A Few More Oddments
I’m afraid that the series of heatwaves we’ve been (and still are) experiencing have had much the same effect on me as the Covid Lock Downs. I have pretty much lost my mojo again though not quite in the same way. Every time the weather cools down a bit I have managed to think about and sometimes even start a project, only for it to be abandoned as soon as the next heatwave starts. I now cannot see my work table for various piles of project “stuff” in various stages of progress.
Also I haven’t managed to do much about preparing for this post, so I’ve once again picked some topics from my list of things to write about which are in fact mainly “historic”.
Many moons ago back, in the 70s, when macramé was first in vogue and long before I became interested in spinning let alone before I found felting, I was obsessed with string and knots.
Amongst the patterns I came across was one for a lampshade. Do any of you remember the Marshall Cavendish series of monthly craft magazines “Golden Hands” covering several different crafts, which could be collected into 4 (I think – possibly 6) annual volumes? I loved them and made lots of things from their patterns.
I did think that I found the macramé pattern I had followed for the lampshade in one of the Golden Hands Magazines, but Mr Google has been unable to find it, so it may have been in some other magazine – possibly “Women”, “Women’s Own” or “Women’s Realm” (that was in the days before they started emulating “Hello Magazine” and the like🤢).
As it was so long ago that I made the lampshade I can only show you what it looks like now. It was made from dishcloth cotton and made directly on a lampshade frame. I lined the shade with red satin type fabric and gave it to my mother for one of her birthdays.
During my “macramé period” I started to make small free standing sculptures using just clove hitches, rather than mixing knots like flat or square knots. Then my niece became pregnant with her first child so I thought I’d have a go at making a macramé rattle for the baby. As it would need to be washable, I chose to use nylon curtain/blind cord and one of the indoor balls (the plastic lightweight sort with lots of holes in) with a couple of brass bells inside for the inner body. I did not have a pattern to follow (by then I preferred to make my own designs rather than copy someone else’s).
By changing the direction of some of the clove hitches I was able to give the rattle a face. Here is the only picture I have of the rattle, which my husband took for me before I sent it off to my niece.
My niece had another child a few years later, but I’m afraid that, as I have had no confirmation of receipt of the rattle (even now, although I know it was received) let alone any thanks, I stopped sending even cards to her!
Around the same time as I made these pieces, I made a crochet cotton macramé Dorothy bag, using a stuffed oval ball shaped thingy as the base to work on. I added pearl beads and lined the bag with pink fabric and used it as a sample for a wedding accessory (back in the days when a couple of friends and I were making crocheted wedding “favours” and sold quite a lot of them – that must have been getting on for 50 years ago), but I wasn’t asked to make another one and I didn’t sell the original. I still have it somewhere.
Back in 2012 I was doing bits of tapestry weaving and to be honest I was getting bored with it – it was taking too long and I wanted to get on to something more interesting. I had decided to weave the word “Exchange” but I can’t remember why now. It may be because I liked the monogram EX that I was using. The “e” was in black and the “x” was in bright red. The background was to be a strong green. The rest of the word was to be in black, but in outline only. I managed to complete the monogram before I decided to do something different, which was to felt the rest. I felted green merino fibres over both sides of the cotton warps with the work still on the loom. This made the “fabric” quite tough so that it kept its shape. I then needle felted the “change” in lower case. I did actually exhibit it at The Exchange when we had one of our several exhibitions in their Café/Gallery. The bear with the felted tapestry in the featured image was made by a friend, who makes bears for adults, and bought for my birthday by my husband.
I did think that I might get some people commenting on the coincidence with The Exchange’s name but no-one seemed to notice, or couldn’t be bothered!
Back in early 2022 I told you about a couple of door stops which I had made, one of which was named Yoda by my husband.
https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/04/18/we-need-a-new-door-stop/
During the making of Yoda I made what I now know to have been a construction error. Because I was concerned that if he had been picked up by his head it might come off, I placed a strong loop made from the hem of a towel behind his head to be used as a handle. This resulted in him becoming very tatty around the head. Every time he was picked up by the handle it rubbed the back of his head and his ears and the fibres began to come away. In addition his head was beginning to get droopy, as you can see from the way he is peering around the bathroom door.
Thus he needed what my late brother in law used to call a “Warranty Job” (he used to make all sorts of parts for traction and railway engines for others as well as himself and now and then someone would ask him if he could effect some repairs).
As is my wont it was some time before I finally got round to doing Yoda’s warranty job.
I hadn’t been happy with the shape of his head, it was a bit flat at the back. For this reason as well as his tatty appearance I removed his head as well as the handle. I moved the handle to the middle of his back so that it would balance him when he was picked up and it didn’t rub against any part of his head or body.
Next I moved on to his head. I didn’t have any more fibres of the right colour to match his body so had to blend some to match. Then I started to cut away the rubbed fibres from his head and add more of the new. I rounded out the back of his head a bit more and thickened up his ears. I still had some of the correct pinky-grey fibres which I had used for his face so I tidied up his face too.
I decided to add yellow slightly opened eyes just to show that he was really awake. This is him now.
That’s the lot for this post, hopefully by the time my next one is due I will have got my mojo back again and have something new to show you. In the mean time here’s a real smiley cat. I do wonder what’s going through his mind – any ideas?
