rosiepink

Christmas Podding and the Chocolate Thief

  

Merry Christmas!

I managed to finish my Christmas Podding project and fill him with my favourite Lindt chocolates...my own private stash :)

I managed to squeeze 14 in which should just see me through Christmas Day!

Soon as I told mum the Christmas Podding was to hide sweets in her eyes lit up!  So I told her I was going to make the holly extra prickly to make it difficult for her to steal them :) 

So she made her own "easy access" sweetie dish!  Apparently there were a lot more than 3 chocolates but they didn't survive the photo session!

 

Mum's dish depicts the Grinch who stole Christmas with credit to http://www.dragoart.com/ for the 'how to draw The Grinch face' tutorial.  I love it!

I think my next project should be a badge for mum - "I am the Mum who Stole the Chocolates" !  Believe me, no chocolate is safe if mum is in the room!

A few weeks ago, I found these little samples that I made last year and felt really inspired to crack on with some Christmas projects - I had all sorts of visions of pictures of crazy coloured puddings with oversized holly, felted and painted and stitched...  

...And flourescent embroidered baubles and fat robins and....oh well, I think I'd need to start on New Year's Day to get it all done!  But I'm pleased with Podding and I love mum's Grinch dish....and all the chocolates!

We both wish you a very Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year - thank you for supporting us this year by dropping by our blog, we love to be involved in the creative community, it's been fun to read everyone's comments and catch up on all your creative projects too :) x

 

Christmas Pudding (or Podding!), Printmaking, Ceramics and the Mysterious Case of the Missing Ladle...

Annie

So it's nearly Chrimbo and once again I'm too late to make a real Christmas Cake or Pudding, so instead I'm making a handmade felt Podding! So far I've got the component parts made - the puddingy bit, the icing, the berries and some felt for the holly. Just need to cut out and stitch the holly and assemble it all.  Then, of course, fill it with sweets :)

Christmas Podding In Progress

My long suffering husband is not as rubbish as me in the kitchen and is always making great food from scratch - delicious pies, stews, lasagne and this week, soup.  He was perplexed as to where his ladle had gone.  He forgot to look in my sewing room! It was the perfect shape to form and dry my felted icing on :)  You can see it in the first picture.  I'll sneak it back into the utensil pot later when he's not looking.

So far, on various occasions he has "lost" the cheese grater (perfect for grating soap), the cookie rack (great for drying felt), the mixing jug (cmc paste), various bowls (brilliant for forming felted bowls!).  

Ahem.

So, what else has been happening....me and mum had a lovely day out in Romsey at a Printmaking workshop at Rums Eg Gallery.  Neither of us have done this since school (a long time ago!) and have been wanting to try it again for ages.  We had a lovely day and started by carving stamps out of erasers then moved on to linocuts and we got to use a printing press.  Something else that has now landed on our ever growing arty crafty wishlists!

I've also been doing a ceramics class for the past 6 weeks one evening a week.  It's nice to have a different creative outlet and try something you know nothing about.  I find it helps me to see new possibilities in feltmaking when I see how other people approach their work in different disciplines. To start with we've been learning some basic techniques and I've made several things - some are OK and some only my mum will ever like! :)

I was quite pleased with my beads and my tealights (they are fine in the dark!). We also made some little porcelain decorations that we imprinted some lace into.  They are made so thin that the light can shine through.

What else...Me and Grae (the long suffering husband) went down to Bude for a weekend away last weekend.  We got a drop of winter sunshine which was was very welcome - it was still very cold but we had a nice walk to the beach cafe at Widemouth Bay and back (about 6 miles).  As always I took lots of photos of sheep and random things to inspire me later.  The sheep were really cute with their funny expressions and blue fleece and "earrings"!  Just look at their little faces!

Wot ewe looking at ?!

 

A bull mastiff called Rudolph, or, how to draw for the artistically challenged!

Lyn

 

Christmas Card 2014

Only I, in a family of arty people, find drawing challenging, so if I want to draw something I have to find an easy way to do it. 

Every year I make a piece of textile art to photograph so that I can use the image to have printed on my Christmas cards. In my mind's eye I could see the picture that I wanted to stitch for this year's card but when I described it to my husband, he informed me that reindeer don't sit down ... I wasn't going to let that minor detail put me off.

I immediately picked up my pencil to draw the back view of a reindeer sitting down but my waste-paper basket soon overflowed with failed attempts!

I needed inspiration so I decided to look through my old photographs of trips to Longleat in Warminster - I was sure they'd had reindeer there at some time.  I didn't find any, but you know what it's like when you start looking at photos - before you know it you're going from album to album and that's when I saw this old photograph of me with my three dogs. It's very poor quality but it will help me to explain my drawing.

