised how much I like it. I wouldn’t normally make something in one colour - it’s all shades of blue (but does look black in parts in the photos.)

I noticed I made the branches short and stylised since it was somewhat pattern based to make the circle, but in reality they would have been longer and overlapping but I like the way it turned out, and might even go on to make a picture in the same theme.

I had actually started off with a completely different design idea for the table centre using colourful holly leaves that I made last year for a christmas project but didn’t finish the project at the time.

I do really like the holly leaves but I was umming and ahhing and couldn’t decide if I liked the layout or not, and remembered I had wanted to get the Q4 piece done, so I took them off and put them back in the pile for later consideration. Now, looking at the photos I really like the holly leaves a lot, so must return to that project in time for next Christmas!

Happy Christmas! and a Handmade Felt and Stitched Holly Leaf Bowl

Hello and Seasons Greetings from Lyn and Annie at rosiepink!

We enjoy making Christmassy things so we’ve made a felted and stitched ‘Holly Bowl’ to sit on the sideboard for our fruit - or on our laps for our sweets! :)

The bowl is made from one piece of handmade felt with free motion stitching added for leaf details. The shape was cut out then formed with hand stitches.  We added bright red hand felted wool ‘berries’ to finish.

The Holly Bowl was made using one of the techniques found in our Felt and Stitch Bowls Tutorial that we modified from using autumn oak leaves to seasonal holly leaves!

 

Our tutorial How to Make Wet Felted & Machine Stitched Bowls is available in our Etsy shop if you feel inspired to have a go! The projects are easily customisable to use your own favourite colours and seasonal themes, so why not have a play and make your own version! :)

We hope you all have a peaceful Christmas and a wonderfully creative 2025 xx

 

Experimental Feltmaking - Enjoy the Process Whatever Happens!

Things don’t always work out how you imagined!

But it’s all part of the creative process and learning.

The experimental play piece from a few posts ago didn’t end how I thought it might (with 9 mini woodland abstracts made!), and instead I ended up felting only two pieces, here's one:

And here's the other, chopped into 4 pieces, possibly to stitch and paint for greetings cards:

This one is sat on the back burner to be looked at again later:

and the rest are shredded up into this joyous ball of fluff to be recycled into something new!

But even though that isn’t anywhere near the outcome I anticipated it was still worthwhile going through the process, and I made new discoveries too e.g. I made this lovely piece from offcuts of the one I chopped into four:

The reason I didn’t end up with 9 mini woodland pieces is that the project was going on too long and I realised it was because I had stopped enjoying it as the pieces became too tight, too fussy and a labour, rather than a joy.

However, nothing is wasted, since with every experiment and every piece of creative play I have made new discoveries. Things that work, things that don’t, little snippets to take into future work.

Once I stopped over thinking it, remembered it was purely for experimentation, it became fun again, and I’m pleased with what came out even if it wasn’t the intended 9 pieces of woodland artwork!

Next time perhaps I would take the initial piece of felt further before cropping and ensure there was more contrast / interest before I chop it up so there would be less to do once cropped. I think this would keep the freshness and freedom in the work rather than having to work up to the edges once cropped.

Thought I'd leave you with this photo of a beautiful wood near my house - those colours of copper, gold, lime green and yellow....stunning!

There's still time for autumn creative crafts!

Christmas has started to elbow it's way into everything earlier and earlier, but there is still time to enjoy some autumn crafting! :)

For inspiration here is an autumn leaves decorative bowl that mum made a few years back, perfect to hold a few lightweight odds and ends like small fir cones, fallen acorns, or other woodland walk finds that you want to enjoy indoors for a little while longer.

The felt was made from Merino fibres and additions of a lot of coloured bits of dyed scrim and other open weave materials, nepps, silk noil and scraps of leftover felt were added, to give the impression of the spotty appearance that leaves often develop just before falling from the tree.

Here it is in progress:

The bowl is 3" tall and 12" at its widest (8x30cm).

