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

Felted landscape

I was lucky enough to go on a two day workshop with Helen Melvin (http://www.fieryfelts.co.uk/) creating a felted landscape.

The first day we created the felted background, some basic instructions are below (but I strongly suggest you look at some you tube videos and or get on a workshop session as making felt requires patience and lots of reassurance from the tutor as in my case).  May sure you have plenty of time and patience before embarking on this...:

What you need:

• Merino wool tops (in a range of colours)
• Silk tops and other wool bits are optional
• Olive oil soap or olive oil soap solution
• Water
• Small plastic milk bottle (with holes pierced in the lid to act as a shaker)
• Plastic bag
• 2 pieces of bubble wrap (at least the size of your desired finished piece), small bubbles
• Plastic cover for table
• Piece of netting (the sort you have as net curtain in windows)
• Old towels
• Bamboo mat (the one you use for rolling sushi in)
• Landscape picture (for inspiration)
• Apron (so you don't get too wet and mucky)
• Sewing machine and threads

What to do:

1) Prepare your work space...lay out an old towel, on top of that lay the bubble wrap bumpy side down.  Then start teasing out your wool tops and lay them down all facing one direction.  Be aware that your finished piece will shrink about 25% so make it bigger at this stage. Lay down another layer of wool tops at a 90 degrees angle to the top layer, keep layering until the desired thickness is achieved, I used 4 layers, make sure there's no holes. The top layer one should roughly look like the landscape image your looking for so tweak to get the desire effect, make sure your happy with what you see now, as soon as you take the next step its too late to step back...

2)  Now take the milk bottle 'shaker' and shake warm water over the top of the wool, press down to get the water absorbed into the wool all over the wool. 

3) Lather up the soap, lay the netting over the top of the project and gently rub the soap lather into the work, gently to begin with so as not to move the fibres too much. Slowly start to rub all over the surface using a light touch initially. Rub in all directions and cover the whole area right to the edges. Every so often lift up the netting, if you don't do this it will felt into the piece at this beginning stage. Then screw up the plastic bag and use this too rub over the surface, keep adding soap lather and water to the piece, gradually increase the pressure and intensity of your rubbing, use your knuckles and rub the piece all over.

4) Pinch the surface to see if the fibres lift up, if they do keep working it in each direction, with increasing pressure. When the fibres don't pinch up anymore you can lay your piece inside the bamboo mat and roll vigorously with long strokes with even pressure, keep going for a minute then un roll and check on the piece. The roll up again in the other direction, i.e. 90 degrees to the first way you rolled. When your happy that the piece has felted well and no bits are hanging off and there's no holes its time to finish off.

5) Run the piece alternately under hot and then cold water. Then lay flat on an old towel to dry.

6) On the second day we stitched into the felted piece using a sewing machine.  Zig-zag stich was predominantly used, it was altered is width and length as you stitched. Lots of threads were used to create various effects.

7) To finish the piece I asked one of my artistic friends, Ronny to colour a canvas for me, and I then stitched the felted landscape on to it... and then all done.  This piece took a lot of time (unlike some of my other pieces), for the stitching part it needs leaving and then looking t over several days and more bits adding.

Hope you like it! 

Tapestry picture - Guatemalan dogs

I was given a book a number of years ago with South American traditional images in it, this one really stood out to me, the colours are so intense and I liked the pattern, so here started my foray into tapestry... its the only wool tapestry piece that I've made... it was good fun but I needed strong fingers to pull the wool through the fabric...  I also ended up with a finished piece that was a rhombus shape rather than a square but my magic framer managed to stretch it out so that it doesn't look too bad mounted (thanks Nigel).

(The other thing I realised when I'd finished was that I had effectively created a picture of dogs sniffing each others bums....lol!!)

Mini Owl Key Ring

Its not always about coming up with your own ideas... and sometimes I find it really nice to buy a kit some somewhere and have a little dabble.  I travel a lot (overseas) with my work and having a kit is a great way to keep your hands busy and mind from wandering on the lonely nights!  I bought this cute one from a lovely shop called Friday's Child on the Isle of Arran, the instructions and all the bits (including a needle) came with it.  It was created by Beth Connors a felt maker and teacher based in Harrogate and I think the finished piece is very cute!

 

 

Felt bag

More felted items, so this one was a piece that I created as a practise using the hand carders and embellisher machine.  I found some nice wool pieces and textured wool.  Hand stitching and couched threads finished the surface off (see close ups below).  Then I finished it off by making it into a bag with handles from Fred Aldous on line shop.

Covered books

Book Cover: The finished piece...

These make really handy gifts and can be reused by inserting a new book.  They are relatively easy to make.  You will need to spend some time creating the cover... so the fabric that you want to wrap your book in.  There are several ways to make this part and its up to you to get creative and design your cover.  The one I'm showing you here was created using strips of fabric attached to prefabricated felt with bondaweb, I then used a transfer printing technique to add the colours, then ribbons and hand stitching, beads and hand made discs (from tomato paste tubes) along with handmade cord to act as a fastener. The instructions below are to guide you once you have your fabric made as to how to make it into a book...

