A wild and windy seaside stay..

This week the children have been home from school for half-term.. and we managed to sneak away for a last, late seaside break in Dorset.  We had a great time as a family; it was very wild and windy which of course meant the waves were spectacular.. good job we weren't planning to kayak this time :)   There were a couple of days that I have no photos of - they were all out of focus 'cos the wind was buffeting me SO much, but I do have a few pics for you.. the first lot were taken at Lyme Regis.  We have never been there before, what a quirky and picturesque place.. 

Whenever I see seagulls close up I think of Pyramids by Terry Pratchet (LOVE that book)

I recon that poor chap got soaked

Lyme Regis is on the Jurasic Coast and is well known for finding fossils - Matthew found this one just lying there on the first beach we walked over.. needless to say he is thrilled to bits, Gary and Rachael tried hard to find their own fossils too.. but nothing near as good as this one.

You can clearly see 2 big critters (one on top of the other) plus 1 smaller very white & crystalised one, and what looks like quite a few much smaller ones

hello old friend.. 
on top of Glastonbury Tor
The remains of the chapel built in the 1300s 

We havent been to Glastonbury for far too long.. it is a place that has always pulled me very strongly.  Of everyplace that I have ever been Glastonbury has to be the most welcoming, accepting and inclusive... a day spent here soothes my soul.  We had an even bigger treat than expected this time..  As we were walking up the lane toward to Tor we came across the White Spring Water Temple for the first time.  For many years of visiting the Tor this place had been used for other purposes, but in recent years it has become the most amazing water temple. 

Through the doorway, we stood letting our eyes get used to the dark, down the old stone steps in to a candlelit vaulted stone cavern.. there were puddles and rivulets all over the floor and the sound of running water was SO loud,  burning incense and sweet music in the air.  I must go back and spend longer there, it was such a peaceful place.  After too short a time we had to leave.. we were off up the Tor.

.... When we got to the top there was a man playing hauntingly beautiful music on a flute...  How much do I love it here?  ... I want to go back already..

Now we are home & I made my first piece of felt for just over a week yesterday :)  Today its going to be all about pumpkins!  As a family of Harry Potter fans we have a Halloween feast every year, Rachael is planning to make a special spooky desert this year so we shall be having our feast tonight rather than on Halloween (my girl does everything at a snails pace so she will need lots of time :)

xx

Beeeautiful Buttons

If you have been reading this for a while.. or know me in person, you have probably picked up on my love of buttons.. I hoard them, my button tins are little treasure chests.  I have always felt that way about button tins actually, I loved my mom & nans button tins when I was a little girl and spent many happy hurs sorting through them.  Even my husband is always on the lookout for buttons for me :) bless him. 

I want to share a seller that I have found.. I have been admiring Buttonalia ceramic buttons on Etsy for about a year now.. they are always such gorgeous colours and look so plump and non-uniform.. each one is unique.  Every now and then I go look and drool and wonder what I would make with each one I fancied.. not really settling on a particular use... I just coveted them :)

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a couple of big beauties and straight away I could picture them on shawls / wraps as a closure instead of one of my usual stick pins.  So I brought them.. Sharry the talented potter behind Buttonalia, is absolutely lovely :) she got my buttons to me the very next day - which was great 'cos I was bursting to get hold of them!  I was so excited to get them I didnt even take a photo of them unattached!

First thing I did was attach one to my own shawl.. the nuno one with the Indian scarf which took forever and a day to felt in..

Perfect size to allow me to use the decorative holes as button holes :)

The button is black and green

The next one was just right for a wrap which which turned out just as I was picturing it (HUGE layout for this one) its more of a cape than a shawl..

SO, if you like buttons go take a look at Sharry's shop..  I can honestly say hers are the nicest ceramic buttons I have seen.. and as lovely as they are to look at they feel even better - you just wanna keep touching them

xoxo

Helenium Cushion - process pics

This all started with a lovely project article in FELT magazine - an Australian magazine which celebrates felt in all its forms :)  I have only been able to get hold of the one issues of this (issue 3) but really enjoyed it.

The project was for a poppy cushion and was written by Wendy Bailye.  Lovely clear instructions and lots of photos for making a seamless 3 dimensional poppy cushion with 3 petal layers (1 being the outer frill).  I very much enjoyed making this.. as you can tell from the fact that I followed Wendy's instructions :) something I rarely do.  After making my poppy cushion I decided to be daring and make one with even more petals.  I wanted to have a go at making a rose for my nans birthday.. nan has a beautiful rose bush that my grandad brought her many years ago and I decided to try and make the rose- cushion in those colours.