If you'd like to learn how to make your own, this bowl uses one of the techniques shown in our Felt & Stitch Bowls tutorial, available from our  Etsy Shop   

The little Oak Leaf bowl shown below is one of the projects and techniques in the tutorial but you can customise the projects to use your own favourite colours and themes.

Mum used 5 different leaf shapes in her bowl, it is so pretty and a lovely complement to any seasonal decor.  Why not give the tutorial a go and see what you can create!

Autumn Inspired Wet Felted and Hand Embroidered Beads

- By Annie -

Recently I’ve been making some hand embroidered, autumn inspired, wet felted beads to make a decoration for the house. I love this time of year, autumn is my favourite season. Not only does it feel like the perfect feltmaking season, I love the cosy feeling of this time of year and feel so energised by the drop in air temperature.

There is nothing like a fresh walk through the garden or a woodland for inspiration, picking up and examining leaves, acorns and other fallen goodies for their colours, textures and patterns.

I always like to bring something indoors to display in the house, a few sprigs of this or that often plopped into a jam jar or bottle. Above my stove I have a dotty jug that has random bits in depending on what I’ve been doing in the garden and also depending on how long they survive before they wilt in the steam of cooking!  The tiny kitchen table is often adorned with various stems or seed heads or interesting sticks and fir cones.

I was looking for inspiration for my autumn decoration when I was gardening and the crocosmia seed heads would usually have stayed on the plants for a lot longer, with just one or two coming indoors but I had to cut them all back as they had laid down across the path and were getting trampled.  So they became the perfect carrier for my felty balls autumn project! 

 

The felt beads are about 2.5cm/1 inch in size and are fun and quick to make using only small amounts of wool.

Making felt beads is such a lovely process and they can be used for so many projects from keyrings to necklaces, and all kinds of home decor.

Mum made a lovely tutorial, available in our Etsy shop, on how to make wet felted beads then hand embroider and string them into a necklace with a sliding closure.   

You can make your beads in your favourite colours and go on to design your own stitched patterns once you get started.  Mum used summer and beach colours in her tutorial but as you can see I used an autumn palette and adapted some of the stitches for the season.

We hope you feel inspired to make your own decorative woolly beads and balls, but be warned, once you start you might not stop!

The Messy Middle stage of a felting and fibre experimental process

Mini Woodland - Work in Progress

- By Annie -

A while ago I began a fibre version of an exercise that is popular in painting and drawing where you make a grid in masking tape on paper then randomly create marks and lines in pen, pencil and paint etc, except I did the process with fibres, fabrics, yarns and prefelts.

In the paint and pencil version on removing the masking tape you reveal a set of interesting compositions made without the boundaries of the edge of a piece of paper that can then be worked on further.  This also eliminates blank white paper that can be a problematic starting point for artworks!  With my textile version I decided that however the first part turned out I would cut it into 9 even (ish) squares as if I had masking taped off a grid, and that would force me to use what I ended up with. 

I laid out a square of fibres in whites/blues then added another layer in greens then added prefelts, yarns etc.

In retrospect I probably should have stopped here but carried on anway, possibly adding too much at this stage, but it's an experiment so whatever goes!

I layered on far more than I had intended but went with it anyway. I gridded off the squares with yarn as a cutting line then cut the squares out.  They are a bit wonky but good enough!

The idea was to further work on the squares to create 9 mini woodland pictures from the cut pieces.

I took each one in turn and considered it.

I decided that in retrospect the fibre method on this woodlands idea was quite limiting in that you can only layer so far with fibre and fabrics, unlike with paints and pencils you can just keep going.  e.g. adding a swirl of bright opaque paint to make contrast works better than trying to layer light fibre over a bed of dark.  It does work but it works in different ways in fibre.  In this case I definitely should have stopped and cut it up earlier!

Hmmm……what to do….  I decided to continue with what I had in each square but to dismantle each one a bit and rework the existing layers to bring colours back and forth, before adding more prefelts and yarns and loosely but intentionally began to form into abstract woodland pieces.

