Browsed by
Category: hand stitching

Making Waves Update

Making Waves Update

Comments 29 comments

In my last post I mentioned a few of the projects I was working on with the “Making Waves” theme, along with other members of the Waltham Windmill Textile Group. I’d begun work on a 50cm x 90cm felted wallhanging inspired by the markings on large stone slabs on the beach at Seahouses in Northumberland.

Having recently bought myself a drum carder I carded a variety of left over bits of fibre, mainly blues, greens, yellows and neutrals, to make my background and laid them out with off cuts of hand dyed silk fabric, scrim and large nepps. On the left is how it looked after felting and on the right is where it’s at right now. I’ve added synthetic sheers, machine wrapped cords, hand and free motion stitch and in some areas I’ve heavily machine stitched to push them back and encourage the adjacent areas to stand out. The original bottom left section wasn’t working with those silk circles so they were pulled off and replaced with some stiffened, rust dyed fabric circles, recycled from another piece of work. I’m calling it Going With The Flow because a) it’s inspired by a trip to the beach b) it has flowing lines and c) like most of my work its design wasn’t preplanned. It’s evolving as I work on it, adding bits in and taking bits off until it feels right. It’s got a way to go yet before I can call it done.

One of the other challenges within the Making Waves theme is to make a 3D fish and my immediate thought was to create what many would regard as an ugly fish but which I prefer to think of as a fish with shedloads of character……..one that would get noticed amongst a group of pretty fish!

Anglerfish
Tasseled Scorpionfish
Oyster Toadfish

Having typed  “ugly fish” into Google I lost many hours over the next few weeks looking at images and some incredible videos of life deep in the depths of the oceans. Each new search revealed yet another fascinating species of fish, some quite honestly didn’t look real while some, like the Tasseled Scorpionfish were strangely beautiful. One of the weirdest I discovered has to be the Red Lipped Batfish. If ever there was proof we descended from the oceans this red lipped, whiskered fish that “walks” on its specially adapted fins has to be it! 

Red Lipped Batfish

Last month the Waltham group had a day making felted fish, some are finished, others are still work in progress.

Lucy made a wonderful wet felted Puffer Fish adding recycled plastics, including pipette tips, wine bottle netting and glass beads with recycling symbols underneath, to highlight the plight of our oceans.

Sue is very new to wet felting but she’s taken to it like a fish to water (couldn’t resist!) and has made “Angry Fish”. I think he looks more sulky than angry but he’s terrific!

Barbara’s felted fish is still work in progress but looking great, as is her sketch book and fabric fish purse!

Originally I had intended to wet felt my ugly fish but, after all those hours of studying them and getting excited about what I was going to make, for some reason when I took out my carded Corriedale fibres I found myself felting a cartoon version of an Angelfish…….I didn’t see that coming! Her name is TroutPout and she’s approximately 33cm x 36cm excluding her fins.

I’ve been enjoying teaching 3D Seed Pod workshops recently using wire wrapped with Tyvek fabric so decided to make my Anglerfish from wire rather than fibre. It was only when I’d got the 60cm x 33cm framework made that I sat back and realised I’d gone past the stage where I had meant to start adding my fabric! Time for plan B…..maybe I could use wire mesh to give it “body”?

I looked for some online but hesitated as I wasn’t sure how flexible or suitable the mesh would be. Having put the fish to one side, a few days later I joined the Lincolnshire Textile group and at my first meeting I was offered a piece of silver coloured Sinamay. Sinamay is one of the most popular hat-making foundations. It’s woven from the processed stalks of the abaca tree, a type of banana native to the Philippines. I couldn’t believe my luck……..being silver coloured this off cut looked like wire mesh but wasn’t and if I sprayed it lightly with water I could easily shape it to fit and stitch it with aluminium wire to my framework. So this is how far I’ve got. I’m going to add a few more wire spirals and do something more interesting with the eyes. He should have menacing teeth but I might not go that far!

Wire frame Anglerfish

Another feature of next years Making Waves exhibition will be an Octopus’s Garden so once the fish are done it’s straight on to making lots of coral and a few Octopus. I’m loving this theme and could quite happily continue with it way beyond our event next year…….it has to be the most interesting and enjoyable we’ve had so far!

