rosiepink

I found a seahorse in my net!

 

Lyn

The piece of 'net-felt' that I made recently didn't get consigned to my samples box - it was too pretty to hide away so I left it out on my table.  

Every time I looked at it I thought of seahorses.  It's probably because I work part-time in a public library where a book called 'Mister Seahorse' by Eric Carle is very popular with the children.

So I threaded up the sewing machine and Sydney the Seahorse was born.  The detail is mostly from free motion machine stitching - a few hand stitches highlight his fin and put a glint in his eye - and tiny white beads give him a seahorsey spine.

The cutting out was a bit fiddly! I stitched him onto a piece of card covered with white fabric then stuck that onto green linen-look card. The wooden frame came from a local charity shop and my husband brightened it up with white paint.  The framed picture size is 27 x 21.5cm (10.5" x 8.5"), Sydney is 17cm (6.5") high, and here he is brightening up the wall.

 

 

 

 

Making Felt Samples

 

Lyn

Never underestimate the power of experimentation and the making of samples.  It can lead to new ideas - maybe not straight away but perhaps later, when you're rummaging through your samples box for inspiration!

Yesterday I was cutting some shapes from yellow, blue and pink tutu net and the little pile of net scraps were beautiful.  As the scraps layered up the colours changed - for example the pink overlapping the blue made a pretty purple.

I know that a single piece of net will get trapped by wool fibres, but I wondered if the net scraps would get trapped by wool fibres if there were several pieces one on top of the other.  It's at that point that the wondering becomes experimentation.  

I made up four layers of white merino wool and scattered the net scraps on it, but there was a bit of space left so I decided to snip up a scrap of fulled felt and lay the tiny pieces alongside - I wondered if the pieces of felt would sink into the white merino and become flat or if they would stay 'lumpy'.

Here's the experimental layout...

...and in close-up.

Here it is after felting.

I was delighted to see that the white wool fibres did migrate right up through all the layers of net as you can see in the photo below..

...and the resulting 'net-felt' was very pretty.  Below is an angled shot showing the texture.

And the fulled felt scraps didn't sink into the white merino, but made a beautiful texture.

I don't have any immediate plans for using the results of this experiment but I have some pretty felt to look at in my sample box and one day I may get a lightbulb moment from it.