Hi All It seems I forgot I had to post today so I am late. I am reposting a post showing some of the past Holiday Exchange Cards that we have done. I did remove the links to sign up for this exchange.
Hi all, for those who may not know we also run an interactive forum for felting and fiber folks. It’s a great place to share your work, ask questions and help each other out. http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/
Each year we have a holiday exchange. You make a small felted postcard or similar size card with some felt on it.
Here’s the timeline:
October 4-Nov 9: people sign up
November 10 partners are announced.
November: Make your card, contact your partner for an address
December 1: Mail your card
Here are some of the cards from our past exchange, there has been lots of variety.
The deadline is getting close and I need to get done. As Jan will tell you soon it was Fiberfest weekend in Almonte. a small town close to where we live. I was on the demo team for Sunday. So I planned to work on the shepherdess and sheep as my demo project. First I had to get the shepherdess some clothes. Not too hard you think or at least I thought.
I forgot to take starting pictures but here is the shirt and skirt ready for final fulling.
And this is the shrinkage after fulling
The skirt was fine but the shirt was way too stiff. so I made another using a lot less wool and felted it along with the cloak.
For the cloak, I decided to use some prefelt I had. I cut the first side a little bigger than the resist then folded it around and basted it into place. This seemed like the best idea to keep everything in place.
And here it is shrunk
I liked it and it fit well except for the hood. I didn’t like it at all. I thought for the hood I wanted, it would be best to do it separately. do more cutting and sewing. and shirt number 4. I don’t remember what was wrong with shirt 2 but shirt 3 would have been good if I hadn’t cut the neck too big.
And finally, all the parts of the clothing are dry and ready to move on to the next steps.
For the next post, I hope to have the shepherdess all done and a colourful flock of sheep for her to tend.
My American Aunt, Rose (born in Ireland but she lived her adult life in the US as a religious sister and kids’ teacher) used to have a phrase about nice things. They were ‘for special occasions and bonfire nights’. I suspect it was from a time when folk had one good outfit in their wardrobe but it’s a phrase that has stuck with me and, while the saying sounds fun, it has led to me not letting go of beauty, storing them up in boxes or in the wardrobes for that ‘special occasion’ to come along. As I get older I have come to realise that every day I get to be on this beautiful earth is a special occasion and so it is time to get out the glad rags and let loose! I am finally applying this simple principle to my fibre stash; so in this post I want to talk about some of those gorgeous samples that I made during the various dyeing workshops I have taken over the past nine months. I wrote about them in my last three posts and you can find them all here if you would like to catch up with them. Adventures in colour Part 1; Adventures in colour Part 2; Dyeing to Eat.
I have to confess, it took a while for me to brave using the results of the workshops – the special occasions and bonfire nights phrase was stuck in my head and I was afraid I might ruin the samples (silly!). In the end, I decided to simplify things and just play. I started with a little weaving. Some time ago I bought a small loom, nothing fancy, it cost less than €13.00. It’s from Sostrene Grene, it’s a great shop for reasonably priced bits and pieces and it now is online. Their website is here
Here is a photo of my little loom. It’s great for playing as I watch TV:
Small wooden hobby loom with pen included in the photo for size perspective
As I did not have specialist thread and as this was just a play, I set the warp up using cotton thread. Then I got to work, using some of the fibre and yarn which I dyed during the natural dyeing workshop last November. I also used a cotton yarn for the background of the piece. Here is a photo of some of the hand dyed fibre:
The final result for the fresh nettle dye. I love the variety of tints!
Here is the result of my first play:
Background is cotton yarn and highlights are provided with wool skeins merino and linen fibres.
Next, I decided to use some of the yarn which I dyed during the Procion dye workshop. At this stage I had purchased proper warp thread and I decided to use a metal hoop for my base. I used a small nylon ring within the hoop and I set this off centre when I was setting up the warp. Again here are some photos of the fibre and thread used. I love the vibrancy of these colours!
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And here is the result. I plan to add nylon fishing line to this and hang it as a mobile.
Hand dyed (procion dyes) fibre woven onto a circular hoop.
Next, it was finally time to be a little brave and use one of my favourite fibre samples. This is merino wool which was randomly dyed in the dye pot. I loved the result as it reminded me of photos taken of deep space by Hubble. Here are two photos of the fibre sample I made.