Second quarter challenge flowers finished

Second quarter challenge flowers finished

Comments 22 comments

I have finished my flowers but I don’t think I am finished with the picture.

The last time I had gotten this far

felted flower back grounds

 

I started adding flowers, thinking that the branch end would be the last to open, I started with a darker colour and fewer threads to make buds. I made smallish french knots.

adding french knots to felted flowers

 

Next, I went to a lighter shade of pink and a few more strands for the next size-up flower buds

adding french knots to felted flowers adding french knots to felted flowers

 

For the next group, I used my final pink colour but added in a few strands of the darker colour. I should have probably used half and half because the darker pink didn’t show up as much as I hoped. I did these at home so you got 4 progress pictures.

2 colours of embroidery thread

adding french knots to felted flowers adding french knots to felted flowers adding french knots to felted flowers

Today while I was at the market, I finished, with the lighter pink being for the bigger flowers. I decided to try colonial knots instead of french knots. I am not sure I wrapped them all the right way band I added some extra wraps around the needle to bulk them up a bit.

adding french knots to felted flowers adding french knots to felted flowers

I liked the way they turned out. I am thinking maybe I should add a little bit of yellow to the middle of the bigger flowers to make them look more open. I also think adding some green flower buds might be a good idea too. So that is next, and hopefully, I will make it before the end of June.

And now just because they are cute, the 2 ducklings that visited our booth this morning. they belong to the Farm and were out for a walk with their youngest.

Two baby ducklings

 

Closed cane picnic basket in garden with stone image of cat behind plus plants
Craft Basket Makeovers – part 1

Craft Basket Makeovers – part 1

Comments 16 comments

A good few years ago now, after I had acquired and learned how to use my spinning wheel, I was casting around for some means of storing the associated equipment in a reasonably respectable way.  The wheel and associated bits lived with us in our living room and needed to be tidy.

Quite by chance I came across a shop selling off cheaply a large deep cane laundry (I think) basket.  It was only going cheap because one of the handles was broken and it had no lid.  The much reduced price compensated for something which was no problem as far as I was concerned.

I used to work in Maidstone (Kent) and nearby there was a lovely shop called C&H Fabrics (sadly no more) which sold both dressmaking and curtain fabrics and haberdashery.  I could never bypass their remnant section – they almost always had something good and large enough to be really useful.  I managed to purchase several large pieces of curtain fabric of a design which was really “with it” at the time (most rarely  for me, I am usually following several years behind fashion fads).  This was during the time when Macramé made it’s first appearance and I was very “into” this.  So I removed the remaining cane handle and instead added two twisted cord macramé handles.

laundry basket without lid, with macramé handles, filled with spinning equipment

 

Then I set to and lined the whole of the basket using the curtain material, making sure that there were pockets around the sides of sufficient size to take threading hook, spare bobbins; flyer; carders; ball winder and my Neatsfoot oil – my wheel had a leather connection between the treadle and the footman – the bits that actually drive the wheel, and the neatsfoot oil is a good natural conditioner for leather and ok for oiling the metal parts.  The rest of the associated bits – fleece, box of carded rolags, tea towel used as a lap cover, cord for tying skeins and niddy noddy would just sit in the middle.

Now I needed a lid for the basket to keep the dust out (our bungalow was very dusty because part of it was still a building site).  So I cut two circles of the fabric and a circle of wadding.  I attached the wadding to the wrong side of one of the circles, by machine quilting around the pattern/motifs printed on the fabric. On the other circle, which would be the underside of the lid, I added a zipped pocket.  I then finished the lid by stitching the circles right sides together with another length of macraméd cord attached to one side.  Then, after turning the circles the right side out, and hand stitching the turning gap, I attached the other end of the cord to the basket. The lid sat on top of the basket with everything safely inside; well except for the niddy noddy which was too tall and had to stick out of the side, so it made do with a length of cord to attach it to the basket.  My brother in law had made the niddy noddy for me, having already made one for my sister.  It is purposely on the large side because each circle of a skein wound on it would be 1 yard long.  This made it easy to calculate the skein’s length.

