Mr Whippy 99 and the Seagull, Printed Fabric and Finished Blooms
Lyn
Seagulls worldwide are looking forward to easy, rich pickings on ‘Ice Cream Day’.
President Reagan wanted to dedicate a day to one of America’s favourite desserts and it’s now internationally accepted to be the third Sunday in July – this year it falls on the 19th.
So I made a felt sketch to celebrate my favourite ice cream, a Mr Whippy 99! It’s a traditional ice cream in the UK – soft ice cream twirled into a cone with a stick of Cadbury’s Flake chocolate. Optional extras are hundreds and thousands or fruit sauces.
It’s wet felted, using handmade merino felt inlays, then detailed with needle felting when dry.
I wanted the ‘hundreds and thousands’ to be round and clear – had I wet felted them in they would have lost their clarity and been a bit fuzzy.
I tried to needle felt them on but mostly the nepps were too hard to do so. After a bit of thinking I decided that as the picture was just for me, I would stick them on!
Firstly I tried a sample. I speared a nepp with a felting needle to dunk it into some neat PVA then pushed it onto some scrap pre-felt using the end of the felting needle.
I waited a few hours for it to dry and found that it had stuck well. So I finished my ice cream … eventually … but it took longer than I anticipated!
With all this hot weather it’s plenty of ice creams in the garden then! If you have young ones to entertain during the summer holidays, here’s an idea from Anna and Clara. It’s a fabric printing project involving flowers from the garden, a piece of scrap fabric and a hammer – children love hammering stuff.
The printed fabric can then be used to make, for example, bunting.
https://sostrenegrene.com/en-gb/diy/print-flowers-on-fabric-d-21966
I gave it a quick go but ignored the advice on choice of flowers and I paid the price. The fushcia was too thick and turned into a splodge!
I picked 2 flowers and 1 leaf to try this project.
This was the resulting printed fabric.
And Annie finally finished her hydrangea picture! It’s approx 60cm x 85cm (23″ x 33″) and was a bit of trial to complete in a small work space (the space is smaller than it should be cos it’s rammed full of wool and fabrics and other supplies!). Time to think about some smaller projects for a while!
The really hot weather is not so much fun, but enjoy the long days and time in the garden because it won’t be long before we’re moaning about the cold and dark!
21 thoughts on “Mr Whippy 99 and the Seagull, Printed Fabric and Finished Blooms”
What Fun! I didn’t need to see who had written this post as soon as I saw Annie’s glorious hydrangeas and then your funny seagull about to tuck in.
I’m always smiling through your posts Lyn. Something to brighten me up in this awful heat, thanks. 🥵😄
Ann
Yes Ann, we’ve also had enough of this endless third heatwave – we feel like limp lettuces.
At least the ice-cream van owners are enjoying it! But I wish our local man would change his tinny, worn out chime – he’s belted out ‘Popeye the Sailor Man’ all around our streets for years now.
Thank you for your kind comments and it’s good to know that felting not only makes us smile but others too 🙂
Pop eye – I used to love his cartoons but I think just one summer of his jingle would be more than enough.
😖
Ann
Your gull & ice-cream are really fun and gluing on the nepps is a very pragmatic solution. Hammering the flowers is a great idea. Your fuchsia may not be as clearly defined as you’d hoped but I think the judicious use of a fine permanent pen could turn it into a pretty ballet dancer.
Annie’s hydrangea piece is magnificent and a testament to being both adaptable (I remember her pretty much dismantling it at one stage) and persistent. Well done both. And I agree with Ann’s comment that your posts are always bright and cheerful: they do bring a smile to my face. Thank you.
Thank you Lindsay. In ‘real life’ Annie’s hydrangea piece is magnificent and worth all the time, the dismantling and re-figuring.
Yes, I think your idea of using a permanent pen on the fabric would work well. Funnily enough I call the shrub ‘the ballet dancers’ – it’s beautiful.
The hammering is very theraputic by the way – save it for a day when someone has upset you 🙂
I enjoyed making the ice-cream and seagull piece – they are sky pirates and very annoying but it makes for good spectator sport at the seaside!
I think the nepp-gluing is ok for personal use but I wouldn’t trust it enough to use it on an item I would sell. I wonder if there is another answer to applying the nepps without squishing them in the felting process?
Ladies, I love your post! The hydrangea piece is so wonderfully colorful and amazing. I want to hang it in my house!!
When I lived in Seattle, WA and we went down to the waterfront, it was the other end of the seagull we would protect our ice cream from😂🤣😂🤣! I guess that would not make a very nice picture! Great idea for the nepps. ~Donna
Sorry Donna, I forgot to hit ‘reply’ before I answered 🙂
Thank you Donna for your lovely comment on Annie’s hydrangea piece 🙂
Our seagulls eat anything they can steal … then they say thank you by ‘decorating’ all the parked cars nearby 🙁
They decorate not only the parked cars. My husband and I and his parents were walking down a narrow seaside street when one flew over us. The “squirt” hit a sign on its way down and he managed to hit all 4 of us at once 🙌. They are justly named Shitehawks!
