Small felt
As some of you know I am moving my studio. I am not moving far, just from one end of the building to the other. I will gain some storage space, another room and a direct entrance. And importantly I will be closer to the bathroom.
I have packed 90% of my studio into boxes and they are piled up in the extra room. Consequently, I do not have a lot to work with. I did make a box with a blob of each colour of merino I have. and collected a bag of prefelts etc.
So there I was on Monday, wondering what on earth I would post about today. I was looking at my inspiration file and going through e bags of prefelt and I found this small odd-shaped one.
This is the back of it because I forgot to take a picture before adding wool to the front.
I added some sky
A blue sky is pretty much one colour. light at the bottom but not a mix of colours. The grass on the other hand is not one colour. so I mixed some up using my dog brushes.
this is the finished background. the needle is to give you an idea of the size. Jan thought it looked knife-shaped I thought it looked like a bullet train.
I want to add some flowers along the bottom. I wasn’t sure what thread to use. I hat unpicking so I grabbed a piece of fulled sweater off cut and covered it in green to try out some different threads.
the dark pink is Filtex. these are very old spools they are shiny rayon, like fake silk. the orange is 1,2 and 3 strands of embroidery thread., the blue is an embroidery cord and the green is a different kind of silk or fake silk embroidery yarn.
Here’s a picture of the back. You can see what each thread looks like a little better.
Next is doing the stitching. I think I will use the green to add a few bigger leaf shapes. the orange and blue worked well. I will try using 2 and 3 threads of the pink to see if they show up better. stitching on felt is odd. you have to make your stitch about twice as long as you want it to get it to show up the size you want. It must be because of how soft the surface is. Does anyone else also find this to be true?
9 thoughts on “Small felt”
Annie and I often say that we have too much choice with our large stashes and that can be a problem when starting a new project.
You’ve demonstrated the ease of making something from your limited choice in your small box of goodies!
Yes, stitching on felt does require larger stitches – the felt swallows the ends 🙂 The shine of the faux silk shows up nicely against the matte of the wool.
Looking forward to seeing your completed miniature landscape and perhaps some photos of the progress of your studio?
Yes sometimes the choices are over whelming so we do nothing. I will share pictures of the progress. I tried to add a video but it didn’t work.
This looks as if it’s going to be interesting when it’s done – don’t forget in the excitement of your move to tell us about it though. I agree with Lyn that we’d like to see how the move is going too.
Simple, larger stitches are better on felt. It would certainly be a waste of time trying to do more complicated and/or detailed stitches unless you were using a water soluble film between the stitches and the felt – that would keep them on the surface.
Ann
I will have to see if I can fine my plasticy wash away stuff. I will keep taking pictures.
Glad you are making progress on moving your studio. It’s hard work for sure. It’s always good to try out your threads on a sample first and I agree, felt does swallow stitches very easily. I find stitching works a little better if you don’t go all the way through the wool backing. I try and take my needle through the surface but not all the way to the back. The stitches sit on top a little better that way. And don’t pull the stitches as tight as you normally would to prevent pulling the thread tight on the ends of the stitch.
I will try to stitch to the middle. the back always looks bet then too. It’s hard to believe how much stuff there is when you have to pack it into boxes. I will be out of my old space in a few days I hope and then we can work on that area too.
Moves, and the resulting reorganization is a lot of work. But, when you’re finished it will be so worth it. My crafting supplies are unfortunately spread out, into 3 different areas of our home. I recently started using rolling IKEA carts, to sort and organize my crafting supplies. Having my mother with us, it’s necessary to keep everything on wheels, and movable. When company comes, the carts can be wheeled into an “off limits” room with the door shut. I’m jealous Ann, your space sounds dreamy. To be able to work, leave your supplies out, and know things will be right where you left them…priceless!
I am looking forward to organizing it all. It is nice to be able to leave things out. As for not loosing things… I can loose things without moving. 🙂
Yes, the hand stitching is difficult if you are wanting stitches to be a similar length or width. I usually line my felted piece with a piece of lightweight wool or sometimes I iron on a bit of woven fusible interfacing.