Lined spinning basket with lid folded open to shop equipment in pockets
Finished basket open

Finished basket with closed lid to show quilting, with niddy noddy poking out of top.
Finished basket, closed.

The fitted out basket sat comfortably by my chair and spinning wheel while I was working at home, but was a bit big to take with me when I went to my spinning group each week. Luckily my sister, having visited the Willows and Wetland Centre on the Somerset Levels, gave me a large basket which she had bought there.  The Levels is a large flat low lying area where Withy Willows have been commercially grown for basket making for at least the last 200 years.  In fact willow baskets and other items have been made there since pre-Roman times.  If you are interested there is more information on the area here: Somerset Levels (As an aside, Glastonbury Abbey, also referred to in the link, used to own much of Sturminster Newton where I now live, despite Shaftesbury Abbey being much nearer to us and owning most of the rest of the surrounding land.)

But I digress.  The basket which my sister gave me was intended as a picnic basket.  It was short and wide and it’s carrying handles positioned so that it was carried flat.

picnic basket on lawn with handles up
See how the handles work to carry the basket flat?

It was just what I needed to carry tops (roving?) and spinning equipment when I was away from home.  Of course it needed to be fitted out with pockets to keep everything tidy and safe.  I had sufficient fabric left of the remnants used for the large basket to make them match.  I lined the base of the basket adding pockets at one end for flyer and bobbin, lap cover and oil.  I didn’t want to spoil the look by using the plastic box for my rolags and by then I had learned basket making courtesy of the WI.  So I made a basket to fit, lined it and made a lid with more of the fabric.  The lid of this little basket was quilted in the same way as the lid of the large basket, and also attached with macramé cords made from fine crochet cotton, with a wooden toggle closure.

small handmade cane basket with fabric lid attached by macramé cord with macramé and wooden bead closure
Rolag basket in the sun

By this time I was also “into” Tunisian Crochet. I had been making ordinary crochet items for as long as I could remember but fell for this new (to me) technique. So in addition to storage for threading hook, personal bits, glasses etc., I needed storage for at least one Tunisian crochet hook – this looks like a knitting needle, but instead of a point it has a hook. I also needed somewhere safe to put large sheets of paper patterns, as I tend to use diagram type patterns and they take up a lot of room. So I set-to to line the lid of the basket with just one layer of the fabric, but with pockets, short & fat and long & thin attached. I sewed this onto the inside of the lid but left one of the shorter ends unattached so that I could tuck paperwork etc., inside.

Open lined picnic basket showing lid lined and with pockets, and with rolag basket and other equipment in the basket.
All my equipment (almost) in the basket.

Incidentally, the sharp eyed amongst you may have noticed that odd bit of hooked wire tucked away in the longer tube/pocket and be wondering what it is.  It’s a do-it-yourself lazy kate – a device for assisting with plying yarns from one, two or more separate bobbins.  An old shoe box (or a basket) and this bit of wire are all you need, poke the wire through one end of the box, slot the bobbin(s) on and poke the wire through the other end of the box.  It’s not the best way to do it, but if you put some tension on the yarn by passing it from the bobbin around the wire once before taking it to the wheel for plying, it works.

Oh and a quick boast – can you see the handle of the threading hook poking out of one of the lid pockets?  The handle was actually a light pull which I had made while having a go at wood turning some years earlier, and the hook is only an unbent paperclip – but it works ok too.

So that was my basket set up and ready for journeys.  Oh yes, the niddy noddy.  That was too big again, so it had to sit on top.

Closed picnic basket with niddy noddy on top attached by cords but with handles down.
Basket with niddy noddy (but the handles are down so I’ll have to remove the niddy noddy, put the handles up and replace it because the right handle won’t go over the end of the niddy noddy – then I can pick up the basket.)

Eventually the cane hinges of the lid, and the cane closure wore out so they were replaced with macramé cords.

Some time before I moved from Kent to Dorset in 1999, I wrote an article about these baskets and submitted it, with photographs, to the Journal for Weavers Spinners & Dyers as I thought it might be of interest to them.  Apparently not though; I eventually received a letter returning the photos (but not the article, so I’ve had to rewrite it!) and saying “… the Editorial Committee … felt that the article was rather too indirectly concerned with weaving, spinning and dyeing ….”   Oh well!

