rosiepink

A peacock, a squirrel, some flowers and a massive pain in the butt!

My back has been driving me nuts!

But finally, Oh the relief of being able to sit down! After about 6 weeks I'm almost back to normal after spraining my back. Just left with a painful piriformis - quite literally a big ole pain in the butt!

So I haven't done much for ages (I even want to go to the gym classes that I normally make excuses for - so much steam to let off!). But at least I can actually make felt and drive a sewing machine again - hooray!

It's both my grandma and grandad's birthdays this week so I thought it would be nice to make them some cards. After lunch on Sunday I disappeared into my sewing room to "quickly sew a couple of cards" and emerged 5 hours later, clutching 2 cards and leaving a hell of a mess behind me!

Here is Grandad's card:

 and then thought this one showed the texture a bit better: 

Grandad took a beautiful photo of a peacock and I thought it would be nice to make him a card of it.  This is the picture - luckily the peacock on that day was up for giving a display!

and here is Grandma's:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I absolutely love stitching flowers on to felt!

I made both cards from leftover felt - the Joy of Scraps! You can see in the picture of my table below that I'm trying to recreate some of my old favourite pieces colourways because they make such good standbys but it doesn't work out so well. The best pieces are usually happy accidents and very random colours that you wouldn't necessarily put together in a picture but work beautifully well for small pieces to sew into. It's harder to do intentionally!

Anyway, I mounted both of the pieces of felt on to water colour boards instead of folded cards (so they were more like giant postcards than cards!). I took a couple of snaps of the backs before I stuck them down cos I always find that I really like the back of embroideries, sometimes as much or more than the front! It's always so free and easy, and the lack of detail is appealing.

 

Anyway, so it only took me 5 mins to get into chaos at my sewing table. Millions of things on the go. Look at the state of it. It went from "not too bad" to "who chucked in a hand grenade?" pretty quick!

Do you work neat and tidy or in a big mess?

 

I really do love order and tidiness - the rest of the house is quite minimal and I see ornaments as "things to dust" but when it comes to fibres and fabrics and threads I just can't get enough! Although I do love the tidying and organising after a big mess. My long suffering husband often comments that I spend more time sorting things into colours and neat piles than I do making anything!

But I have also managed to finish Mr Squidgle at long last. I decided I would give him a background after all. I tried this plain background but it just didn't work. I like the simpicity of the stitching but it didn't work in this case.

I cut him out and dropped him on to lots of backgrounds and not sure why but the blue tartan worked best.

I think he is rather cute but also think he went on to be a bit more twee than I had had in my mind's eye originally, maybe I slightly overcooked him! But you don't know til you try do you? I do like his eyes though. And in making him it also made me look at the fabrics and colours in a new light. May also save me having to make a Mothers Day card....ahem.

e-Book Review: Handmade Felt Book-Cover Project by Zed

                            

A textile book cover transforms an ordinary diary/notebook/journal into something very special and this latest e-book from Zed will show you how to make some.

Even if you've never made felt before, you can easily make a beautiful textile cover - everything is very clearly explained and illustrated with superb photos as you can see from the sample pages below.

Every step is so well demonstrated that it feels like having a one-to-one workshop in your own home!

We like the way that Zed has written this e-book with no presumption that the reader will have any previous knowledge, so that even the simplest thing is carefully explained.  

In the 'Planning the Layout' section you are shown how to measure your own book to make a customised cover.

'Preparation' shows that you don't need 'specialist' equipment or expensive materials - Zed re-uses and re-cycles wherever possible. 

Don't worry if you've never made felt before because in there are two step-by-step sections 'Laying out a piece of flat felt' and 'The felting process'.

'Cutting out and Sewing' covers everything right down to how to do blanket stitch.

The 'Tips' section at the end of the e-book shows alternative ideas for colour ways, customising embroidery floss, closures, and how you can simply omit a few steps to make a plain cover without a closure.

The e-Book (PDF format) can be purchased directly from ZED'S BLOG - the e-Book is hosted on a secure site and payment of $13.50 (approx £8 depending on exchange rate) can be safely made using a credit card or paypal.