 

The dog, front left, was my bull mastiff called Candy, and one Christmas we put some felt antlers on her head.  

I'm sure you can see how my thinking was working.  

 

I printed off the photo above, covered it with a thin piece of paper then traced around Candy's outline.  It didn't look quite right. Too skinny. Reindeer are built a bit like cows aren't they, so I enhanced the outline making the rump much plumper.  The back of the head and upper back didn't look right either, then I realised that in the photo Candy wasn't looking up as were Katie and Holly (the two rottweilers). With tilted heads, their ears were not on top of their heads and their noses were visible in front of their brows, also their upper backs appeared shorter. 

After much pencil scribbling, I'd achieved the basic shape I wanted but it was very messy so I traced it off to a new piece of paper for a clean outline (far left) then I added small ears because I thought they'd look cute and a big nose that I planned to sew in red in the hope that everyone would know it to be Rudolph.

At this point, I feared that my drawing looked a bit like a pig. Aaargh!  But as soon as I drew an antler and added a deer-like tail, I was happy.  Antlers are easy - they're all different so it doesn't matter how you draw them!  I wanted both antlers to look the same so I traced and copied the one I'd drawn.

I made the background for my picture by fixing fabric onto a piece of iron-on interfacing. Some white dupion silk for the snow and a piece of spotty blue cotton for the snowy sky. Using my drawing as a template, I cut the body, ears and nose from dupion silk and stitched them to the background.  I stitched the antlers using black thread (I made stitching guides by tracing around my paper antlers with an air-erasable pen) and the tail was made with black, bronze and white threads. 

To make the banner and plane, I ironed some white silk to a small piece of interfacing then used 'freehand' machine stitching.  I cut them both out and stitched them to the top of the picture. I like the way the silk frays as it's stitched!  

Has anyone else made Christmas cards yet?  

Land Art Felt Challenge

Lyn

Felted Campfire Creatures Diorama

I've been lucky enough to see Adrian Gray at work on Lyme Regis beach in Dorset - his stone balancing has to be seen to be believed. Adrian photographs his finished stone art at various times of day and night to achieve beautiful images and I was inspired to make a diorama of his work shown in the photos below:

'Campfire Creatures' by Adrian Gray

The Felting and Fiber Studio challenge for this quarter is to make something inspired by a Land Artist and I wanted to make something 3D because I think it's fitting to the challenge.

I felted fourteen 'stones' using merino wool and I worked them in a slapdash fashion so that they would appear rocky instead of smooth - I didn't need them all but I wanted to have a choice as I built the scene.  To join two 'stones' to make a creature, I inserted a sewing needle so that half of it was in each piece, like a joining pin.  Then I stuck each creature, in a standing position, to a small square of card so that I could move them around until I was happy with the compostion.

note: the 'stones' are really just large beads that I made like this but I used a lot more wool!

Dioramas traditionally have painted backdrops, and as my skills with a paintbrush are a little lacking, my husband stepped in to produce the night-time sea and sky.  He became interested in the project so we both went for a bracing walk on our local shore to get some gritty sand to finish the scene and then there was a teensy wrangle as we put it around the creatures because we both wanted to pat the beach into a pleasing shape.

Then we started the tricky business of getting the photo right.  We shone a spotlight so that it lit the creatures from the side, as a campfire would, and we got the warm glow by holding orange and yellow cellophane in front of the light but allowing a little white light to escape onto the painted moonlight.

The challenges are fun and encourage creativity so, if you haven't already done so, please join in!

Make textured textile art by stitching into nuno felt

Lyn

Last Sandcastle of Summer

The inspiration for 'Last Sandcastle of Summer' came from a recent day-trip to Sandbanks in Dorset.

We've enjoyed weeks of glorious weather and I love wriggling my toes in the warm sand and watching the sun sparkle on the sea, but the weather's broken now and I'm not looking forward to the cold of winter.

When I got home I looked through my old photos and found some of my grand-daughter playing in the sand.

I wanted to capture the last of the summer in a picture so I started to lay out merino fibres to make the background beach, sea and sky. I didn't want to add details such as boats or other people so to add interest I placed three strips of fabric across the wool fibres.  

The pieces of fabric were cut from loose-woven scarves that I'd found in charity shops. The blue/white scarf shown on the right has been my favourite for making skies and I only have a couple of inches left - I'm desperately trying to find another!

This is the resulting piece of nuno felt, after drying, finished size approx 36cm square - I didn't worry about the edges because I knew it would be trimmed and placed behind a white mount before framing.