Completed Nuno Felt Landscape Blue/White Background with Appliqued Birch Trees, Free Motion Stitched Branches and Hand Stitched Red Twig Dogwood Bushes.
Winter Birch Landscape Completed

Winter Birch Landscape Completed

Comments 31 comments

I have finally completed my winter birch landscape that I have been slowly working on. You can see the prior posts here if you missed them.  I had about determined to skip adding any extra snow in the foreground but then I decided I should try a sample of needle felting the snow.

Nuno Felted Background with Stitched Red Twig Dogwood and Needle Felted Snow Under Dogwood

And, surprise, surprise, it worked better than I thought it would. So I added a bit of snow and then needed to figure out the distant red twig dogwood bushes. (You can see the snow in the final photo.)

Sample of red twig dogwoods drawn with marker on to nuno felt background.

First I tried using a marker on my sample to see if I could get away with something easy. The thinner marker made a very light line and the heavier marker was too heavy. Plus, using a marker on nuno felt gives a very uneven line. On to the next idea.

Sample of needle felted wool thread compared to stitched wool thread.

Next, I tried needling the wool thread into the sample background. It didn’t feel like there was much difference between the stitched bushes in the foreground compared to the needled line on the top left.

I decided I would try a cotton machine thread (30 weight). The stem stitched sample on the left shows two different colors. The redder color is straight off the spool but I wanted the thread to be a bit darker and variegated. So I colored the thread by hand with a black marker. The photo on the right shows the thread before it was darkened (left side) and the thread on the right side of the photo has been darkened with a black permanent marker. It worked perfectly although it’s a little messy on the fingers.

Completed Nuno Felt Landscape Blue/White Background with Appliqued Birch Trees, Free Motion Stitched Branches and Hand Stitched Red Twig Dogwood Bushes.

So here’s the finished landscape. I used the machine thread for the distant red twig dogwoods and you can see the small amounts of snow that I added. I’m happy with it but I will put it on the design wall to look at to make sure it’s finished. Then I will need to choose a “matte” fabric and get it ready for framing. I’m thinking of calling the piece “Winter Color”. Or I could stick with “Winter Birch”. Which do you prefer?

 

close up of stitched berried and stems
I finished my stitching.

I finished my stitching.

Comments 16 comments

I have finally finished my stitching. I think it is definitely slow stitching. last time I had done a practice branch to see how it would go. /2023/01/13/stitching-some-trees/ 

I wanted to add some snow but felting onto the cotton wasn’t good. and yarn didn’t look right. So I thought, why not make it on some felt and then you can needle on some snow. The branch worked out really well. I do love stitching on felt.

 

Then I tried to add snow. Nope, it looked terrible. Sorry, no picture and no snow. I was a bit discouraged and was going to give it up as a bad job and then I thought I’d come this far, I should finish the piece.

 

And here is the finished piece. I used an app that takes out the real background and then you can add a nicer background.

stitched canvas. 3 snowflakes, 3 evergreen trees, as spruce branch with red berries.

All in all not a bad project with no real purpose other than to slow stitch. I had thought I was doing part of the first quarter challenge but on re-reading it I see I should do the same tree in each season and using an evergreen seems a bit like cheating. I have another idea. I saw a picture of making a tree that looked like it would work well so I am planning to give it a try. so hopefully soon I can show you.

And one last thing as it is valentines day in a couple of days I made a heart.

needle felted heart on a grey felt background

 

Hand sewing some rabbits

Hand sewing some rabbits

Comments 23 comments

Recently, the Chinese celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit. How very fortunate of me, then, to have a couple of rabbits to hand stitch!

I had initially bough this Briar Bunnies kit for my mum, to keep her entertained during her Christmas stay with us… in 2021. My mother started making them, but lost steam somewhere along us all catching Covid and being flabbergasted by how messy our place was (if only she knew we had tidied up before she arrived!) After she left, the poor duo was stashed somewhere in my studio and completely forgotten, until recently.