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I felt I might ruin the effect if I didn’t felt it carefully. So my layout had to be simple. In the end I decided to make a cowl with it. The sample length was 60cm and it was quite thick so I divided the fibre lengthways into two equal bundles being careful to keep the colours intact. I took the two bundles and stretched both out very thinly width wise, again being careful to maintain the colours. As the fibres were going to run in one direction I decided to use the nuno technique to stabilise the piece. I used margillan silk for this purpose (measurement length of sample x 2 by the width of the stretched fibre).
Then I cut a resist which was the same length as the sample. I wrapped the silk around the resist as it was to form the base of the cowl. I wet this to keep it in place (margillan is so light it has a habit of wandering!). Then I carefully laid the fibre on top of the silk. (Tip: the start and end of each of the two lengths of fibre were not placed at the edge of the resist to avoid any possibility of creating a ridge). I wet the piece down, rubbed and started rolling. (lots of rolls to encourage the fibre to go through the silk). Once this was done I started fulling the piece. Here are some photos of the process:
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And here are photos of the finished piece. I am pleased with how the colours have kept their integrity and it has not become a muddy mess! All set for the cooler weather.
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Next, I took some silk fibre which has been dyed in the same pot. Here is a photo of the fibre:
Front view: Silk fibre. I can’t help thinking about Hubble when I see this photo!
This time I set it onto a black background. I was so pleased that it adhered well to the fibre but the black did not destroy the colours. This was probably helped by the fact that I did not fully felt the piece as I intended to frame it so I knew I could stop my process whenever I found it aesthetically pleasing. There’s lots of texture in it which I am pleased about. The black background definitely reminded me of deep space! Once rinsed and dry, I set to work doing some free motion embroidery. Lots of little stars. I then added some silver seed beads for a little starry sparkle. What do you think?
Mixed media: procion dyes were used on silk fibre which was then felted onto merino. Machine embroidery and hand beading introduced stars to the piece
Next, a quick update on my more recent dyeing exploits. I attended wedding recently and I needed a cover up which would tie in with my dress. I did not have time to felt a piece but I knew that I had some light wool fabric which would be perfect if dyed. Previous samples from the Mexican dyeing course I attended confirmed that I could achieve the colour I wanted from avocados. I prepared my fabric (scoured and used an alum mordant) ate the avocados and then I dyed the fabric. I threw in a little prepared merino and silk fibres too to see what might happen. Once dyed, I hemmed the wool shawl. I am delighted with the result. This is one piece that will not be kept for ‘special occasions and bonfire nights’. Here is the result:
Handmade wool fabric wrap (dyed with avocado skins and stones) natural dyeing
Then I decided to use the merino and the silks which were dyed in the same pot to make a flower. The colour achieved was a lot lighter but I am pleased with the result of the experiment:
hand felted and beaded flower (dyed with avocado skin and stone) Merino and silk fibres used Natural dyeing
Finally, every year, there is a local collaboration between two of our neighbours a farmer and a food producer (we live in a rural area). They grow a field of sunflowers which members of the public are invited to pick and make a donation either online or through their honesty box to the local hospice charity. It is always a popular event. I picked some sunflowers this week and they are now looking gorgeous in my sun room. I took off the bottom leaves from the plants before placing them in water. I decided it might be fun to see if I could extract dye from them. I also made a little pigment. Unfortunately, the photos do not fully do justice to the beautiful green tones I achieved from the dye, but I thought I would share them anyway:
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I know I am not alone in my need to behave like a squirrel and hoard my treasured items. I am so pleased that I have taken a tiny percentage of my mine and transformed them into something else which in my view are aesthetically more pleasing.
Now it’s time for you to share. Are you a hoarder too? If so, what do you hoard and do you ever think about transforming some of your stash?
Hello! The writing of this blog post comes to you on a day where I am quite sleep-deprived, so you will have to excuse my possibly being a little off my writing game…
Allow me to start by showing you some art batts I created a little ago. I love art batts in general, there’s so much texture and colours to look at. I do so enjoy the batt-making process as well, looking at all my fibre and deciding what goes where, and how much… Anyone else feel this fascination when creating textured fibre sandwiches?
Speaking of textures, I recently spun an art yarn using some Leicester Longwool locks in their natural formation and I swoon every time I look at that texture…
This will become a weaving of some sorts, I am handing over the yarn to a fellow Edinburgh guild member so he can create some magic. I told him I wasn’t sure whether I was handing him treasure or a lemon (I believe textured weaving is new to him and I also have some plying inconsistencies on this skein), and he replied saying he would think of it as a pomegranate instead. I thought that was quite funny.
