rosiepink

A peacock, a squirrel, some flowers and a massive pain in the butt!

My back has been driving me nuts!

But finally, Oh the relief of being able to sit down! After about 6 weeks I'm almost back to normal after spraining my back. Just left with a painful piriformis - quite literally a big ole pain in the butt!

So I haven't done much for ages (I even want to go to the gym classes that I normally make excuses for - so much steam to let off!). But at least I can actually make felt and drive a sewing machine again - hooray!

It's both my grandma and grandad's birthdays this week so I thought it would be nice to make them some cards. After lunch on Sunday I disappeared into my sewing room to "quickly sew a couple of cards" and emerged 5 hours later, clutching 2 cards and leaving a hell of a mess behind me!

Here is Grandad's card:

 and then thought this one showed the texture a bit better: 

Grandad took a beautiful photo of a peacock and I thought it would be nice to make him a card of it.  This is the picture - luckily the peacock on that day was up for giving a display!

and here is Grandma's:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I absolutely love stitching flowers on to felt!

I made both cards from leftover felt - the Joy of Scraps! You can see in the picture of my table below that I'm trying to recreate some of my old favourite pieces colourways because they make such good standbys but it doesn't work out so well. The best pieces are usually happy accidents and very random colours that you wouldn't necessarily put together in a picture but work beautifully well for small pieces to sew into. It's harder to do intentionally!

Anyway, I mounted both of the pieces of felt on to water colour boards instead of folded cards (so they were more like giant postcards than cards!). I took a couple of snaps of the backs before I stuck them down cos I always find that I really like the back of embroideries, sometimes as much or more than the front! It's always so free and easy, and the lack of detail is appealing.

 

Anyway, so it only took me 5 mins to get into chaos at my sewing table. Millions of things on the go. Look at the state of it. It went from "not too bad" to "who chucked in a hand grenade?" pretty quick!

Do you work neat and tidy or in a big mess?

 

I really do love order and tidiness - the rest of the house is quite minimal and I see ornaments as "things to dust" but when it comes to fibres and fabrics and threads I just can't get enough! Although I do love the tidying and organising after a big mess. My long suffering husband often comments that I spend more time sorting things into colours and neat piles than I do making anything!

But I have also managed to finish Mr Squidgle at long last. I decided I would give him a background after all. I tried this plain background but it just didn't work. I like the simpicity of the stitching but it didn't work in this case.

I cut him out and dropped him on to lots of backgrounds and not sure why but the blue tartan worked best.

I think he is rather cute but also think he went on to be a bit more twee than I had had in my mind's eye originally, maybe I slightly overcooked him! But you don't know til you try do you? I do like his eyes though. And in making him it also made me look at the fabrics and colours in a new light. May also save me having to make a Mothers Day card....ahem.

e-Book Review: Handmade Felt Book-Cover Project by Zed

                            

A textile book cover transforms an ordinary diary/notebook/journal into something very special and this latest e-book from Zed will show you how to make some.

Even if you've never made felt before, you can easily make a beautiful textile cover - everything is very clearly explained and illustrated with superb photos as you can see from the sample pages below.

Every step is so well demonstrated that it feels like having a one-to-one workshop in your own home!

We like the way that Zed has written this e-book with no presumption that the reader will have any previous knowledge, so that even the simplest thing is carefully explained.  

In the 'Planning the Layout' section you are shown how to measure your own book to make a customised cover.

'Preparation' shows that you don't need 'specialist' equipment or expensive materials - Zed re-uses and re-cycles wherever possible. 

Don't worry if you've never made felt before because in there are two step-by-step sections 'Laying out a piece of flat felt' and 'The felting process'.

'Cutting out and Sewing' covers everything right down to how to do blanket stitch.

The 'Tips' section at the end of the e-book shows alternative ideas for colour ways, customising embroidery floss, closures, and how you can simply omit a few steps to make a plain cover without a closure.

The e-Book (PDF format) can be purchased directly from ZED'S BLOG - the e-Book is hosted on a secure site and payment of $13.50 (approx £8 depending on exchange rate) can be safely made using a credit card or paypal.