Instructions to make one:

What you'll need:

• Book
• Decorated piece to make the outer cover instructions not included below)
• Pre-fabricated felt
• Cord / ribbon for tie and bookmark
• Cutting mat & cutter or scissors and tape measure
• Sewing machine & needles & threads
• Scissors 

What to do:

1)  Measure your book, the diameter around the middle and the length of the cover, add half an inch to the measurements, as follows for the seam allowance:



My book measures  13.25 inches round by 9.5 inches long (includes seam allowance).

2)  Next cut your decorated piece to the size you've measured above, as follows, you might want to run a narrow short zigzag stich on the machine round the edge of the whole piece to ensure no bits fall off and it doesn't fray!

3)  Now decide how deep you want your felted inside pockets to be and cut two pieces of felt to that size, for this book mine were 9.5 inches long by 5 inches wide, so now you should have the following bits cut...

4)  You will need to make some cord to act as a tie round the middle.  There are several ways to do this, the one on my finished book is made from ribbons twisted together and run through the sewing machine on a narrow zig-zag several times.

Now take your cord and have a play as to how you want to attach it before you launch in with the sewing machine.  Fold your cover in half and decide how long you want the cord, how many times you want it to wrap around the book or how big a bow you want on the front... attach to the middle of the back of the cover with a pin, make sure your happy with the length and positioning, then sew a short 1-2 inch length zigzag on your machine to keep the cord in place at the spine of the book, ties off and hide loose ends.

5)  You can also make a book mark(if you want)  in the same way as describes above for the cord or for any left over front cover bits you might have, it can be attached in the same way as the fastener cord bur from the middle of the top of the spine.

6)  Now pin on the felt to the back side of the cover, at the edges so you have an uncovered strip in the middle.  If you have one use a quarter inch foot on the sewing machine (or use the guides on your machine) and sew all the way round the whole outside edge of the book cover and felt. Cut off any excess felt (if sometimes moves a bit when your sewing around the edge. Tie, secure and cut off any loose ends. 

7)  Now put the book inside its cover, wrap the cord around and ta dah your finished cover...

Enjoy!

--

Here's some more I made earlier...

Cotton Shopping Bag

I was lucky enough to get given a cotton cloth bag when I brought some goodies from one of my favourite gift shops in Conwy called The Secret Garden (http://www.secretg.co.uk/).  The bag is so useful and I always have in in my handbag ready to put some things in when I'm in a supermarket or the like.  In Wales we now have to pay for plastic bags so these are becoming really useful to have.  Use any fabric you like, use oddments so you have the front and back different, or odd handles, go for it!

Instructions to make one:

What you'll need:

• Cotton fabric 2 bits (one piece for front and one piece for back both measuring approximately 40cm by 45cm this size includes the seam allowance), plus another two bits that measure 9cm by 40cm each for the handles, these don't need to match so don't stress if you have oddments!
• Measuring tape
• Scissors / cutter and mat
• Sewing machine, thread, needle etc
• Buttons (if you want to make it look fancy...) 

What to do:

1)  Iron the fabric to remove any creases then, measure and cut the fabric in the measurements as follows:

• 2 pieces 40cm x 45cm (includes the seam allowance)
• 2 pieces 9cm x 40cm (includes seam allowance)

If you want to make your bag smaller or larger or handle shorter or longer then tweak the measurements and see what works for you...

2) Take the front and back pieces and fold over the top twice (about 1cm) like the images below and pin in place...

3) Next take the pieces for the handles and fold them as indicated in the pictures below...

4) Now sew down the hems you've made on the 2 handles and the top part of the bag.

5)  Decide where you want your handles to be positioned. Tuck them under the seam (as shown below) and pin in place.

 

 

6)  Now sew your handle in place securely, I recommend that you do a cross like in the image below. Tidy off any loose ends by tying knots and threading them through the fabric then trimming.

 

 

 

 

7)  Lay your two pieces face together with the handles directly on top of each other (at this stage don't worry of the front and back don't match up, just trim off any excess material) pin in place and sew down the sides and along the bottom approx. 1/4 inch from the edge. I also suggest that you zig-zag down the outside of your seam so as to minimise fraying.

 

 

8)  Turn your bag the right way round, tidy off any loose threads securely, add any buttons or embellishments you like and ta dah, one handy shopper!

 

Enjoy!

 

 



 

Decorated Box (using a tomato paste tube)

Little brown box from Hobby craft...