Ann
As son as i saw the seagull I knew it was you. Your picture is so cheerful. You are the only person I know that wouldn’t curse them for trying to steal your ice cream. You both always cheer up my day.
so funny they were doing flower pounding at the guild on Monday. Practice for a demo we have been asked to do on natural dying at the museum. It has to be interactive. They are doing it onto book mark size pieces of paper, so people can easily take them with them.
Annie’s piece is magnificent, I hope she displays it and doesn’t just put it in storage. It would brighten the day to see it hanging somewhere.
I feel you with the heat, we are till having a heat wave. it cooled a little but it is going back up again . We get heat warnings and thunderstorm warnings everyday.
Would love a thunderstorm! The only moisture drops falling are from my forehead!
A summer holiday on The Shetlands would be a good idea as it’s only 14C there today 🙂
I would happily have the hydrangeas hanging in my place – it really has to be seen to be appreciated fully.
I do have a thing about seagulls. They are a pest and make such a mess but they are loveable rogues.
Bookmarks made with the pounded flowers sounds lovely. I proudly showed Annie my printed fabric and she said she’d just done it at a small craft group – must be popular right now!
I loved the hammering.
Great post ladies. Sunshine and 99s go so well together. They make great ones around the corner from us (the one shop in the village where I live). When my daughter was at college she used to work part time there and her favourite passtime was to make the ice cream so big they had to be selling at a loss!
Mr Seagull has good taste but they are all total terrors and very quick to train up. Lyn your summer picture is gorgeous and I think the idea of sticking on the sprinkles is ingenious – Initially I thought you had handsewn beads on.
I think the fuschia (splattered version) looks cute – reminds me of a ballerina in her tutu. The buttercup and leaf made great impressions.
Annie, amazing work. Gosh it is huge!!!! I won’t ask what size it started out as ….. oops just asked 😉😂 The colours are just gorgeous. Have you a space set by for it?
Helene x
Thank you Helene. The 99’s over here have definitely got smaller and the price has got larger. Good on your daughter for giving value for money!
I did consider sewing beads onto the ice cream but the nepps I had were more apt. I also considered sewing on the nepps – maybe that’s for another picture.
Annie hasn’t decided yet where to put her hydrangeas. I keep dropping huge hints about how good it would look in my house but she just goes deaf 🙂 I’m sure that it will get a good piece of wall space at Annie’s.
Thanks for another cheerful post. If Annie can’t find a space, I’m sure everyone else can find one for her 😉
The seagull is quite the rogue and I love the ice cream. I was just thinking that the nepps could be hand stitched on, one at a time. But that would take ages and your solution for a piece you are keeping is much easier.
The hydrangeas turned out beautifully and well worth all the changes and design work. I really like the addition of the ribbons as they keep the eye moving around the piece. Well done, Annie!
Flower pounding seems to go in and out of style. I did it with youngsters more than 25 years ago. And we did it this summer at girl scout camp. I did find that certain flowers and leaves worked better than others. But Lindsay’s idea of adding a bit of pen and ink work would be marvelous!
Thank you Ruth. I think Annie excelled herself with her hydrangeas and I’m sure she will find a good place for it even though I believe she would get many offers to take it off her hands. Yes, you are right, the ribbons do keep the eye moving around the piece.
Sewing the nepps on to the ice cream would have been the best solution. Maybe the weather got to my brain and I decided on the glue through sheer heat exhaustion?
Everyone but me seems to have had a go at hammering blooms onto fabric – when I saw Anna and Clara’s post I thought ‘what a good idea’ and ‘I must share this’. How did this pass me by all these years? What else have I missed?
So lovely, beautiful colours. Love the sprinkles ‘how to’ as well. The work really looks like a vase of hydrangea blooms – so effective.
Thank you Marie! I had fun making the ice cream piece and had it been made for sale I would have stitched the nepps on but as it’s just for me I did it the easy way.
I love Annie’s hydrangeas too. It took months of working and re-working, resting it and re-thinking it, but it was worth it 🙂
I didn’t know about Ice Cream Day! Although, when Summer gets really hot, I’d argue every day should be Ice Cream Day…
That seagull looks so cute, and I can definitely see how much work went into the hundreds and thousands (I’ve always found that name a tad weird, hundreds and thousands of what exactly?!) Good on you for finding a shortcut.
The Hydrangeas look amazing as well, of course. Those lovely colours! You ladies have been busy for sure, despite the heat. Now enjoy a Mr. Whippy 99, and stay away from the direct sun! 😀
Sorry Leonor – forgot to hit reply – please see below!
Oh yes, bring on the Mr Whippy 99’s! … every day as you suggest!
Apparently ‘hundreds and thousands’ is the answer when asked how many tiny sugar beads there are in a pot.
Annie will be pleased about your hydrangea comment 🙂 Thank you Leonor.
The “hundreds and thousands” thing could be a Jeopardy reply! 😀