 

I made a paper template of the shape of the child then tacked it, with large hand stitches, in place on the nuno felt. I also pinned a piece of lightweight interfacing onto the back of the felt - it helps with stitching and with moving the felt around on the sewing machine table. With the feed-dogs down on the sewing machine and a darning foot fitted, I used black thread to make a quick outline of the child. 

I removed the template then I cut scraps of organza into small rough triangles and attached them to the nuno felt using fine fusible web. The shadow was formed with dark grey organza and the skin areas were covered with a few pieces of very pale grey.  The hat and clothes have layers of organza - bright on the bottom and darker on the top - in autumnal colours to signal the end of summer.  

Tip: unless you like cleaning the sole plate of your iron, use plenty of baking paper under and over the felt during ironing!  Also, the felt needs to cool down before moving it as the fusible web will be stronger after a rest.

Then it was back to the stitching.  It's all very quick and 'rough' - except for the face because the profile needs to be sharp - and the eye was stitched by hand.

To add textural and colour interest, I gently abraded the top layer of organza, on the hat and dress, with the tip of a craft knife.  

The lovely 'quilty' texture is achieved by the machine stitching on the nuno felt.

The finished picture has been mounted with white board and the size of felt that is on show within the mount is 31cm x 22cm.

If you have any stitching on felt pictures that you'd like to share, please leave a link in the comments - we'd love to see them!

 

Mini Handmade Felty Stitched Landscape & (Not So Daily) Machine Sketching

In the Land of Pink Trees

Annie

I made the mini felted landscape above after wandering through my photos and picking a few out for inspiration.  Small projects are ideal when creative time is limited and this one is only 10cm x 10cm, with a rough zig-zag edge, mounted on white card. I have big plans for big things, one day soon!

I have about one million (ish) photos of sheep, flowers and the countryside so that seemed like a good choice.  Look at the little faces on these guys.....aw!

I also realised that I had been slacking somewhat on my "Daily Machine Sketch".  I snapped a pic of some Rudbeckias in my garden a couple of weeks ago and decided to use that for this free motion sketch, just on a little scrap of fabric:

 

I painted in the colours with acrylic paints.  It's a lovely way to spend 20 minutes or so. Wonder if I could develop this to make bigger canvases...?  Maybe trap some fabrics, felt and fibres in under the stitching.  Anyone got a few spare weeks they can lend me? :)

Lyn

I love my Bernina 801 and lately I've been hankering after a larger extension table for it.  It had to be home-made because I can't buy one to fit the machine, and as I don't know one end of a saw from the other, my husband kindly offered to make one for me.  

Isn't it a beauty?  For those interested in the technical side of things, it's cut from a piece of 18mm ply so it won't warp or bend and my husband assures me that I could stand on it - but I don't think I'll test that claim!  He rounded the corners and all the edges then attached four wooden legs before giving it a few coats of paint to make the surface as smooth as silk.  The top measures approx 56 x 48cm (22"x19").

Tip: 'Ikea' sells a transparent desk pad 65x45cm, made from EVA plastic.  Although it feels smooth, it seems to 'stick' to my sewing table, and my sewing machine and new extension table seem to 'stick' to it, thereby eliminating any movement during machining.  (My sewing machine and new extension table just about fit on one because the table legs are set in away from the corners.)  

I can't wait to try it out!

weeping willow, handmade card, and ewe's fluffy

Lyn

The inspiration for the handmade felt picture above (32x18cm) came from looking at the work of Claude Monet - a French impressionist painter.  His work translates easily into felt art because he was more concerned with light and form than with realism. The weeping willow was made with merino wool fibres and a few strands of tussah silk tops.

Many thanks to the hard working team over at The Felting and Fiber Studio for this 'third quarter challenge' !

While I've been busy Monet-ing, Annie has been making more cards. My grand-daughter has just turned 11 - she describes herself as a tweenager - and she's now old enough to appreciate handmade cards and gifts, so she was delighted with the card that Auntie Annie made for her.

It was also my birthday recently and I just have to share this funny, sheepy card handmade by 'Vanessa Bee Designs' given to me by a friend.  It makes me smile so I've pinned it to the wall above my computer!

Inspiration, Green plant challenge and Annie's crafty move

Lyn

To prove that anything can inspire textile art, Annie grabbed the nearest thing to hand - a straggly little leafy plant - and she waggled it right under my nose. 

"We'll use this!  We could both make a picture using this as inspiration," a glint appeared in her eye "and perhaps we could make it a challenge.  You know, see whose turns out best?"

