Friday 15 February 2013

Speaking of Hobbits..

Yes.. I have been slight preoccupied with Hobbit-ish things lately!  

I was thinking about teacosies.. and it suddenly struck me that they're hill shaped.. all of a sudden I had a picture in my mind of a Bag-End teacosy.. you know how it goes, once the image is there it's best to make it 'cos it won't go away until you do :)


Layers of white English wool fibre for the inside..
this makes the cosy thicker and warmer than just merino
Outer layers of merino, adding curly locks, wool nepps and silk fibres for texture and colour
 Next I started building up the design.. the door, windows, steps, followed by flowers


I outlined the main elements with petrol green merino

I forgot to take a photo of the cosy once it was felted, but before I embroidered..  


I wanted to embroider the first line from the book onto the back of the cosy  'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit..'  I thought about freehanding it, but wanted it to look distinctly Hobbit-ish and uniformly lettered.  After experimenting with drawing the letters myself I decided to print it off in Hobbit font, in different sizes

And tracing it onto tissue paper, which I could freemotion embroider
through and remove later
I experimented with what looked like the hardest word
Then pinned the sentence to the cosy, carefully embroidered through the tissue paper
and picked away the bits afterwards
Added simple hand embroidered flowers
I found the perfect vintage button in my stash for the door knob :)
I machined around the features I wanted to define
and added  simple hand embroidered flowers for the garden
I must be a slow stitcher.. I seemed to spend ages working on this! I am glad I made it though, it was fun :)  And now my mind is free to move on to other things

20 comments:

Heather Woollove said...

Deborah--THIS IS FANTASTIC!!!
I love, love, love this project!!! It's a complete world unto itself...like a doll house! It taps into a part of my psyche which is still a little girl and looking at it really makes me feel happy inside. Wonderful.

Terriea Kwong said...

Soooo sweet teacosy! I can imagine having an English tea and watching the teacosy is such a country style life. I LOVE it

Ali said...

Have loved all your shire inspired posts and creations... but your Bag-End tea cosy is a stunner! Fabulous idea and so amazingly executed - right down to the font!
What's next I wonder?!
Ali x

martine said...

This is really wonderful
thanks for sharing
martine

Jeany said...

Hi Deborah, me again ;)) I saw this allready on your flickr, or etsy file, loving it, so great. Have just a question, what is that gling stuff on the second photo? Looks like paper? Really great teacosy, I loveeeeeee my tea, so totally my thing. Have a great weekend.

Kerry O'Gorman said...

Love it! Your work is simply inspiring...such a great idea. I saw someone once made a 'chocolate box' cottage tea cozy but it was knitted and I knew I could never even attempt it! This, I can see having a go at for sure. Cheers.

Jane Perala said...

I LOVE your sweet tea cosy!

crazydazy said...

hi, i really like the embroidered flowers, ali

Ginny Huber said...

What a fine process, a beautiful tea cozy..and I am particularly impressed by the free motion words and embellishments..having never done any free motion at all!

Susi Ryan said...

It is fabulous! What a great idea to embroider through the tissue paper. You are so clever. I love your blog, I find your adventures inspiring me to be fearless in my crafting.

An Aussie Felter said...

What a great idea Deborah . . . it looks like a cosy place to be ! The embroidery really makes it so 3D.

FeltersJourney said...

Oh wow.. I have never had this many comments this quickly before! Thank you all.. it is so lovely to hear back from you. I'm glad you are enjoying my hobbity obsession :)
xoxo

Susi, I love that I'm inspiring you to be fearless :)
x

Janine, the stuff that looks like paper is silk chiffon. I use it sometimes when I'm building up a picture, it helps me know where to place my fibres, but also with pieces that have to be worked a lot and felted hard it helps prevent the design blending into the background too much.
x

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kelly said...

I love this more than words! The stitching of the letters turned out fantastic! Once again your talent amazes me. I am still smitten by the rabbits you made. :)

FeltersJourney said...

Thank you Kelly :) Glad you like it x

Karolina I haven't published your comment, because I didn't want to show your email address incase you keep it private. Thank you for your sweet words x

Unknown said...

great work!

Elmtree said...

I am really giggling now!! You made a wonderful job of it . It is so neat and clean. love the writing.Did you do that by hand or by machine?
Great for second breakfasts!
Compliments from fellow hobbit hole maker!

FeltersJourney said...

Thank you my dear fellow Hobbit-Hole Architect :)

I free motion machine embroidered the writing (with my darning foot)
x

Zdolność-tworzenia said...

Cudowna.

FeltersJourney said...

Thanks you :)