It is one heavy skein, as you might attest by the silly photo I took of it on my head.
Finally, I also have news on my needle felted raven! The photos aren’t the best, forgive me, but this chap is almost complete. Unfortunately my customer didn’t like his blue eyes (a colour only present when they are young) so I have ordered some new ones to replace these. Once I do that I think he is complete. What do you think, is he finished? Would you change anything? Feedback welcome.
That’s it for today, let me know your thoughts and have a lovely week!
I have a teapot I really like, it has good balance and is easy to pour from. I like it, except that it has a metal handle that gets hot resting on the teapot.
I made 4 thin layers. 2 thicker ones would have been good for this small project but I can’t layout thicker without really working on it. I got a nice firm felt at 50% shrinkage.
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Once it was the right size, I rolled it into a tube to dry. The silk pops so nicely once it is dry
Rolled up to dryDry tube ready to go
The only thing left is to sew it onto the teapot. I used some thick, black cotton thread and whip stitched it on
And here it is.
The funny thing in the lid handle is part of the original messy background I couldn’t get rid of. I made a cup of tea right after finishing and it worked perfectly, no more burnt fingers.
The other thing I finished today is my July Page of slow stitch on felt. No hidden meanings this month, just some random designs.
Several of my recent posts have been about the work that was being created by members of the Waltham Textile group for our Making Waves Exhibition. It’s been about six weeks now since that took place so many of our readers will have already seen images, and possibly the video, but if you haven’t, and you’re interested, you can view them on Facebook or Instagram.
Something else I had wanted to make for the show, but didn’t make time for, was a felted Leafy Seadragon. I discovered so many weird and wonderful sea creatures while researching for the exhibition but this species is in a category of its own!!
Image source: Treehugger.com
Leafy seadragons inhabit rocky reefs, seaweed beds, and seagrass meadows in waters off the coast of South Australia, where they have been adopted as the state’s marine emblem.
These timid creatures grow to between 20 and 30cm in length. They use their ornate leaf-like appendages as very effective camouflage to blend in with their surroundings, becoming almost invisible to the untrained eye.
Belonging to the same family as seahorses and pipefish, Australian leafy seadragons are generally brown to yellow in body colour, while their spectacular appendages are typically olive-tinted and provide near-perfect camouflage in seaweed. Depending on the age and health of the individual some Leafies can also change their colouration if they need to.
The leaf-like structures are not used for swimming. They move very slowly using their pectoral and dorsal fins which are so delicate they are almost transparent.
Image source: @animalfactfiles
So I thought I’d have a go at making a Leafie this month and I’m hoping there will be space for me to display her as part of my submission to “Water“ – the 2024 Lincs Textiles Exhibition in Lincoln Cathedral at the end of August. Our work will be on show in the Chapter House at the Cathedral so if you are in the vicinity it would be lovely to see you there!
I know these creatures are normally pictured horizontally but for aesthetic purposes I’m using artistic lisence and hanging mine vertically! So, would it be wet felted and stuffed or needle felted? I liked the idea of wet felting the body but decided against it as I didn’t think it would provide enough support for the appendages.
Best to start with a 1.2mm galvanised wire armature and needle felt the body…..but what was I thinking when I switched to 0.5mm aluminium wire for the appendages? I was thinking I could form the leaf shapes using that wire and fill them in with painted lutradur……what I wasn’t thinking was that they would twist and bend and drive me nuts all the time I was needle felting the body! That wire was making the whole thing too fragile and too difficult to work with so it had to go!
It was replaced with 0.6mmgalvanised wire which, being retro fitted, would now require careful poking and anchoring to ensure they all stayed put! This also meant the leaf/seaweed shapes would need a rethink. They wouldn’t be outlined with wire, as I’d originally intended, because the replacement wire was far too stiff for that. But at least it was easier to work on now!
I began adding detail and colour to the head. When I was happy with that I moved on to wet felting several boney spikes to attach in rows along the back, front and sides and then needle felted colour to the body.
Next the new wires that will hold the foliage were wrapped with fibre and I made flat felt to cut up for the leaves.
This is where I’m at right now. There’s more foliage to add and the de-fuzzing to do so I’ll include a photo of the finished dragon in my next post. In the meantime I just have to share some inspiring Leafie sculptures I came across online.
I was blown away by the beautiful design and detail in these first two which are the work of artist Ellen Jewett Ellen says “Each sculpture is constructed using an additive technique, layered from inside to out by an accumulation of innumerable tiny components. Many of these components are microcosmic representations of plants, animals and objects. Some are beautiful, some are grotesque and some are fantastical. The singularity of each sculpture is the sum total of its small narrative structures.”