Unfinished hand sewn Briar Bunnies, a kit by Cool Crafting

This is how my mother left her bunnies. The blue pen markings were done by me with a heat-erasable Frixion pen. The ink would guide the stitches and would disappear once I ironed the fabric after sewing.

You’ll notice there are two pairs of ears and arms. I had suggested mum make two bunnies at a time to avoid what in the knitting world is called “second sock syndrome” – when you’ve knitted one sock and don’t feel at all motivated to start all over again and repeating the same steps to make another… Once I took over the project, I followed my own advise.

The pattern expects you to machine sew the bunnies, but in my mind that would completely defeat my notion of enjoying the making process to the full. Machine sewing these bunnies would mean I’d be done in a couple of hours, not nearly enough time to be mindful of even having held them! Hand stitching was much better for that.

Two hand stitched bunnies, with striped leggings

My hand stitching skills are mediocre at best, but slowly I saw the rabbits shaping up. One of them has wonky ears and her leggings don’t quite match in the front, and I love that about her. It adds personality!

Two finished hand sewn linen rabbits with coordinating red and floral garments

Here they are all finished. Those dresses took me ages to make! I can’t tell you how long exactly, but a good amount of an audiobook kept me company whilst I slowly stabbed the fabric and, once or twice, my fingers. The bunny on the left was supposed to have a bow made with the same burgundy fabric as her dress, but after almost losing my mind turning the other bow inside out, I decided to go for a red ribbon instead. It’s not cutting corners, it’s being creative…

Have you hand sewn anything lately? Do you love or hate the notion of slow stitching? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Stitching Some Trees

Stitching Some Trees

Comments 16 comments

I am continuing with my slow(very slow) stitching. I have accidentally done part of the first-quarter challenge. Last time I showed you my tree trunk. Next, I got some of my handspun to make the evergreen part.

I pulled a lighter green first. it was much too light. I switched to t a much darker green that works much better. it is a thicker yarn too, which I think works better.

stitching an evergreen tree light green yarn test. stitching an evergreen, tree dark green yarn test

 

The practice one worked out well so onto the good ones.

 

stitched tree trunk stitched evergreen tree

The trunk on this one ended up a bit fat but I don’t mind

brown stitched tree trunk 2 stitched evergreen 2

2 stitched evergreen trees

 

And the third one

third stitched tree trunk  third stitched tevergreen tree

And this is how it looks now

3 stitched snow flakes and 3 stitched evergreen tree.

 

I like it so far but I am not sure what to put in the blank corner. I thought maybe a branch so I did a test one. I may try to add some cones or snow. I am not sure what kind of tree it looks like. What do you think? what would you put there?

stitched evergreen branch, half done evergreen branch finished

 

 

Close Up of Lichen, Leaf and Moss on Driftwood
Adding Lichen to the Mossy Driftwood

Adding Lichen to the Mossy Driftwood

Comments 36 comments

My next step in finishing the driftwood piece was to create lichen. I had made lichen before from Tyvek but alas, I had none in my stash. So I looked for other materials that could be shaped with a wood burning tool and that would shrink and make interesting shapes with a heat gun.

What I found was a fusible lightweight Pellon interfacing and nylon organza. The interfacing does not need to be fusible to work, it’s just what I had on hand. I can’t remember why I bought it but hopefully, it would work so I wouldn’t have to buy anything else.

Painted pastel blue green interfacing and nylon organza on white background

I painted the small pieces of interfacing and organza with a light layer of acrylic paint. As you can see here, the paint was not heavy and the shade of blue green was very light in value.

wood burning tool burning lichen shapes into painted interfacing

Next, I got out my wood burning tool and a piece of glass to burn on. I made random lichen shapes in the interfacing. I also did the same with the nylon organza. Once they were cut out, I held the small pieces with a pair of tweezers and used the heat gun to make them shrink up and get curly. I also added a bit of brown marker to the edges of the lichen as there are definitely brown bits on the real stuff.

Here’s the result. Yay, it looks like I wanted it to. Success. Now to add it and the dead teabag leaves to the mossy driftwood. I glued the lichen in place as it was mainly on the wood itself. I stitched the leaves down to the felt in a couple of places.

