Handmade Felt, Metalwork, Printmaking, Dressmaking aaaand a New Tutorial! :)

Work In Progress - Test layout

Annie

While tidying up my sewing room (yet again!) I rediscovered this lovely sample piece of fabric I bought in Cheltenham last year (by rosablue, Cheltenham):

I thought it would be nice to use it as inspiration for a piece of felt because I love the design and it's simplicity and I do enjoy working with leaves and flowers. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago that I was really unhappy with but looking at it again thought I might be able to cut it up and use it in a new piece.

First I cut out a few sections that I did like that I wanted to keep as they might be useful for other things such as small pictures or greeting cards (top and bottom right in picture). A few of the snippets at the top look a bit like mini beachscapes and the others are just interesting or have a useful technique to remember like the flower shapes made out of yarn. I cut the rest into leaf shapes to lay out in my new piece of felt.

Before I make my leaves picture I thought I would make a sample sheet of different techniques to see how different things worked and looked. I had tried using the embellisher to attach a leaf to some other felt but it obliterated all the detail. Sometimes that's a great effect but for this picture I wanted something else. So I thought a sample sheet would be useful. I laid out a small square (finished size is approx a 10in/25cm square) and I tried several different ideas on it.

I tried different background fabrics to add texture and I also tried lots of layering and outlining ideas. I tried layering the felt pieces, layering two layers of fabric then the felt on top, silk outlines, yarn outlines, chopped up felt "confetti" pieces, fabric then fibre then a piece of felt, cutting a hole in the fabric - all sorts of combinations!

This is as far as I have got but I'll attempt to finish it soon. It's currently brewing in my head :)

I've done a few other things recently too. I have actually finished 3 (three!) projects. I made an artisan wrap apron and am really pleased with how it turned out. I think it's only the second item of clothing I've made and now I can't wait to make more things! It's a bit crumpled and messy in the photo because I've worn it a lot for printmaking etc.

I printed 1.5 metres of fabric (from an old bed sheet) with the clouds design I mentioned in my previous post and made a pillow case for an oversized pillow from it. I've had 4 of these pillows for years with no covers to use so they have been in vacuum bags just waiting for me to make the covers.  One down, three to go!

I also went on a metalwork workshop (at West Dean - I've wanted to go for years and finally did it!) and made a big sunflower out of copper and aluminium (it is approx 22in/55cm across and the stem is just over 7 foot/215cm tall!). I learnt how to cut, heat and shape, hammer and texture, rivet, use a pillar drill etc. It was great fun! :) The marker pen markings need cleaning off, but here it is.  I love it!

Lyn

We've also been busy creating a new eBook.  We decided to make the abstract felt and stitch technique from this blog post into an eBook to sit alongside our others.  This easy technique enables the reader to make many variations and unique pieces of art with their own design and colour palette.  We used a simple fish design but you could use any simple shape e.g. a stylised sailboat, vase or leaf.

There are step-by-step explanations and photos to guide the reader through the design, felting and stitching processes to make a piece of felt art, mounted on a stretched canvas, and ready to hang on a wall.

If you'd like to, you can read more about it here:)