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Thank you to everyone who has read our blog this year - we really appreciate all the lovely feedback we've had. Let's hope that 2019 is a creatively fulfilling year for all!
Note to all fibre enthusiasts - have a look at this festive giveaway from ZED: The Right Fibre
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There are lots of pretty things you can buy for the kitchen to use at Christmas, but where do you store them for the rest of the year?
So I decided to decorate my felted tea cosy for Christmas in a way that would be temporary, so that as soon as Christmas is over I can remove the embellishments.
I made my felted tea-cosy in 2008 and it's still in daily use but only one side ever gets seen whether it's on the tea-pot or hanging on the kitchen wall...
...so I decorated the reverse side and that's the side that will show during the festive season.
After much pencil-end chewing I drew a rough design then, because I find proper drawing difficult, I searched the internet for a free-to-use outline of a deer.
It's extremely difficult to draw a complicated shape directly onto felt and freehand cutting a deer out is beyond me. Luckily there is an easy way using freezer paper.
I reversed the outline then traced it onto the paper side of a piece of freezer paper, then placed it, waxy side down onto a small, thin piece of white fulled felt. I ironed the freezer paper onto the felt (1-2 minutes with a medium dry iron) then let it cool for half an hour.
I won't lie to you - cutting the white felt to the outline of the deer was very fiddly and I nearly lost some of the antler. Next time I'll choose something simpler! Holding my breath, I carefully removed the freezer paper.
I put a felting mat inside the tea cosy then I used a felting needle to 'tack' the white deer in place. I should mention that my tea cosy is a chunky thing - it's thick and therefore easy to work on. I didn't go too near the edges of the silhouette for fear of splitting the white felt - even so the antler still went a bit wonky - so although tacking the deer shape in place would be ok for art work it wouldn't survive long on a working tea cosy!
The snowflakes are just wisps of white merino wool fibres loosely needle felted in.
The snowy 'ground' is fancy yarn. I used white thread to hold it in place - a small stitch every inch.
I liked all the blue and white but a small colour accent was needed so I cut a piece of Christmas ribbon to make a collar and attached it to the white felt with fabric glue.
When I'd finished I could see that I just had to make a new hanging hook the same colour as the tea cosy, so I knitted an i-cord from some sparkly crochet cotton.
All the embellishments are easily removable after Christmas. The deer can be peeled off, the snowflakes popped out, the yarn unstitched and the forgiving felt will smooth itself out with a bit of gentle rubbing.
But I'll keep the sparkly hanging hook - it looks good with the other side of the tea cosy!
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I couldn't resist - I wanted to make another snowmen diorama to photograph for my Christmas cards.
I made the snowmen and snow in the same way as before - details in these two previous blog posts:
The tree (aka a twig from the garden) is held upright with a lump of white-tack around its base and it's decorated with tiny merino wool balls and crystal beads threaded onto white sewing cotton.
I knitted the pink hat and scarf from crochet cotton on the smallest needles I had, then I made miniature knitting needles from cocktail sticks, stained with a grey marker and finished with sparkly beads, so that Mrs Snowman could carry on and finish knitting the scarf.
The blue gift is simply a wrapped and beribboned cardboard cube but Rosie looks excited by it.
I hope the picture gives you a smile because I had great fun making it!
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