S.I.P (Squirrel In Progress)

Annie

So in case you hadn't noticed by now, just to clarify the definition of "Tomorrow" in my dictionary = "Loose term for some time in the next week(s) or so!".  Just ask mum :-)

Anyway, here are bits of my last couple of days "sketchbook", including a quick free motion sketch of Mr Squidgle.  He's rather out of proportion but he'll do!  I think that's why I like to doodle flowers and things pulled straight from my imagination, cos there is nothing to compare them to, they just are what they are :-)

I decided to have another go at Squidgle Pants but this time take him a bit further. I cut some shapes out of some textured handmade felt and pieced him together, same as for the snail's shell in the last post, to give him a bit of felty texture and colour.

(Sorry about the poor quality photos I just took a few snaps on my phone and it seems the light was a bit rubbish. Doh!)

I thought I was being really clever by "tacking" the pieces in place with the machine. Turns out it doesn't really work - the darning foot was determined to shoot underneath each and every piece, the pieces all still moved about, and worse still because the pieces are only loosely felted they disintegrated around the edge as I was sewing. Apart from that - easy! Argh.

So here he is so far, still in progress. Had to give up before I wanted to - my back is not happy with me at the moment.  Have gone and got a sprain in my lower back (don't even know how I did it!) but it's painful to sit for too long (although I have discovered that perching on a gym ball is rather more comfortable than a chair - and if you don't sit up straight, you fall off!)

Oh, one last - unflattering - photo (from the feet up is never a good look is it girls!?) but I thought it showed the texture of the felt a bit.  Trouble is I will have to remember to stop before I completely flatten him with stitches.  I do get a bit carried away!

Subconscious self portrait ?!

Annie

Flicking through my photos I picked Mr Snail (aka "The Hosta Muncher") for today's machine embroidery quick sketch.  Makes a change from flowers and stuff, but I did think he needed a colour makeover!

While playing working in my sewing room I discovered some rather cool yellow PolyNeon thread in my stash (Madeira No. 1823) that I haven't used before and thought it would give him a bit of a "Go Faster" stripe!  I rather like the effect (although it's hard to show in this light) and it made me think about shaking up my colour palette a bit.

I've always been attracted to blues / turquoise / lime and pinks and often pick similar schemes, but I think I may need to have a wander through some more forgotten threads to see what happens.

Having finished him I figured I had probably just done a bit of a subconscious self portrait given my decidedly slow progress through my ToDo list - although a snail's pace is still a pace!

I think I might have a go at Squidgle The Squirrel tomorrow.  Equally self portraity I suppose - always darting about (late, late, late!) with cheeks full of snacks :-)

Gobsmacked to see the date on this photo is 2003!  He's been lurking in my "Must sew" folder on the pooter for TEN years!  Scary.  Feels like yesterday...

Improve your photos - improve your sales!

Photography of felt is difficult at the best of times, but now the days are shorter and darker it's even more tricky, so we've been thinking a lot more about it while working recently.  We thought it would hopefully be useful to share some of the processes we use and things we have found out along the way.

A good photo is doubly important if you want to sell your stuff online. You need a good photo because a picture is worth a thousand words...but not if it's blurry!

It doesn't matter what kind of camera you have, these tips may help to improve your images.

Keep the camera still to get a sharp photo. 

The easiest way is to use a tripod and a remote shutter release or the camera timer. 

If you don't have a tripod, place the camera on a firm surface, perhaps a table, step ladder or a pile of hardback books, then when you've set up the shot, press the timer on the camera to take the photo. 

This will eliminate any movement of the camera at the time of the photo being taken.

 

Get up close so that the detail is clear.

Place the camera close and experiment with different angles - don't always take the photo straight on or directly overhead...

...and you don't have to get the whole object in the frame.

 

Choose the backdrop colours carefully. 

The garden can make a pretty backdrop...

...but it's not always possible to find complementary colours and bad weather may force you to take photos indoors.

If you want a seamless backdrop, get a large piece of card (thin mountboard works well) and bend it, without creasing, so that it forms a gentle curve between a table and a wall. 

It will need anchoring in place. In the photo below, two heavy ornaments were placed on the front corners of the mountboard to prevent it from slipping away from the wall.

To add interest, use props such as a rock or stones, or use an indoor windowsill with a pretty view.

 

Make sure you have enough light.

