rosiepink

A partridge in a pear tree

Lyn

For my Christmas card this year, I wanted an image of a partridge sitting in a pear tree with the first line of the song written along a branch, so I sketched out my idea several times until I was happy with the composition.

I decided to applique silk onto calico - the silk frays like mad but  I like the effect. The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot a stray tuft of thread on the leaf, top right, that I didn't notice when I took the photo!

I used iron-on fusible webbing to make a mini quilt by sandwiching some thin cotton batting between two layers of calico, then I stitched an A4 sized frame to work within.  The tree branches and writing were stitched before the brown partridge shape was stitched into place. 

I added a white piece of silk for his face, then I worked on the eyes next because unless I could get them right the whole piece wouldn't work.  I used black thread to machine stitch the pupils and a polyneon orange for the irises.  I added the glint by hand but I had to use pliers to pull the needle back and forth as the machine stitching through the quilt was really solid.

After the eyes it was plain sailing and I added all the other silk shapes as I'd planned on my sketch.

I cropped the photograph then added a red border - I used a free photo editing programme "PicMonkey".

The wording inside the card will be:

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me

A partridge in a pear tree.

Very nice ... but I'd rather have a box of chocolates!"

I bet you couldn't read the first two lines without singing them in your head!

Felt and Stitch - Autumn Leaves Bowl

Lyn

Nothing symbolises autumn more than the stunning colours of the leaves on the trees, so those colours were the starting point of my plan for an ornamental bowl.

I chose five different leaves for my project and made a paper template for my design - well, actually I made several templates as I just kept going with the scissors and sellotape until I was happy with the shape.  Then I knew what size to make my piece of felt.  This is the dry layout and I was surprised at how much the little bit of green showed after felting:

I added a lot of coloured bits of dyed scrim and other open weave materials, nepps, silk noil and scraps of leftover felt, to give the impression of the spotty appearance that leaves often develop just before falling from the tree. The underside of the felt is also patterned.

The felt was fulled to the max so that it had a 'stiffness' even before I added the machine stitching.

The photo below shows the stitching in the centre of the bowl - the circles gave a good rigidity to the base and it was an easy stitch to fit around the leaf stems!

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

Before I go, I want to show off my bargain buy from Ikea's clearance bin.  It was labelled as a chopping board - it's a decent size at 17" x 14.5" (43x37cm) - and the ridged underside is just right for the last hard fulling on things like cords and vessels.

 

 

 

Felt flowers for mum's birthday card

Annie

It was mum's birthday recently and I like to make cards when I can although invariably I run out of time and am late!  I often start by having a rummage through the odds and ends of scraps and samples in my sewing room looking for something to use as a start.  This time I dug out a piece of flat felt from the end of last year that I had actually made for Christmassy things but didn't use it, and then in the spring had appliqued a few flowers on it and then abandoned it.  So this time I gave it it's third outing and ended up with a nice flowery card for mum's birthday, which was at the end of July but she received it a few weeks late!  Well I couldn't have delivered on time else dad might have thought it was favouritism :)   It's funny how with fresh eyes something once discarded can later be made into something new.

The basic process involved machine appliqueing small pieces of handmade felt onto a felted background to form the flowers, then adding lots of hand stitching around the edges and on the background.  Finally I cut round the design, edged it with a free motion zig zag and stuck it to a folded piece of A4 card.

Here's a pic of the back of the stitching at about half way through. As always, I liked the look of the back too!

A Memory in Felt and Stitch

Lyn

Cowes week is the oldest and largest annual sailing regatta in the world and today marks the end of the 2016 event hosted by the Isle of Wight.

Back in 2010 we took our young grand-daughter to Lepe Beach where there is a great view of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. The beach is mainly stones and shells but if you look hard enough there is just enough sand to make a few castles.  

Path to Lepe Beach on the Solent with the Isle of Wight in the distance

As the tide was still coming in, we managed to paddle out quite a long way and we saw a small yacht come aground on the sand bar close to where we stood.  The captain's enthusiasm must have exceeded his ability! The sails flapped wildly and there was much shouting and confusion.

But mostly we just stood there in the sea, hand in hand, watching the yachts go by.  It's that precious memory that I wanted to catch in felt and stitch.

Memories can be sharp on the good bits and fuzzy on the rest, so I decided to only colour the figures to highlight the important part of my memory.

I made a piece of bright white merino felt then I started to stitch hand-made felt on for the clothing, but it looked too solid.  Out came the stitch-ripper.

I rummaged around in my scraps box and found some frilly edges (when I make felt for cutting shapes from, I don't bother to neaten the edges so they end up frilly).

I stitched pieces of frilly felt onto the figures and found that the effect is dreamy - perfect for my memory picture.

Busy Buzzy Bees - Finished or Work In Progress?

Busy Buzzy Bees

Annie

A few weeks ago I went out in the garden with a cup of tea with a plan to clear the patio and spruce it up a bit. But then I stopped and sat there with my cup of tea for a while and decided that it was actually really pretty in all it's weedy overgrown glory, and thought I'd leave it alone - especially as the chives were attracting lots of bees! and as they say, weeds are only plants in the wrong place.  As my garden has been neglected for a while there are lots of weeds - and lots of them are really pretty.  In fact my vegetable bed has completely given over to nature and is now a mini-meadow!

