This weeks makes..

Ooo I've had a wonderfully productive week - I have been a bit of a felt-o-holic to be honest!  It feels so good to of made everything I hoped & planned to at the start of the week..  I havent had much computer time at all & I'm running out of time today I just really wanted to show you what I've been upto :)

As promised.. last weeks witches hat :D

 I played around with vintage silk sarees and nuno felting..

This is an asymetric wrap/scarf with a crinkle silk chiffon.. love the turning leaf colours

This one uses the softest prettiest silk chiffon sari I ever saw!

Just noticed you cant see the sari fabric on this pic - duh! 
It has the same emerald green silk as the skinny scarf below

With emerald green vintage sari with peacocks & deer, dancers & musicians pictured

And 2 pair of boots ready to go!  I felted the blue/white ones last week but finished them off with toggles & ties this week.

The blue & white are Norwegian - super thick & snuggly
Purple & blue with green accents  are Icelandic (am I obsessing with halloween colour combos?) 
I have a lovely customer looking for size 6.5 (UK) as these are both 7s, & I dont really do half sizes, I'm hoping one of them may find their home quickly :)

They have been loooong days this week! 

And now my spare time has gone.. I'm off to bring the washing in before it gets dark.  Have a good weekend folks
xx

Felt and Stitch

My sewing machine is getting a good workout lately! :)  This week has found me felting boots - I have 2 pairs 'on the go' - neither quite finished yet - and making hanging felt hearts for a commission.  I went to town with the stitchery on these.. adding abstract shaped felt appliques & machine embroidery to a nice textural piece of felt. 

Absolutely stuffed full of lovely lavender buds.. these are nice fat hearts :)
This is just 6 of the 11 I made..

I had so much fun applique-ing and embroidering these..
I just LOVE the dimensional effect of stitching into felt!

Working on the heart project got my imagination going.. as soon as I had finished them I stitched a hanging Christmas tree filled with allspice berries and cloves to smell like Christmas :) ...

And then went  off at a tangent thinking about holidays & seasonal stuff - Halloween.  The night before we had watched Batman Begins (Christian Bale is my fave Batman!) and I guess this must of still been in my mind 'cos I suddenly started picturing a felt bat with stitched details & swarovski crystal eyes

You cant really tell in this pic but the eyes GLOW.  They are AB swarovski crystal and sooo irridescent.  He is nice and chunky too - I used 2 layers of felt to stitch into

And THEN following the Halloween vein I felted a witches pointy hat! Hows that for random?  Its still drying at the mo.. pics to follow soon :)

Anyhoo.. time to go rustle up some food for my lot - enjoy the weekend folks

xx

The best kind of collaboration - mother and daughter

September.. the year is turning!  Autumn is definately in the air..  Misty morning fields, bright berries on the trees, cool crisp evenings.. it shall be time for thick soups, hot chocolate and woolen socks soon!

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Well the summer holidays went by in a bit of a blur they were gone so quickly.. and I have been a bad little blogger!  Hopefully things shall be back to normal now.. the children are newly back at school - I am felting again (YAY) and this morning saw the Woolgatherers meet for the first time since July.  I should be hard at work, either working on my newest pair of boot slippers.. or making textural flat felt for a commission.. but my concience is telling me its time to blog :)  but I must be short and sweet and get back to work!
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This is not a new make but a piece from July which I didnt get round to showing you.  Rachael had drawn a picture which I fell in love with.. and immediately imagined it as a felt panel on the wall. 
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This is Rachaels trademark flower.. in year 4 they did a William Morris project and all had to design and make their own wallpaper.. this is the flower Rachael designed - she has been drawing it ever since :)

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I love this picture - its simple.. but I can almost hear the wind singing in the leaves of the tree..making the branches dance.  I thought it lent itself to freemotion machine embroidery - which has really gotten a hold of me I afraid - I'm addicted.  So one day I set about felting the picture (minus the chickens and bunnies :)

Wetted out and just started rubbing

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I used the colours of the fields by our house at that time.. apart from the flower of course (which is imaginery) - Rachael always uses these colours for it so I stayed true to her design :)
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When it was felted and dried I set to with my sewing machine & freemotion foot (which I LIKE) adding in the detail..
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From a distance

I LOVE the textures you can get adding machine embroidery to felt.. 
 the trunk and branches stand proud against the leaves.

Signed with our initials and the date :)

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I just need to mount it now! Which is where I have come to a standstill.. my embroidery frame is too small for the piece of linen fabric that I want to mount it on (it needs to be stretched before I stitch it on - then I stretch the linen over a board & stitch it in place). Im puzzling my way around it, while trying to avoid the need for a bigger frame...  and then it shall be on my wall :)

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So.. NOW I am off to do some felting before collecting the children from school

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Have a good weekend folks

xx