In addition to her life as a professional artist Ellen operates a small scale animal refuge with the help of her partner on their Vancouver Island farm.
I also like this one made by Australian artist Dean Fox using recycled copper and brass on natural rock…… “I am much inspired by the beautiful environment of Kangaroo Island in South Australia where I live. The beaches and bush alike are a constant source of ideas and materials. During my working life in the building and metalwork industry I learnt the many skills I now employ in my creative work. I work in metal, copper and brass and may incorporate found objects and natural timber into my work.”
Image source: deanfoxsculptor.com
Mine is still very much a WIP but in my head I’m already working on a more abstract version for Leafie number two which may or may not involve fibre.
On to a new piece and the thoughts of what should I create? I like to look through my stash and see what I have to use up. I was gifted with a large amount of wool and other finished fiber pieces when my friend Paula stopped felting. What can I find for my next piece?
I looked through my bag of dyed silk pieces and also a bag of felted pieces that need to be re-used or cut up or whatever else comes to mind. So I found these two pieces. The stripey piece is a cobweb scarf with a fringe of felted cords. The silk is a piece that I dyed many moons ago.
As you can see in this photo, the scarf was very lightly felted and had lots of holes in it. I thought that the scarf was more like prefelt than completely fulled. So I decided to cut it into three pieces and layer them together so the felt would be more solid. I left the fringe off and thought I could use it later. I then added the piece of silk to one side as I thought the combination of the two would give an interesting surface to work on.
So I felted them together and the silk was barely attached after much work. Hmm… Plus you can’t see the stripes from the wool through the silk since it didn’t penetrate very well. What to do?
I turned the piece over and liked the back side much better. It looks like a tree trunk to me! I pulled the silk off the back which came right off and decided to work on the plain felt instead. I’m sure I will be able to use the silk piece for something else in the future.
So thinking tree trunk, I thought perhaps the cut off fringe could be made into a branch. I have rolled the fringe and edge up a bit and I’m trying it out on the tree trunk. The branch of leaves to the left is one that I made last year with wrapping yarn around wire and stitching and burning tea bag leaves.
I had a few bits of “lichen” that I made from painted interfacing so I added those into the tryout. So now I have a direction to go with this piece. Next up will be painting the tea bag paper and interfacing so I can make more leaves and lichen. I think I will jazz up the color a little bit since the tree trunk is so colorful. I’ll let you know how that goes in my next post.
I don’t know if any of you are fantasy fiction fiends. Some years ago now I read the first of a trilogy by Alan Dean Foster, called Spell Singer. It was about a man in the 1960/70s who managed to slip through time/space to a different dimension of our world in which animals wore clothes and talked (including Mudge, the man-sized otter with a foul mouth!) So why am I mentioning this? Well part of the story took place in a marshy area inhabited by a lot of very depressed mushrooms and toadstools with faces, which moaned and groaned and exuded misery, which was catching!
My mind immediately trotted down the rabbit hole of needle felting mushrooms – with faces. Mushrooms and toadstools of different varieties would have different temperaments and expressions. I thought of the white spotted red capped Fly Agaric; plain red capped Gomphidus Roseus (with a name like that they would definitely look odd); white button mushrooms; brown chestnut mushrooms; large flat horse mushrooms; fairy ring toadstools and, eventually, bracket fungi.
So I was off.
I decided that the bases of the fungi with stalks would represent a piece of turf, probably woodland or scrub. I had purchased, a few years earlier, some fibres sold for lining hanging flower baskets. It never got used for that because the bulk of it consisted of sheep’s wool, and I considered that it would be wasted if used for it’s original purpose. From the look of it, and of the quantity of “foreign matter” caught up in it, it was the sweepings from a mill floor or even a shearing shed. (I think that this was a good way of using up what would otherwise be wasted. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s available now.)
All the material was roughly dyed green but luckily so patchy was the dyeing that it was not a flat uniform colour. The different thicknesses of the fibres, the kemp and the vegetable matter all seem to have picked up different shades and tints of green. Just what I needed.
To save on this precious material, I used some scrappy scoured merino bits as a base for the underside of the grassy humps I was making, and then topped them with the basket fibres, and needled the lot together. I was delighted to find that, even close up, the result did look like a bit of scrubland grass.