The gauntlet was well and truly thrown down ... and I picked it up.

I blended various blues and lilacs to felt a rectangular background (finished size 15" x 11" or 38 x 28cm), then while it was drying I made two more pieces of felt:  I put down some white merino for the pot, then added wisps of blue and a piece of open-weave fabric for decoration; and for the leaves I chose bright canary-yellow, gold-yellow, bright orange and spring green merino wools topped with nepps, silk, dyed scrim and silk noil.

I stitched the pot to the background, then embroidered the stems on with tapestry wool using a running whip-stitch.

I cut out leaf shapes to stitch to the background, then it became obvious that the stems were too thick and proud, so I grabbed a felting needle to stab them a bit flatter.

To finish the picture, I bought an old wooden frame from a charity shop and gave it a lick of bright yellow paint.

 

Annie

Mum wins the challenge - she actually made a beautiful picture of the plant, where I appear to have accidentally produced a pot of flowers! Mum chose the title for this post because I abandoned our brief and went and had playtime instead!

What can I say....I'm just soooo easily distracted!  Trouble is that I fiddled around with a million things and ended up with something nothing like the plan, even though it was my idea - sorry mum!  Well it does have a white pot and some leaves so that's not toooo bad for me!

This was the first felt background I made for the picture with the intention of stitching all the bits on afterwards...

...til I took the scissors to it to make it squarer, then didn't like it anymore.

Then I painted some cotton rag paper with acrylic paint and discovered I quite like it stitched onto felt...

 
...but still not what I wanted for this project.

Then I thought I'd go for a 3D version and make leaves and flowers on sticks...

Then I abandoned all that and went back to making a flat picture from silk fabrics for the background, and handmade felt pieces appliqued on with free motion stitching, then decorated further with hand embroidery.

The lovely thing from this challenge is that my Grandma (mum's mum) wants to hang mum's picture on her wall. Takes me back to being a kid and mum pinning my paintings to the hallway wall. Woodchip wallpaper was reasonably forgiving of the pins. 

We had a lot of fun with this, and I'm looking forward to the next challenge! 

Felt Fish in Party Hats of Course! :)

 Where's the party?!

Annie

It was my Dad's birthday last Friday so another good excuse to make a felty stitchy handmade card.  He's always loved the sea and visiting harbours and used to enjoy a spot of fishing.

I love the look of watercolour and ink and have had a dabble with watercolours in the past but thought it would be fun to try to recreate the look in handmade felt. It's not a bad effort but is something that I want to play with further.

I created rough fishy shapes with loosely felted, very fine, pre-felt, then put them on a base of white fibres. After felting it all together I added a black outline and some colour details with free motion embroidery, and then added some further details with hand embroidery. I thought fishy kisses would make nice bubbles!

After I cut the picture out to stick it on the card I realised that where I had only loosely felted it, it decided to start falling apart a little bit around the edges - arghh!  So I had a think and I dug out my old iridescent medium that I had bought for watercolours years ago (I never did much watercolour but bought lots of bits at the time!) and painted it round the edge of the felt as a kind of "Fray Check" glue and it worked pretty well as a firm edging. And let's face it, glitter is always good!!

I took some of the photos outside and I lost the light quickly, but on the upside I love how some of these threads seem to glow in the dusk a little.

Some more pics:

I also made his Fathers Day card to give with a gift of a special cake and truffles. I decided this time to have a dabble with acrylic paints on paper. I painted stripes to resemble a seascape and didn't like it so I got more paint on a wet brush and scrubbed over it. And then I really liked it! I added some white highlights for waves and three red triangles for sails. I was pretty chuffed that it actually does look like sea. If you look closely you will spot that I also added the iridescent medium again! I do like a bit of glitter me!

He loved the cards so I am restored to 'Favourite Daughter' (a title I love even though I'm his only daughter!)

Thank you! And the winners are...

 

We made a Big Pink Flower to say Thank You :)

 

Gosh! Thank you for so many lovely comments!  We are wowed by such a fabulous response :)

 

All the comments for the giveaway were numbered then an online random number generator was used to choose 3 winning numbers.

 

And the winners are...

 

drum roll...

 

Sue

'I would be thrilled to learn how to make these! They are stunning. My fingers are crossed.'

 

Debbie

'Amazingly beautiful bowls. I would love to make some of these.'

 

Margaret

'Wow! I want to try this! I've recently become interested in working with felt. This appeals to me so much.'

 

(Message to the winners: Congratulations! The pdf bundle will be sent to the email address on your comment).

 

Many thanks again to everyone who entered our giveaway, the positive feedback is very much appreciated!  x