Naturally diffused daylight, outside, gives the truest colours.  Strong, direct sunlight will 'wash out' colours and textures, and shade is sometimes too dark.  The ideal condition is a cloudy day around midday.  However, when weather conditions are far from ideal, a mini-studio can be set up indoors.  

If your item is small enough, use an indoor windowsill, or make yourself a 'light box' from a cardboard box - there are plenty of free tutorials on the internet to show you how. 

Larger items will need to be photographed in a room that has a lot of natural light.  Lucky you if you have a conservatory! 

You can boost the daylight that comes into a room by covering dark furniture or walls with white sheets and by using lightbulbs that mimic natural light.  They are sometimes called 'full spectrum bulbs' and may be labelled 5,500K.

The light that enters a room sideways from a window can add a glint if you are photographing something with a reflective surface (as on the sewing threads above and the mug below) and the shadow on the side furthest from the window adds depth.

 

Fiddle around until you get the shot you want. 

The felt 'oil burner' looked good with an l.e.d. candle inside but the artificial flame didn't photograph very well (perhaps because it flickered) so we removed the candle but then the oil burner looked lifeless in the photo.  We fiddled around and discovered that if we shone a torch into the hole, it gave the impression of having an internal light and we were pleased with the final photo.

We took a felt bowl into the garden to photograph it and after half an hour we still hadn't got a decent shot.  We'd taken a reflector out with us (a piece of cardboard covered in aluminium foil) because the light wasn't that good.  We moved to different parts of the garden trying to get a good photo and during one move we put the bowl onto the reflector board to carry it...and accidentally found the perfect backdrop.

 Serendipity has given us some good photos!

 

And the winner is.........me!

Lyn

I won a giveaway - all this lovely merino wool!

Thank you to Marilyn Lott for sending me the wool.  Marilyn is a qualified needlework teacher, a member of the West Country Embroiderers Guild and she runs workshops to encourage people to try new techniques.  Here's a link to her blog Torbay Textiles.  

Marilyn recently taught the making of felt cords and this is a lovely example of their use.

 

1 Christmas Cake, Several Marbles and 7 Felted Letters short of a Merry Christmas!

"We are not amused with the hat..." :-)

Annie

So about 5 minutes ago (actually mid-September, but it feels like 5 minutes ago!) I was laying on a beach in Crete.  I checked my phone to find I had had my first C-word email from a well known high street chain.  "Back off Christmas" I thought - you're not for ages yet!

 

5 minutes later and it's Christmas in 1 week.  How did that happen?

I get caught out every year by things that happen every year!

 

Reminds me of this:  Zoom! What was that?  Good old basil Fawlty!

 

Anyone else feel like time is on fast forward ?!

 

A little while ago I was given some wooden pallets by a neighbour. Immediately I had a million ideas of things to make - herb box for the garden, picture frames etc.  I also thought a Merry Christmas sign would be nice and sort of rustic with felt and the wood.  However, because of my late start on Christmas, this is as far I have got!  7 letters short.  So "Merry Ch" to one and all!

 

 

I will attempt to finish it before Christmas (note I didn't commit to which Christmas!).  

 

And so much for the Christmas cake. I saw Delia make one 2 years ago on tv.  I was going to make it that year. Then this year.  But definitely next year!  I figure that even I can do the beginners one. http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-a-christmas-cake.html Just need a diary note around end October time so I can feed it lots of booze before scoffing it!

 

I hope your Christmas projects are taking shape better than mine :-) 

 

I don't often make New Year Resolutions but this year I simply have to at least make a proper effort at getting organised. Too many things are going not done or not finished (how many UFOs do you have?!) Or maybe it's a case of prioritising so at least you work on something everyday that takes you closer to where you want to be.  So when another year goes by you can recognise what you have done, rather than think "where did that year go?"!

 

To assist in this idea I recently read "18 minutes: Find your focus, master distraction, and get the right things done" by Pete Bergman. Big text, really simple to read with several "a-ha" moments and lots to take away e.g. you can't do everything (despite what most magazines will tell you!) so focus on the things you really want to achieve.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who often gets to the end of the day and wonders where it went without having done the things they thought they would do!