In each case my fungi were to have faces and, hopefully, characters. I thought that as they were all wearing hats/caps, I’d place the faces at the join of the gills and the top of the stalk. I also decided that, rather than just a single lonely fungus, I’d make families.
Gormless Gomphidus Roseus mushroomsFly Agaric Mushroom family – Granddad, Mum and Dad with babyHairy Horse Mushrooms
The horse mushrooms are hairy, not because they were horse mushrooms but because I used some Herdwick fleece for the caps and didn’t know about shaving in those days.
In the end, the button mushrooms and the chestnut mushrooms not actually having any gills on view, I placed their faces on the top of their caps. I also gave the chestnut mushrooms Fymo eyes – little painted and varnished balls on each end of a piece of wire.
Buttons familyChestnuts. Looks like the Dad on the left has 2 wives and children – naughty!
The fragile, skinny fairy ring toadstools were to sit together in a circle, as they do, on a larger piece of grass with so much magic erupting from it that it became visible. This was represented by whisps of iridescent trilobal fibre (of which I have lots.) There was also magic appearing on the tops of their caps. These were made from scraps left over from a large piece of white merino felt in which a large quantity of the iridescent trilobal was embedded. (More about this felt at some time in a future post.)
Magic Fairy Ring Toadstools – chatting. What about I wonder?
These were the main families I made, but in the end I did make quite a few solitary mushrooms and toadstools (perhaps that’s why they were so melancholy?)
It was while I was making the Horse Mushrooms, which have black gills and therefore black faces, that I started to think about bracket fungi and Welsh male voice choirs. I can hear you saying “why?” It was the black faces. I am half Welsh. My mother’s family come from a South Wales mining valley, Ogmore Vale, and all my Welsh uncles were miners (hence the black faces), and they were all singers. (I even got to go down a pit on a rare holiday to stay with the family when I was about 7 or 8 – and I cried for the poor ponies down there even though they were well looked after). Anyway Welsh miners were magic to me, and having been thinking about magic since I made the fairy ring toadstools, I wanted to create a magical tree stump on which to grow a male voice choir of bracket fungi.
The inside of the tree stump was made up of part of a Jacob fleece which had absolutely refused to felt, and subsequently ended up in the cats’ bed – disappearing over time bit by bit into the middle of other needle felted items. I covered the stump in more of the basket fibres to represent a rotting, moss covered piece of wood. Thanks to the unevenness of the core Jacob I was able to easily create a surface with the ridges and dips usually found on oak trunks. There were also what looked like various entrances to the hollow centre of the stump. I lined these with black or dark grey fibres to give them depth and added some mixed brown and iridescent fibres to represent magic escaping from the stump. In two of these I also added a pair of (Fymo) eyes peering out at the world.
All that can be seen of the internal inhabitants
I added a sort of representation of tree age rings on the top of the stump, but also allowed the hole in the middle of it to remain and added a lot more escaping magic fibres.
Overflowing Magic
I made a lot of bracket fungi, both representing individual singers (baritones and basses – big and bigger ones)
The basses and the baritonesBig Bass himself
And Tenors, since they were smaller, in groups of three.
Some of the tenors
I know I researched a type of bracket fungus and was able to give them black “faces” on the undersides and brown tops with pale margins. However I cannot remember what they were, nor can I find my reference pictures. They may have been polypores of some sort.
Having made a batch of the “choir members” I needled them on to the stump, adding faces with singing mouths. I attached the stump to an artist’s canvas board, 20” x 16”, which I had covered with a piece of cotton patchwork fabric, coloured in various greens, to represent the surrounding trees. Originally I wanted to add a “dead man’s fingers” fungus, which could be conducting the choir, but at that time I had not heard of using an armature and it wouldn’t stand up on its own, so I gave up that idea.
The finished Tree Stump
My husband thought that the mushrooms would sell like hot cakes, but unfortunately I think I only sold one family. I ended up giving the rest away, apart from the tree stump which I have retrieved from the attic. I’d like to hang it on a wall in my workshop – if I can ever find a space large enough for it – if I can I might have another go at the dead man’s fingers.
This year we all decided to do a Christmas card exchange within the Felting and Fibre Studio group. It is just so lovely to make for another creative! It’s a bit frightening too as I wanted to give it my all. I also thought it might be a nice time to try something new and experiment – no personal pressure at all! I was so excited to be partnered with Leonor who I know has received her card at this point.
So, I put my thinking cap on. My first attempt was, and I am being perfectly honest here, an unmitigated disaster and the memory is probably best confined to the bin in which it quickly landed. So it was time to move on and put the thinking cap back on.