Textile Art Piece - driftwood covered with felt, stitched moss, stitched tea bag leaves and lichen from interfacing and organza

Here’s the result. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

And the close up views. I’m happy with how it turned out and it was a really fun project.

Felt and Stitched Moss on Driftwood with Close Up of Tea Bag Leaves
Adding Dried Leaves to Mossy Driftwood

Adding Dried Leaves to Mossy Driftwood

Comments 22 comments

I have been continuing to add more stitching and other bits to my mossy driftwood. You can see the progression from just felt to adding stitch in these two posts:

Moss on a Piece of Driftwood

Mossy Driftwood Continued

Driftwood covered with green felt and hand and machine stitched areas of moss.

The moss has been getting filled in by hand stitching and adding the machine stitched moss I created. I am trying to decide how much more hand stitched moss to add. I think it needs more “trailing” knots in the “bare” felted areas. But I also need to add lichen in places but I haven’t created the lichen yet. I’m thinking I will try Tyvek lichen.

Leaf shapes created out of tea bags and machine stitching.

The next step was to create dead, desiccated leaves. I found a tutorial for making them out of tea leaves on Youtube.  I had made them out of Lutradur before but not tea bags so I thought I would give it a go. I drink tea every morning so I started saving the old tea bags for this project. In the video, she used some type of stabilizer but I decided to try without one. I layered two flattened tea bags together and just started free motion machine stitching the veins. As you can see, you don’t want to stitch the outer edge of the leaf as it looks more natural without it. Then I cut them to shape with scissors.

Tea bag leaves, machine stitched veins and burned holes/edges.

The next step was to burn the edges and the holes. I found it was easier to get a more natural look when I was looking at photos of dead leaves. That way the leaves don’t all turn out the same. I used a wood burning tool for this operation (the video uses an incense stick). Obviously, you need to be careful when you’re burning things and it is pretty stinky too, you need ventilation. So I took mine to the stove and turned on the overhead fan to draw away the fumes. Plus the stove top is heat proof and won’t be burned or damaged.

Fiber art moss on piece of driftwood with three tea bag dead leaves.

So here’s the full piece with the leaves just placed on it. I will be stitching them down at some point to hold them in place.

Here’s a couple of close ups. You can click on the photos for a bigger view. I am happy with the progress and it is definitely looking very “forest floor”.

 

Close up of machine stitched threads on top of felted driftwood.
Mossy Driftwood Continued

Mossy Driftwood Continued

Comments 28 comments

Last time I posted, I showed you a piece of driftwood that I had covered in green felt to represent moss. It definitely needed more work to achieve the natural look that I desired.

I took a small pair of sharp scissors and cut out some holes as well as making the ends not so uniform and straight. I then decided to use the left over cut out pieces as padding for stitching. I added the left over pieces in a couple of places and hand stitched them down.

I then decided to try adding more texture with needle felting. I had a pile of little wet felted scraps which you can see on the left and I needle felted those down. Then I added some wool from my carded batts that I had left over after wet felting. I needled those down but not too firmly. I still wanted the texture of moss, which you can see in the right photo.

Driftwood covered with green felt, stitched layers of felt added, needle felted layers added

Here’s what it looked like after I finished the lower layered bits. I left hanging threads as this will be the “grassy” looking bits sticking up between the moss.

Work bench covered with variety of green thread and driftwood covered with felt.

Next was looking for different green threads. Here’s what I came up with. You can also just see on the left side that I found some of my photos of moss and printed those out for reference.

Close up of French Knots stitched on green felt covering driftwood.

I then started adding some hand stitching. These are “wonky” French knots with hand dyed lace weight wool thread. This is going to take a while. I have another “slow” stitch project on my hands.

Next up was to try some machine stitching. I made a sandwich of the threads on the left between two layers of water soluble fabric. I then machine stitched a random branching pattern. The photo on the right shows the result after washing out the soluble fabric.

Close up of machine stitched threads on top of felted driftwood.

Here’s a small piece of the machine stitched moss by the French knot section. I haven’t stitched it in place as I think I will do more of the hand stitching first. I’m loving all the different greens as that is definitely what you find in nature. I will keep you updated on my progress.