The method is a good one though in that it made the process begin and 9 mini woodlands are in progress with a solid starting point rather than wondering how to individually start each one.

Anyway, time has flown by and I haven’t got very far but thought I’d share my progress at the “Messy Middle” halfway point.  It’s an interesting exercise and hopefully I will find time soon to get stuck in properly and complete them!

I’m finding the colours and textures a joy with this, I do enjoy an alternative colour palette!  They all still need a fair bit of work and some fiddling, but no hurry!  I’ve always got lots of ideas on the boil and eventually some make it out the other end!  

Wet Felted Woodland - but is it by day or by moonlight?

Section of latest wide woodlands composition - wet felted

-By Annie-

Here is my latest wet felted woodland composition. It is very different to my original idea which was to create a cold and snowy winter scene, including a snowman! But it took a while from start to finish, the weather and season changed, and my work morphed from one idea to another, and I just let it emerge from short sessions of adding and taking away until I was happy with the finished layout. Some of my work is fast and furious, other work just gently smolders away until it is ready. Is this the same for you?

As with my previous woodland it doesn’t have a chosen season but interestingly I’ve been asked….is it a woodland in the daytime, or by moonlight? How interesting that we all see colours and stories differently, initially I thought I was portraying daylight, but now I’m not so sure!

Here are some close crops for better detail, the first two of the dry layout stage, the rest after felting:

 

My woodland pictures seem to be getting bigger each time, and taking longer, so I’m now tempted to shrink back down and try some smaller ones.

This one is approx 133cm x 42cm and is made mainly from Merino & Corriedale fibres plus some random unknown fibres that were hanging out in the fibre stash, along with prefelts, open weave fabrics, hand dyed scrim, and yarn (both commercial and handspun).

Here is the whole thing laid out ready for felting...

And here it is felted, but this time I cropped the photo, I like the way it gives it more of a feeling of expanse, what is going on past the edge of the picture?

I’ll dig out some photos of the work in progress for another post to show the start to finish - if I’ve taken enough photos to give a good enough idea.

As an aside, as well as making finished artworks I like to have little projects on the go that are easy to pick up and put down without needing too much time or creative energy, that I can work on in between other tasks. As I’m getting low on pre-felts, and my fibre scrap box was overflowing, I have started a little project to replenish the prefelts and use up the fibres.

I’ve been carding the scraps into batts to make into prefelts, but they look scrumptious just as they are, I could dive right into them! I’ve made some darker colourways to help with contrast in my pictures as I tend to go toward the bright colours so I do need something to offset them and make them pop. Here are the carded batts, the prefelt making will be an ongoing background task.

Yum!  This is my fibre equivalent of a sweetshop!

Wet Felted Woodlands Projects

- By Annie -

Hello! We hope you are enjoying a New Year of creativity. Me and mum are finding that the year is absolutely flying by, but squeezing in any opportunity for crafty things that we can!

Back in November I showed the finished dry layout stage of one of my wide composition woodland pictures and I finally felted and photographed it so thought I would share it.

Here are some photos of it full length and also some cropped close ups for detail.

I also tried hanging it in the trees in the garden to have a play with photography and the light.
Our fibre friend, Helene, pointed out that it makes a good optical illusion as it blends in with the natural back drop so well. An accidental extra win!

Shortly after completing this one I started gathering materials for my next woodlands picture, which I imagined was going to be a snowy, cold, deep winter picture. I made a couple of batts and chose what I thought was a good winter palette made up from fibres, yarns, other woolly bits, silk and fabric scraps.

It will come as no surprise that shortly after starting the picture the idea changed a lot. I couldn't quite get on with the coldness of the palette and wanted a little more zing, and also when I went walking really the winter woodlands here are still full of quite vibrant greens and no snow, so I injected a bit more colour into it!

I think I have now finished the dry layout stage so will share it soon on the blog, it's been a work in progress on my desk for about 6 weeks now while I spend half hour here and there taking bits off and putting bits on and pushing it and pulling it, but I think it's taken shape finally! Watch this space! :)