As you can tell from the title of this post (& the photos)  my cushion had a mind of its own and did not want to be a rose..  its more like a marigold or a helenium - and as heleniums are one of my favourite flowers thats what I'm calling it  :)

My first step was to card batts blending the colours that I wanted.. gold, bronze & pink, and turn them into roving.  (I LOVE carding batts and blending pretty colours - its so satisfying)  They actually look a little dull on the picture, in real life the pink against the gold and bronze was delicious!

Then I cut the resists; one big circle of foam underlay for the centre + 4 layers of thin plastic for the petals

The first layer of fibre was layed as rays extending out past the edge of the circular resist.. (all the fibres for this outer frill were layed going in the same direction so when they felted there was plenty of give to allow you to shape them into ruffles).

Then the centre of the circle was filled with perpendicular layers

Next came a layer of plastic with a hole in the centre where the petal layer felts into the main part of the cushion.

This was repeated 4 times..  each layer of petals I made just a little bit smaller than the last.

Flipped over and layed the back out

The next stage took AGES.  Cool wetting and rubbing till it was ALL holding together well.. and finally rolling it - again there were a fair few hours spent doing this.

When it got to this stage it was strong enough for heat and more vigorous fulling.  Making sure to stretch the petals out sideways as they shrunk so they were nice and flouncy..

(can you see all the silk? I used LOADS)

Till it looked like this.. 

 I cut button holes and healed the edges, for a button close back

It really doesnt look much like a rose to me unfortunately..  nan likes heleniums too though so I'm hopeful that she will still like it :)   I made this in early summer.. nans birthday is in November - talk about being prepared!

xx

Sunbathing in October.. In ENGLAND?!

Who would of thought it.. but this last week has been absolutely stunning!  Better weather than we had in August.  Most of my time during the week has been spent inside felting, but what a treat to sit out on the bench in the sunshine (wearing a sundress!) for a cup of tea or my lunch.. feels like a gift this late in the year.

I snapped this little fellow taking a stroll across the field at lunchtime yesterday.. he was only about 30ft - 40ft away, I've never seen a fox that close in bright dayight before, I think he was too hot to be bothered about being seen :)  Had him lined up sitting facing me & just as I pressed the camera button he turned round to scratch his chin!  Never mind.. you can see what a lovely sunny day it was.

Feeling hot n itchy

So, what have I been felting this week?  I got my hands on another vintage silk sari and made my first scarf from it :)  took a while for the wool to migrate through nicely but it was worth it.

super long & skinny

 I'm working on 2 pairs of slippers.. a version of the 'franken-boots' (Rachaels slippers from last year)re-christened Funky Boots.. they are about half way done.  And some mens mule slippers.. a  special request from a very good customer for her hubby.  They now have some pretty stitching around the openings and I just need to sew the soles on.  Think tomorow is going to be a sewing day.

LOVE this colour combo - chartreuse & turquoise

This weekend though has been spent in the sun and thoroughly enjoyed :)  Its been a lovely long weekend too, the kids school was closed on Firday for a training day.. with a little forethought we could of had a few nice days by the sea - ah well.

My next post is going to be the process pics of my Helenium flower cushion that I promised many months ago..

TTFN xx

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

New wall art.. and a week away

I just HAVE to show you this..

My son is 14 and about to start his GCSE subjects in September, one of the subjects he is dropping is art (OMG school with no art class would of been sheer purgatory for me!) as such he brought home a folder with all of the work he has done over the last 3 years.  When we were going through it my heart almost leapt out of my chest when I saw this.. I LOVE it!  It is now mounted and framed and hanging in pride of place in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs :)



'The Blue Ladies'
sorry about the glare across the glass.. really should of brought non-reflective



A3 size, worked in oil pastels.
I love this so much

I cant believe that his art teacher actually marked him down on this piece because he strayed from the red,orange, yellow tones.. isnt art about doing what feels right?  He is getting lots of positive comments from our friends and family who have seen, and I'm hoping this will boost his self confidence (which has been ground out in art class!) and inspire him to keep drawing & painting.