 

So no resolutions for next year just an attempt to focus a bit more (every day) on some longer term goals, without giving in to every distraction and shiny thing!  Obviously, if a picture of Daniel Craig or Brad Pitt looking particularly gorgeous happen into my feed they will of course get priority :-)

 

I have however, been remembering to machine sketch - just 10-15 minutes here and there. Just sit and stitch, no planning or faffing!  Not managed every day but something is better than nothing.  I sketched these imaginary birds last week, after thumbing through a pretty little Bird Spotting book that I was given. The colour is a splash of acrylic paint and it's stitched on a scrap of old white felt. I know birds have been done an awful lot, but they do have endless possibilities!

 

 

Someone who is the complete opposite of me in terms of Getting Things Done is my lovely mumsy.  On top of everything else she is even making placemats for the Christmas table. And of course, cooking the Christmas lunch next week!

 

Lyn

Don't worry Annie, I saw Grandma 'feeding' her Christmas cake yesterday - it looks scrummy and I'm sure there will be enough to go round!

The Christmas dining table just has to look good doesn't it?  But I don't favour the perfect look that is shown in glossy magazines - it's expensive and definitely not fun.  

And let's get real, there is going to be red wine, gravy and bits of greasy food all over it by the end of the day, so I prefer a quick homespun table that guests can enjoy and not worry about.  Young and old can join in with making table decorations too - nothing has to match or be perfect - indeed a mishmash is preferable!

This placemat was very quick to make and a different one for each guest would be fun.

It's just a piece of cobwebby felt on scrim from my stash, backed with iron-on stabliser to make stitching easy and to give rigidity to the mat.  The free-motion stitching was done with black thread and the stars are hand stitched with pale gold perle cotton.  A scrap of white dupion silk was roughly appliqued on to make the snowpeople and the colours were added with ordinary felt tipped pens.  

And a quick coaster.

Have some creative fun in the run up to Christmas - it's an effective stress reliever! 

 

Felt and Stitch Christmas Card

Lyn

Three days ago I realised that there's only 5 weeks to the deadline for posting overseas in time for Christmas and I hadn't even thought about this year's Christmas card.

I don't have time to make my 80+ cards individually by hand, but I do like to send out cards of my own design, so I compromise by creating one piece of artwork then photographing it. The image can then be used to make many cards quite quickly.

After a few hours thinking and rough-drawing ideas, I decided a robin eating a berry that looked like Christmas pudding would be fun, so I wet-felted a piece of felt from white merino.  When it had dried I loosely needle-felted into it the robin's colours with merino wool then I wet-felted the whole thing for just a few minutes so that the robin was still fluffy.

I used free-motion stitching, with black thread, to sketch in the details and a few hand cross-stitches to finish off the Christmas pudds.  

Stitching on felt will compress it, so when I stitched an ever decreasing circle of black to 'draw' the eye, it made the orange felt around it stand a little proud and this gave a good effect.

The only part of the picture that is not felt or stitch is the white dot in the eye (the glint).

I prefer to photograph my felt outside, under light cloud, so that I can get true colours. This can be very time-consuming and frustrating with the rapidly changing English weather, but so worth it for a good result.

Until last year I had my images processed into photographs, then stuck them onto card. They looked good but it did take several hours, so last year I used thinner card and my home printer to produce my cards.  It was time efficient but I didn't think the finished card looked as good as previous years.  So this year I'm going to upload my image to an online card producer (fingers crossed) because each card will cost no more than it would if I had to buy the photographs, card, envelopes and double-sided tape.

Not only have I made my Christmas card artwork, I've also made a piece of Christmas wall art. Bonus! 

 

Autumn Felt

Lyn

I love the colours of autumn and I like to look up through tree canopies to see red, plum, gold and green leaves against a clear blue sky - I think the most spectacular displays come from maple trees.

When the leaves start to fall, my garden gets a thick dusting of oak leaves from an old, enormous tree in a neighbour's garden, so the oak leaf just had to be my inspiration for this ornamental bowl.

I stitched the bowl from a piece of handmade felt made with merino wool in 'autumn colours'...

...and a few scraps of dyed scrim and nepps for decoration (the felt was patterned on both sides). The bowl is 2" tall and 7" across.

One piece of autumn coloured felt isn't enough, so I made a pod using the same colours of merino wool.  

It's 4.5" tall and it's a simple variation to the felt pod tutorial that you can find in the left-hand sidebar of this blog.

The first two layers are made with yellow merino wool to give a bright, pretty inside.

