Felt Bag and Rose Completed!

My first attempt at a felt bag and it's lovely rose is finished and I am so pleased. I thought the flower would be really tricky but it was surprisingly easy.

Life is so busy but I made the rose felt whilst cooking tea for the children and I last night (OK so the pasta might have tasted of olive oil soap rather than olive oil but hey...) and then I stitched it together when they had gone off to bed.

I just need to find somewhere nice to go and show it off now....hmmmm.

You can see the journey of this bag on last weeks Blog.

I can't wait to make another now but I've got a couple of almost finished projects that I must do first before launching into yet another adventure!

Wet Felting

At Christmas I bought my friend and I a felt bag making kit each from Gillian Gladrags. We have spent a day making the bags from the kits. They are not finished yet but I thought I'd show the fun we've had.



We each started with a selection of Merino wool tops. Mine will eventually be a black bag with white spots and a felt rose and Tracy's is lime green with grey spots and lots of felt flowers.

I have only done a little wet felting and Tracy was a virgin felter (!)
The instructions were pretty clear though but we had to follow them carefully.


Here are various stages of laying out and soaping up.


At this stage we had some borscht (see previous post) outside in the garden and some nice cheese! Then it was back to the felt therapy.
After much tittering, rubbing, giggling, rolling, snorting and general hilarity two reasonably bag shaped articles were coaxed from the fleece. I have made a long handle as well but we'll need another day for the flowers - probably because some of Tracy's morning was interrupted by having to tow her broken down husband (and his car) to a garage. Anyway eventually my tote might look like this: (ish)

If you want a kit this is the website: http://www.gilliangladrag.co.uk/

Tracy brought along the wonderful quilted bag she has just made. She's such a neat stitcher.
Anyway what a great stress-busting day it was. We both have lovely soft clean hands now from the olive oil soap and the lanolin in the wool. It's been great exercise for those flabby upper arms (known as Bingo Wings).

Neither of us have clean houses though. Who needs that?

Autumn days

It's a fabulous Autumn day and I have just enjoyed trimming a long lavender hedge in the garden - the smell was wonderful. All the clippings have gone in the compost so even that is fragrant!

Am a bit depressed though because my sewing machine has gone on strike as far as free machining goes so have just done the smoke on these trees by hand and they turned out quite nice really! It'll make a ditsy cushion.
Yesterday at Westhope I started this felt background for stitching at a later date and I've finished it for now. I NEED my machine to work. How frustrating. Well perhaps it will make me do a bit more gardening!






At Westhope a fellow student has been Kelly who makes fabulous roving and synthetic dreads and sells them online all over the world. Here she is and here's a link to her website http://www.thecutealternative.co.uk/










All of us have had fun felting over the 4 week course and here are some examples of what we have been taught by Stevie Walker the tutor.





The gardens are lovely there too and are a joy at lunchtime.

I felt the rain ...

As the rain beats down on the roof window of my little work room I can post the picture that I have created from some of the felts from 21st Century Yarns that I bought at the NEC Knitting and Stitching Fair in August.

The picture is based on the weather we experienced in Wales this "summer", the felts embellished on to linen and then stitched.

Last weekend we had a family trip to visit my great friend Linda Alton who is a jewellery maker / silversmith in Nottinghamshire. She gave me the long grey straight beads that remind me of the lead piping in Cleudo! They inspired me to get cracking and finish this off.

She proudly showed me her newly refurbed studio which makes me green with envy - I hope she does well at her Open Studio event this weekend - she makes fabulous pieces based on the wonder of nature. http://www.loupjewellery.co.uk/.

We had a great time. How a friendship like this remains so strong when we have a shared history is such a joy even when we meet up so rarely.

Here you can see what I mean by the Welsh colours - this sky at Llandanwg was quite dramatic.

... and now for something completely different ... this is a sketch I made tonight for a sort of cartoony cushion in calico, stitching and ditsy prints. Watch this space....

How I Felt

I felt potty and made my first 3D felt vessel. I am so pleased with it. The unpredictability of felt making is fun but using these autumnul colours in merino fleece created a lovely pomegranite like object - or is it a seed head? Well it doesn't matter but my furry pot is very tactile, smells nicely of Body Shop Olive Oil soap, which the wool was rubbed with, and is awaiting stitching I think...but then again it's nice as it is. Decisions, decisions.

I just find it amazing that seemless pots like this, bags, purses, animals etc can be made entirely by hand-rubbing sheeps fleece. I'm ready for more!

Here are some images at Westhope yesterday. It's an inspirational place for taking the felt-making course with tutor Stevie Walker. There's a fabulous walled kitchen garden hidden away in the grounds which is perfect for a peaceful lunch break and to rest those weary felt-making arms!

On the way home I drove along Wenlock Edge in the golden sunshine of a late Autumn afternoon and then had some butternut squash, onions, garlic, beetroot and tomatoes from the allotment roasted with lamb and rosemary. How much more seasonal can I get! Can you tell it's my favourite time of year?

I Know Nuno Now!

I have done my first felt making day at Westhope College in Shropshire with Stevie Walker as the tutor. It was quite a physical day what with all the rolling of the felt, but very satisfying.

Materials used in this first image were silk chiffon and Merino wool tops with little pieces of green glass that I have collected on the beach in Cornwall over the years. At last I have a use for it! The glass is eroded, ground down and smooth around the edges.

After felting it vigourously and throwing the wet fabric around quite a bit, the chiffon puckers and traps the pebbles in their own little pockets.

I also made a bigger pice of felt which I may use as the basis of a wall hanging ...

and a grid of chiffon and silk

You Know Nuno?

I don't know much about Nuno felt making except what I have looked up but I'm off to Westhope College today for the first of four sessions learning how to make this delicate fabric. Watch out for pics here tonight.

Buzzing and Quacking

My mind is racing and I wake up so early with a rush of ideas that I'm always up by 6am. This has been further stimulated by visiting the NEC Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. I went two days running and only saw half of what was there. The variety of work was stunning and there were so many textile stalls with inspirational bits and bobs and new products.


I ended up parting with serious money for an embellishing machine made by Babylock which has just come on the market and is basically a 12 needle felting machine. I opened it yesterday and straight away made these flowers and have roughly placed them here on a background that I have made this week of silk waste which I have embroidered together through disolvable film. The piece is inspired by the multitude of hollyhocks which were the regional plant in the area of France we stayed in this month. I'm working on the stems and more flowers today and then I can stitch it all together...



This is one of my favourite quilts at the NEC

It's very peaceful.






...and this one was in a winning category made by a group and was really vibrant.









A quick update on the mallard ducklings:

All seven remaining have been storming our house recently and I have often felt as if I'm in some kind of Alfred Hitchcock movie. They are nearly full grown and have eaten every slug and snail in the garden and have started to strip the plants. Yesterday we lured them into the rabbit carrier with seed and I transported them to a big lake nearby where they swam off together happily. They will have more food there and space to learn to fly without going through my greenhouse window!
The picture here shows marauding birds tapping incessantly on our window. One got through the cat flap!!