We have just spent a wonderful week camping and ocean kayaking in Cornwall :)  The weather was a bit dodgy, but my goodness did we have some fun!



Gary & Rachael on Daymer Bay

We camped right on the cliff overlooking Polzeath beach (a lovely place to camp).  Polzeath is a great surf beach! The first half of the week, while the weather was not so good, the waves were pretty big on Polzeath - too much for us with the kayak,  so we stayed on Daymer Bay just inside the Camel Estuary.. the water was calmer here.  When the weather changed for the better the sea calmed right down - the surfers were seriously unimpressed - and we could get out there!  So lovely kayaking up close to the sea birds bobbing around & diving, or nesting on the cliffs - they took no notice whatsoever.. if only I had a waterproof camera!  Here are a couple more pics anyway..

 

Polzeath looking out to Pentire Headland

Daymer Bay.. so peaceful

I had an awful head cold for the first few days (I'd had it a week before we went too).  It really fuzzed my poor brain up for a few days!  I did quite a few daft things - most noticable of which was my mishap with hair removal cream..  Night before we went I did my legs (as you do)   and didnt realise I had hair removal cream on the back of my hand when I put my hair up..  I didnt notice until I put my hair up the next day..  luckily its just a short chunk and not a bald patch that I'm left with - and I'm due a hair cut anyway. 

I also managed to fall in a humungous rock pool!  (Blame it on the head cold) Sods law it was on a cold day and we were on a nice long walk so I was all layered up; trousers, t-shirt, fleece, coat, scarf, backback..  I went in upto my armpits and soaked the lot - I've never been so unintentionally wet in all my life.  Amber was swimming across it at the time - she though I had come to join her lol.  It was funny though I must admit.  And it proved the water repellant qualities of felt too!  I had my phone and camera in my felt backpack - both were perfectly dry.

The kids just have 2 weeks of their summer holiday left now - where has the time gone?  Its flown by!

Hope you are all having a good summer too

xx

Not many words today.. just a picture to share :)    My first wallhanging with a little freemotion embroidery on..  Its a reasonable sized wallhanging 22" x 24"  Inspired by photos taken on many wonderful walks along the North Cornwall coastline between Daymer Bay & Polzeath.

Hung from a nice bit of Dorset driftwood.. collected this piece in Feb 2010, it was just perfect for this hanging.

Just a little stitchery in the sea.. to define the horizon and some swirls in the sea. I needlefelted the sailing boat. Did think of hanging a couple of Cornish seashells from the end of the driftwood.. may still add them.

Freemotion grasses

And a freemotion seagull flying high

 My next wallhanging has a LOT more stitching on it :)

Have a good week folks - hope you are enjoying the summer xx

Experimental Felting #3 Going BIGGER

Firstly apologies about any odd spacing in this post, or html type rubbish - blogger is having a mad one and after about 1/2 hour trying to get this look right - I'm giving up and going to cook dinner!

Its been a while.. but continuing the story of my experementation using the tumble drier as a tool to make nuno felting less back breaking..

My most exciting discovery was how brilliantly it worked nuno felting onto synthetic organza!  After the smaller sample piece I jumped right into felting a shawl...

Started by carding some lovely batts.. you cant really see it but theres loads of silk and a good sprinkling of firestar twinkling away in this :)

I laid it out on the floor 'cos it was 3m x 1 m..

Piece of plastic sheeting allowed me to add extra bits for the collar and bottom fringe detail (which I cut out part way through)

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Plastic wrapped & rolled in an old towel - tied up nice and secure. 

 I chucked it in the tumble drier on no-heat for 20 minutes

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After 20 minutes you can already see the organza starting to pucker.  Wrapped & rolled it up & put it in for another tumble

You can see  how well the fibres have come through the organza here - worked a treat!
This was after 50 to 60 minutes tumbling - which is all it took

Just to make doubly sure that the fibres were evenly through I gently ran a rubber-gloved hand over the organza side (this helps the fibres through)

Now it was time to get physical :) Heat, vigorous rolling & throwing you name it - I did it.  To finish I ran the wool side over my well soaped ridged plastic roller tray - this tightens the felt up nicely.

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Finished!

My dear friend & fellow Woolgatherer Brenda found me a torso for displaying shawls on :)  Isnt she a treasure?! 

So there you go thats my final 'Experimental Felting' post ..... until the next time I get curious

xx