This is the third layer of fibres (to both sides):

And this is the final layer of fibres (to both sides):

The hole was cut from the top edge of the resist, through the green wool, and the felt was worked so that the final shape has a narrow oval bottom and a wide, almost round top.

I think mother nature should have the last word in this post - I went out into the garden just now and saw these colourful blueberry bush leaves.  Beautiful!

Beautiful gardens & Mini artwork on greeting cards

Annie

I've found I've really started to enjoy making greeting cards again. It's something I used to do a lot mainly with just papercraft, but have rediscovered handmade cards again using handmade felt, stitch and acrylic paint.

During busy times I've found it a great way to actually finish a project and feel a sense of achievement, even if it's tiny! It's also a quick and easy way to experiment which (usually) ends in a useful and well received end product.

Another benefit is that I also save myself £3.00 a time on buying a cardboard card from the high street and give myself a short while to indulge myself in creating a mini piece of art. It's also low risk because it's on such a small scale it allows you to try different colour palettes and techniques without waste. Win win win!

Thought I'd share a few I've done over the last month or so - it's been a hectic (but lovely) month - have been visiting family in Wales, Kent and Norfolk over 3 weekends, had house guests, and have just come back from a camping weekend in Somerset (a very pretty part of the world - shame it rained for most of it!). Making these small projects has kept me creating when I might not have done because starting a bigger project needs more dedication and is not portable!

The first is a little picture of flowers made for my Nanny-In-Law. We went to her 90th birthday party in Kent and had a lovely time.

I stitched the flowers first in free motion embroidery (on to heavy weight canvas / cotton calico backed with stabiliser) trapping blue, yellow and orange scraps of handmade felt in the circles of the flower heads. Then I painted the leaves and bumblebee with acrylic paint and added some little hand stitched details. I bordered it with free motion "zig zag" (back and forward running stitch!).

I painted the card with a wash of acrylic paint.  The bubbles pattern is made of white ink scratched on with a wooden skewer. So it's really low tech but I think it looks nice!

 

This is the birthday card I made for Mum (Happy belated birthday Mum!) It's made in the same way as the blue card but with french knots added for a bit of texture.  Mum loves green and all things garden and flowers.

I've been taking lots of flower photos recently - a huge patch of meadow flowers sprang up by the main road in Christchurch so I took my new camera up there to try to learn to use it. The photos were mostly under or over exposed (it's a digital SLR so it's going to take a bit of practice!) but I still got some nice pics with varying interesting effects. I liked this one, which inspired mum's birthday card above :)

I also took this one which appealed to my sense of messy riots of colour.  Which gave me the idea for the card below.  Always torn between messy and neat!

This card is a thank you card for Dee, my sister-in-law, mainly for the lovely gifts she bought for us (including introducing me to Liz Earle face creams for sensitive skin - it's made a huge difference in just 10 days!) and also for (and I'm slightly ashamed of this one) cleaning my oven for me while she stayed with us for a week!.... but secretly I'm thrilled of course! ;-)

I used a small piece of my failed Flowers Pic to make something new and fresh and bright which is always pleasing! Nothing goes to waste in feltmaking.

This was a bit of an experiment though. There was a pile of pretty tiny little scraps of fabric in lovely colours on my work desk so I scattered them on to the felt then I free motion machine stitched the dark outline of the flowers on top - this was quite tricky because the foot kept trying to push them off (I had to lift and lower the foot several times to trap the fabric). I found it harder to be spontaneous in the stitching while trying to keep the scraps on the felt, but the varied and random colours in the fabric added a bit of spontaneity back in so that was good!

I added some hand embroidery then edged the piece of felt in the same way as the other two cards.

All of the card toppers are simply attached with double sided sticky tape. You could stitch them on (and if it was for permanent artwork I probably would have done).

When Dee stayed we visited Athelhampton House - famous for it's gardens. It was beautiful and between us we took about 400 photos and did lots of ooh'ing and ahh'ing. We may also have had a cream tea ;-)

Here are a couple of the photos - I especially love the yellow and lilac in the first one. Nature is so clever!

A lot of the flowers had gone to seed by this time of year but that just made it even more interesting!

If you ever find yourself near Dorchester, it's well worth a visit http://www.athelhampton.co.uk/