I thought the bees and chives and daisies would be a nice idea for a felted picture so I took a few photos.

Then I laid out a background, added some extra bits, took a few bits away, and added some paint, and added some stitching...... 

  

Laying Out (adding prefelts on top of wetted down fibres)

  

After felting

Some paint applied

Some stitching added

Now my dilemma is - is it finished or do I keep on fiddling with it? One of the hardest things is knowing when something is finished, when to stop. Finish too early and it feels like (and can look like) you held back. Finish too late and you can overwork it.

I do like to play and push it to see what happens. Which sometimes results in going too far! But sometimes results in a great piece and lots of things learned.

I think in this case I might leave it, and think again later after a period of it hanging on the wall. I could add some green stitching to the stems and some white fabric or some paint to fill in the bees wings.....

But most importantly it doesn't really matter as long as you enjoy the process! :)

Just trying out a smaller crop - sometimes the cropping can make or break a picture too!

Creating Felt Artwork giveaway winners

Thank you for all your lovely comments!

We borrowed Grandma's ingenious summer hat (it folds flat like a hand-fan) to put all the names in.  

The three names drawn out were Shelley, Emma and Hannah. Congratulations - we really hope you enjoy it!

Giveaway of our revised pdf 'Creating Felt Artwork'

Hello! We've just spent a little bit of time making some changes to our pdf 'Creating Felt Artwork'.

It's fundamentally the same but has some expanded text in some sections and some extra photos and ideas throughout.

We've got 3 copies to give away so if you'd like to be in the draw, please leave a comment below (note: comments are moderated so they won't appear immediately).

The draw closes at midnight GMT on Wednesady 20th July 2016 and the winners will be announced on Thursday 21st July.

Find out more about 'Creating Felt Artwork'

Good luck in the draw :)  Of course if you buy a copy then win, we'll happily refund you!

Better Late Than Never....Happy Fathers Day! :)

Mmmm.....beer! Handmade felt applique on Calico

Annie

It's a good job my dad knows me so well - he wasn't totally surprised when I handed him a Work In Progress for his Fathers Day card then took it straight back from him to finish it "at some time soon..."  I did however also hand him a nice bottle of whisky so he was more than happy with that.

So two and a half weeks later I have actually finished it.  Yay!  Life is always so busy and these things always take longer than you think they will - but lots and lots of love (and unpicking and coffee) went into it.  So I'm either two and a half weeks late, or you could say 49.5 weeks early! Bottoms up :)

 

Bird on a wire

Lyn

I had quite a bit of scrap felt leftover from my pineapple bowl so I used the largest piece to stitch a bird and he looks great on my white wall!   

I started off with black thread to make the outline and main body parts then yellow thread to highlight the eye and beak. I put a couple of white hand stitches to make a glint in the eye (I had to use pliers to pull the needle through as the the black stitching was so dense) then my plan was to introduce different colours on the breast and wings with either hand or machine stitching. But everytime I added more stitching I didn't like it so I took it off.

Less is more.  After several hours I was back to the simply stitched bird. Annie wanted me to put a hat on it but I said "No, I'm happy with it as it is!"

A Peck of Peppy Pineapples on Parade

Lyn

We both liked the idea of making a felty pineapple thing, using this picture Annie took as inspiration a few years ago:

I decided to make a wet-felted and stitched bowl...

I like the way the light shines through the gaps at the base...

...and I love the deep golden yellow of the merino wool.

The finished bowl is a million miles away from my original plan, but that's often the case when you're making something for the first time isn't it?  The handmade felt was stitched and unpicked dozens of times - but handmade felt is very forgiving as long as you're careful with the stitch-ripper.

The photo below was taken inside the bowl to show a whole pineapple, each one is 22.5cm tall (just under 9"), and the base is a pentagon.

My Dad saw the bowl before I stitched it into shape and he reckoned it might make a nice table centre on a round table.  I think it works quite well!

 

Annie

Mum's bowl makes me fancy a nice tropical cocktail!  Grandma and grandad used to have a pineapple ice bucket on their drinks cabinet :)

I decided to make a picture of a pineapple - like mum, mine doesn't look anything like what I had in my mind!  Although it's not finished yet (par for the course with me!) as I think maybe it needs a bit of snazzing up with some bright stitches.  Will have a think.

Here are some pics of the process from start to end:

Lots of mess - standard!

 

Decided the dark blue background was too dark (not a colour I'd normally choose

but it's good to get out of your comfort zone every now and again isn't it!)

so I lightened it up a bit with some squares of fabric and netting.

 

Close up of background - the stripes are strands of yellow silk that

I originally planned to make into a wallpaper background.

 

I had to have a few goes at the greenery - it kept just looking like

an odd plant in an odd vase!

 

Close-Ups After wet felting

 

Ta da!  My pineapple (or an odd plant in an odd vase - you choose!)

He will go to live on my craft room wall until inspiration strikes and he might get some stitching!