Tomato paste tube



Ta Dah: The finished article and decorated box

Instructions to make one:

What you'll need:

• Papier mache box with 'frame aperture lid' like these:

http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/paper-mache-small-square-box-with-frame-lid/571799-1000

• Paint to decorate it - I used anything acrylic or oil based as it goes on quicker
• Paint brush
• Measuring tape / ruler
• Tomato paste tube (one will be plenty for this)
• Machine Embroidery thread
• Sewing machine & metallic needle
• Scissors (ones you don't mind blunting)
• Hi Tack Craft Glue
• Embossing tool, like this (or you could use a ball point pen that has no ink in it):

http://www.craftworlddirect.com/pergamano-embossing-tool-extra-small-ball-1mm?gclid=CJ-t99fzoroCFalV4godOmwARA

What to do:

1)  IMPORTANT: For this step use scissors you don't mind blunting AND be careful as the edges will be sharp! Cut both ends off your tomato paste tube and slice open so you have one sheet.  Wash off the paste and dry.

2) As you can see from my finished box picture (above) I inlaid 4 squares of embossed tube that were sown together in the middle, I will take you through the steps for what I did, you don't have to follow these you can free style as you like!  So measure the aperture of the box lid and work out what size you want you 4 pieces to be then cut them out from the tomato paste tube (using the blunt scissors minding you don't cut yourself!).

3) Next use the embossing tool to draw wavy lines or a pattern of your choice on your pre cut squares.  If you want the pattern to be raised upwards on your finished piece then draw on the coloured side of the tube (ie where the label is), if you want is to be depressed when you look at it drawn on the shiny copper side.  You may want to have a practise on some spare tube before you launch into your finished piece.

4) Now set up your sewing machine.  Use a metallic thread needle.  Set it up to do wide but narrow in length zig zag.  Practise on a piece of cloth so you are happy with the desired effect.  I would suggest having the same thread on the top as is on the bobbin below.  You want to line your first 2 squares next to each other with no overlap.  Be warned the machine bangs and clatters around when sewing through the paste tube but it will work... be brave and sew them together, if there's gaps between your stitches then go back over what you have done.  Don't stall the machine too much otherwise you may end up with a big hole in  the tube (its not as forgiving as fabric).  Next line up the other two and repeat.  Then line the two next to each other and sew them together so you have the four.

5) I recommend that you paint your box and lid next.

6) Then place the embossed sewn tube into the aperture, securing with the high tack glue, leave to dry and Bob's your uncle, a completed decorated box!

Organza Bags





Organza Bags, fully customisable in colour and size and look great with an evening dress!

 

These are great and really simple to make...

Instructions to make one:

What you'll need:

• Organza say 3-5 different colours (these are overlain, so that when you cut thorough different colours will show, so choose ones that go well together), size depends on what size you want your bag to be, but don't skimp!
• Embroidery threads, any coordinating colours (machine and hand stitching required)
• Beads (if you want, any colours / sizes, use your imagination)
• Sewing machine with needles etc...
• Hand sewing kit
• Embroidery scissors / scissors with fine pointy tip
• Felt or lining fabric for lining bag - size is up to you
• Press-stud or other such fastner  

What to do:

1. Decide on what size you want your bag to be, we'll make the bag from one piece and fold it in half in the middle which will be the bottom of your bag, so add a little extra for seams and hems. Lay the pieces of organza on top of each other a pin.
2. Next use your sewing machine to sew wavy lines vertically along the length of the material, leaving gaps between them, don't be accurate with it just zoom up and down.  Variegated thread works particularly well and saves you loads of time in changing the colour. Try out different stitches to make it look interesting.
3. You can couch some threads / wool on top to add interest and texture.
4. When your happy with the number of vertical lines take a pair of embroidery scissors to some of the lines and cut between them... not right through the fabric, take the first layer off, if you cut it upwards you will see it fray to where the stitching is, pull away the frayed parts and you will see the underneath colour, continue to do this until you are happy with the desired effect.
5. If you accidentally cut all the way through don't worry, just lay the two pieces on top of each other and use a close zigzag to sew them back together.
6. When your finished embellishing create a handle for your bag.  Mine were made from twisted narrow pieces of organza run through the machine on zig zag using several threads. Send it through the machine several times, twisting the piece as you go and it'll look lovely.
7. To finish the bag I lined mine with felt, pinned the handle in position, hemmed the top and zoomed down the sides and added a prest-stud to keep it closed.

Et voila... one bespoke evening bag.

Here's a close up of my purple one:

Decorated Jam Jars - for flowers or tea light holders

For our wedding in September 2013 I decided that I really wanted a 'homespun' feel to it. I asked friends and relations to collect jam jars for me that I cleaned up.  Firstly I soaked the labels off in hot soapy water and removed the sticky label residue with nail varnish remover. Then it was decoration time, I tried to decorate them all differently, some with lace, some with ribbon, some with bows, stick on diamante crystals, some with beaded butterflies that I made.  Some were filled with flowers (natural ones and paper ones) and some I put teal sand in the bottom and tea lights.  We were really pleased with the effect, hope you like the look of them too!

 

Here's some more pictures of them 'in use' taken by Tony Fanning Photography at our wedding...

Felt Heart Brooches

These are made using and embellisher machine.  If your not sure what this is then take a look at this you tube video that shows the embellisher machine beign used...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lXLEC3dz4Q

I've decorated the top with free machine embroidery, hand stitching, beads and threads.

If you'd like more information or if you like one making for you let me know!