Strip Quilted Flower Cushion

I took my inspiration for this technique from some pieces I saw at the November 2013 Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate.  Its quite simple to do but I thik the results are really effective and the potential is limitless!

Instructions to make a flower cushion like above:

 

What you'll need:

• One fat quarter of fabric (I chose my fat quarter for the colours and the simple flower design that I've replicated on the front)
• Calico for backing
• Cushion inner / stuffing
• Scissors (for fabric and paper)
• Cutting mat and cutter
• Cottons (contrasting colours and invisible)
• Threads for embellishment
• Needle
• Beads (if you like)
• Sewing machine (free machine embroidery foot and quarter inch foot or normal foot)
• Iron & ironing board
• Wadding
• Pen
• Paper
• Marking pen for fabric that will rub out
• Safety pins

 

 

What to do:

1) Make sure your fat quarter is ironed flat, then cut into strips, mine varied in width from 1 inch to 3 inches and various widths between, then cut them to different lengths.

 

2) Next set your sewing machine up with straight stitch and a quarter inch foot (if you have one), sew the pieces back together, pressing afer each seam, make a rectangle (you dedide on the proportions... you may want to make sure you can get a cushion pad in your desired shape and dimensions)

 

3) Next pin your wadding (using safety pins) to the back of the piece. Decide on what flower shape you want to be the focal point of your piece.  I drew my image on paper, cut it out and drew the shape onto the fabric with a fabric pen that dissapers when rubbed out. Then using your free machine embroidery foot and feed dogs down and using a contrasting thread sew the flower shape on the front of your piece.

 

4) Now using invisible thread quilt the space on the outside of the flower image using free motion embroidery, for ideas for filling in this space have a look at:

 

http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

 

5)  Embelish the flower image with contrasting thereads couching them on and add beads if you like.

 

6) Now make up into a cushion using the calico as backing.

 

Pop on the couch or your bed and admire your handy work!

 

Here's some close up's of my flowers:

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

Dahlia Flower Brooch

These Dahlia Flower Heads are made from shop bought felt, as I have no craft room at the moment I'm making small projects, these were really easy to make sat on my lap. I got the idea from:

http://kojo-designs.com/

Instructions to make a flower:

What you'll need:

• One 9x12 inch piece of wool felt
• Cutting mat
• Cutting knife 
• Scissors
• Cotton (matching colour to felt)
• Needle
• Beads (if you like)
• Brooch pin or you can make into a headband (like on the website above)

What to do:

1) Cut the felt on the cutting mat into strips (along the long part of the piece), you need 3 different sizes, 2inch wide rows, 1,5 inch wide rows and 1 inch wide rows. Make the left over bit into a circle, this will form the base of the flower that the petals will be sewn onto.

2) Cut the rows into petals, the shape can be seen in the image above.

3) Start with the large petals and fold the bottom of the left and right side of the petal in to make a pinched petal shape, secure onto the circle base with a few stitches, continue adding large petals in this manner, with no gaps until an entire circle is made. Next move onto the mid sized petals doing the same. And then the small petals doing the same.

4) Embellish with beads and finish off by adding the brooch back or attach to a belt / headband.

Enjoy!

Felted abstract images

 

Felting (when you know how, see my felted landscape post for basic instructions) is therapeutic if you don't get too stressed by it.  I like making abstract designs, in truth its easier than landscapes as it doesn't matter if the merino wool tops move when your felting.  I also like adding hand stitching and couching threads into the patterns that appear. I have described how to felt previously in my post called felted landscape (can be found under decorations tab).

 

Silence....

The craft room is quiet... we redecorated the room over New Year and then decided that we would put the house on the market... the estate agent told me to pack the craft room table away to make the bedroom bigger and look more like a bedroom... so its silent.... I have very few projects that don't need a table.  I'll probably have to get my head round crocheting which takes up less room.... hope the house sells soon otherwise my stuff will spread to the lounge and I don't think the estate agent will be happy about that one will he.... more projects to come... at some stage!


PS - Happy birthday to my lovely hubby! x

Felt cuffs

 

These are bashed together using my embellisher machine, merino wool tops, felted bits and pieces, silk cocoons, threads, bits of wool, beads and buttons. I don't usually have a colour or design in mind, and try to see where the embellisher takes me, sometimes they're a disaster so I chuck them aside into the UFO (unfinished object) pile to be cut up and reused at a later date, other times they work out nicely.  I tend to use the embellisher to make the fabric, then my sewing machine to sew lines and waves into it them I add hand stitching, couch threads and embellish with beads.  Sometimes cutting away at elements also creates a nice effect. To fasten I use a button on the top side with a press-stud on the underside, or you could use a toggle and loop, whatever looks good!

 

 

Tissue paper pom poms

 

Instructions to make a pom pom:

What you'll need:

• Tissue paper, these are made using 8 layers
• Cutting mat
• Cutting knife 
• Scissors
• Ribbon (for stringing)
• Card (to make a template, a cornflakes packet will be fine)

What to do:



1) Create a template from your card, my pom poms measured 8inches square

2) Unfold your tissue paper on top of your cutting mat and lie 8 layers on top of each other, lay your template on top and cut out.  The tissue paper snags easily, so take it easy and if it snags then move the knife in the other direction.

3) Next fold your square along an edge in a concertina fold, approx. 1inch wide (as shown below)

 

4) Next cut a piece of ribbon (don't skimp on length, it needs to be long enough to tie round the centre and then use to tie / hang up).  Tie the ribbon round the middle as shown below.



5) Cut the ends rounded or pointed depending on the effect you want...

6) Next gradually tease out the layers of the tissue paper (when I made these for our wedding I had 80 to make, to start with I was worried about tearing the paper, but if your too delicate they don't fluff out enough..I found a glass of wine helped...). Start with one side and fluff out each layer the do the other side.

And ta dah... one tissue paper pom pom....

You can alternate colours to make the following effect...

We used them to decorate the pew ends in the church we go married in (image courtesy of Tony Fanning Photography)...

They make lovely decorations so enjoy!

 

Mini Snowflake Key Ring or Decoration

Again another kit, this one was from Crystals and Ice and I took it away to Vietnam with me to make.  I had a strange sense of irony sat in my air conditioned hotel room with 35 degrees outside and 95% humidity making a snowflake... well it was November after all!

I bought the kit in October 2013 when it was available from:

http://www.crystals-and-ice.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000002.pl?WD=kit%20snowflake&PN=Miyuki%2dFan%2dClub%2dKit%2d%2d%2dChristmas%2dStocking%2dMAS_53%2ehtml#SID=156