Okay so, by way of background. I had a poinsettia plant which I managed by some miracle to keep alive for about 5 years. I will quickly add that this had nothing to do with green fingers, it just liked its position in my sun room with my orchids as companions (again the orchids like the room). This summer the poinsettia developed a honey fungal disease which is a total disaster if it hits orchids so we had to part ways. I managed to stem the spread of the disease and the orchids are safe for now.
As a tribute to that most beautiful poinsettia, I thought it could be my focus for the card exchange. I wanted mixed media so I felted each petal, then I did some free motion embroidery on each one. I hand sewed it onto a felted backing and added hand dyed stamens to the centre. It was then mounted on the Christmas card. It was a little too big for the card so I decided to mount it in a frame before posting it off. The postal service can be a bit dodgy but I am pleased it worked on this occasion. From Leonor’s message to me, I think she likes her card and I have made more since.
Here is a little slide show of the highlights of my process. Sorry, I forgot to photograph the hand sewing so you will have to use your imagination for that part. Some of the photos are slightly distorted so apologies for that too.
I laid out merino and viscose for the petals
Wetting down the petals
The rolling stage for the petals
I dried the petals on a baking rack
I prepared the petals for free motion embroidery. I started with tear away stabiliser but it was proving difficult to get all the bits of paper out of the sewing!
I changed across to Solvy for the machine embroidery
It only takes a few seconds to dissolve the Solvy
Dissolving the solvy
Nearly there!
The template was actually a circle. The photo is distorted
The base, again a circle
Here is the finished Poinsettia after I hand sewed it onto the base
As the finished flower was a bit too big for the card, I mounted both in a frame.
Here’s a close up of the stitching and the stamens which I hand painted
This was a fun make with a bit of learning thrown in for good measure. You might like to make some too. If you do, I would love to see it! Also if you have any questions on the making just pop them in the comments section and I will be glad to answer them!
Wishing you peace, love good health and happiness and, of course lots of creativity over the Festive Season and for 2024!
As you’ve heard, here at the blog we did a Christmas card exchange. Well, not necessarily Christmas but I went with that theme.
I worked out my idea in my sketchbook and didn’t (I was sure I had) take a picture and now that pad has gone AWOL. It was simple trees. OK, I can use my computer to make a triangle by using the draw a shape thing in my wordprocessor program. No, problem. Now just drag it bigger to make the start size……nope triangles do not do that. I switched to publisher and with much fuss and bother and guidelines, I added the same amount to all sides and made a larger one.
I have already unpacked my stash of prefelt and put it into draws just like I was an organised, neat and tidy person. Well, that will last until I get everything else out of boxes and have to find a place for it all. Anyway, I got out the red and the white. seemed like appropriate colours. the red for the background and the white for the trees.
I wet the prefelt and shrunk it down to the size I wanted. checking against the picture I drew in my sketch pad.
then I cut the 2 sizes of trees the small ones will get needled onto the background and the big ones will be wet felted.
No jumping forward, I didn’t like the white trees but again I was sure I had taken some pictures here. Clearly, I was doing something wrong. I had my bag from the felted sheep glass handy and started adding curles. See the messy tendancies do come in handy sometimes. Now they are much better, textured, colourful and happy.
Here are the triangles ready for their turn felting
Again wite was do stark so I added some wool to them first. Blue, Green with sparkle and White with silk.
and all done and as shrunk as they can go.
I then added some curls as garland and embroidered some stars at the top so they look more like Christmas trees and not just random triangles. sorry no single picture of the green one.
For these trees, I added some pins and some gold string so they could be pinned or hung.
I thought about adding some baubles but |I thought they looked crowded on the small trees. They finished at about 2 inches I think.
Next, I pinned the trees to the card. I was going to send it this way but the packaging would have been too fat and turned it into a parcel and doubled the shipping. I took them off and put them into the envelope separately.
Usually, I make my cards postcard by ironing a print of the back of a paper postcard to it using fusible web. But I couldn’t find it. I printed out a card and tried to sew it onto the front of the card. I tried 3 times to do it and then gave up. I stuck some self-stick velcro dots onto the card and pressed the felt to it. No picture of that either as by then it was late and I wanted it in the envelope and ready to take with me to work the next day. It managed to fly over to the UK in record time and arrive safely at Lindsay’s house.
Lindsay kindly sent me a picture of what it looked like on the card.
F
