Having run out of already felted nuno backgrounds, I decided to try a large landscape and create it in a mosaic type of nuno process as opposed to one piece of dyed silk. I got out my remaining already dyed silks to see what was available. After looking at what I had, I decided on a sunrise or sunset with the sky being around two thirds of the landscape.
I started with a large piece of white prefelt, fluffed it up with a brush to make sure it would felt more easily. Then I added a very light layer of merino in the colors of the landscape. I used short fiber merino hoping it would help “glue” the small pieces of silk. I then wet down the wool before applying any silk.
I started with the sky and continued to wet down all the silk pieces as they were laid out.
I kept working my way down trying to make sure that there weren’t any completely straight edges on the silk. I did add bits of wool underneath the silk if there was more than one layer of silk. Once the sky was finished, it was on to the mountains and the foreground.
I added silk for the mountains and the foreground. I decided to add some green wool on top for some pine trees and to soften the edges between the foreground and the more distant mountains. Then on to felting.
Here’s the piece after it is partially felted. It did require a lot of careful rubbing but most of the silk stayed in place and adhered to the wool.
Here is the piece after being completely felted. I decided for now to call this piece Montana Sunrise. I am going to add stitching and more detail to the foreground but that’s for another post. The finished size of the piece is approximately 16″ x 30″.
I decided to return to basics and take an introduction to wet felting course. I am hoping to become a training mentor with the International Feltmakers Association and thought that rather than observe the interaction within this course; I would throw myself into it. Despite felting for the best part of 10 years I will readily admit I am learning loads – happy days! The course involves sampling various breeds of sheep for, among other attributes shrinkage rate and required finishing the fulling by rolling the sample in a bamboo mat.
I knew I had them somewhere in my workroom – you might be familiar with the process – one puts something away safely for use in the future and then one promptly forgets where it is! My room was a disaster area after the Christmas holidays as it had become a dumping ground. It was quite the miracle that I could even find the work table let alone the bamboo mat. A tidy was on the cards.
As I started tidying, I uncovered a number of unfinished projects which I reckoned would fulfil the criteria of this quarter’s challenge. Let’s just call it as it is, repurposing something stuck in the back of a closet into something a bit more useful. Those unfinished projects started with great enthusiasm then put by when I ran out of steam!
First up was the unfinished silk throw which I started in June 2021. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had inherited lots of fabrics from my husband’s Aunt Kathleen. In amongst them were small lengths of beautifully coloured wild silk which I had cut into squares and sewn together. I had gotten as far as putting wadding and a backing on to it so I added a binding and machine stitched (diagonally) through the layers to complete the throw. Sorry that I forgot to take a photo of the piece before I attacked it – just one of my work in progress and the finished throw. I have to say I just love the richness of the colours! I took the throw out into the garden to photograph but it was so windy it was difficult to catch so this photo does not capture the sheen off it. You can just about see the pattern from the diagonal machine stitching.
Back to the presses where I discovered a pile of felt that I had made up – not sure for what reason – long forgotten. Some of it was plain and I had experimented by nuno felting various silks onto another piece. One piece was a beautiful red and it inspired me to make a heart brooch. I cut out my shape and then put it through the sewing machine a number of times using a zigzag stitch on the edge. I then sewed a brooch pin on the back. Here is the result in time for Valentine’s Day (note the bottles of champagne in the background which still have not been removed from my workroom):
I then cut a rectangular shape from the nuno felted sample and zigzag stitched around this in a similar manner to the heart.
These were quick and easy to make (once the initial felting was done) and they have potential for selling at Christmas fairs or including in cards as small gifts.
I keep my handbags in my workroom. I have a beautiful black leather bag that I paid a fortune for in the 1990’s and have worn it to death. The colour of the bag is now nearly grey and it’s scuffed – it is normal wear and tear – I don’t believe in using something I love only on occasion. I had enquired about having the bag renovated but the quotation from the one place I knew who did this kind of work was way up in the hundreds so I did not want to go there. Instead the bag greeted me forlornly every time I walked into the room. It was like it was pleading with me to put it back to work again. I headed off to our shoe menders who said that there were no guarantees that any leather dye would work on bags (they are apparently specifically for shoes). I decided to take a chance as I did not want to scrap the bag. It was time to redeploy it. I used two coats of spray on the bag and now it is as good as new. I am so pleased. Unfortunately I did not take a ‘before’ photo but this is how it turned out.
Back in the day when my daughter was at college, she worked in a high end retail store. Like her mother she fell in love with a leather bag and spent most of her week’s wages on it. Within a month it looked worn out as it scuffed easily and the colour came away. So she talked to the buyer and got a replacement only to find the same thing happened. Disappointed the bag was discarded as it was not fit to be seen. She told me to throw it out as she felt she would not insult a charity shop by donating it. Armed with my new confidence I headed back to the shoe repair shop and purchased another dye. This time I opted for a paint rather than a spray on dye and got to work painting on two coats. I left it to dry thoroughly for a couple of days and then presented it for inspection. I have to admit I fell in love with it and I was hoping she might hate the slightly changed colour so I could keep it. She loved it (secretly I am delighted as she is a fussy lady) and she is now never without it on her shoulder when she is heading out!
Then I found a cheap carrier bag that I had purchased while on holidays a number of years ago. I remember that it cost €1 (which is less than £1 and around US$1). The handle was torn and the zip, which was used to tidy the bag when not in use was broken.
It was a bit of a sorry sight but I liked the plastic coated fabric and the challenge of repurposing it. First of all I removed the zip to see if there was any life left in it. When I was examining it I fell in love with the rainbow effect of the colours on the teeth and made up my mind to salvage it if I could. I then unpicked the outer pocket that housed the folded bag and dismantled the bag by cutting away the side and bottom seams and the handles. This left me with two pieces of material and I cut two rectangles from these, using as much of the fabric as I could. My intention was to double over the material so that the bag was self lined. In effect, the bag would be half the size of the cut rectangles (less seam allowance) and I would be sewing through four layers.
Next, I removed the broken tag on the zip using a pliers and I opened the little hook on the mechanism as wide as I could so that I could fit in a fabric tag as a replacement.
I hand sewed the top and the bottom of the zip, cut the zip to size and then covered these areas with remnants of the bag fabric. Here’s a photo of the mended zip:
I drew a line at the centre of the rectangles of fabric and sewed through the two rectangles using a big stitch in preparation for inserting the zip (as per Teri Berry). Then it was time to tackle the zip so I did this using the method Teri outlined in her post of 12th January (thanks Teri, it worked a treat).
I then sewed the original outer pocket back on to one side of the rectangle.
I turned the bag inside out (you might recall that the bag is self lined so the material is the same inside and outside. I used quilters’ clamps and pins to hold the pieces together and sewed through the material rounding the corners.
I then used my sheers to neaten the seams.
So here is the finished odds and ends bag. I hope I have added value to it and it will sell for more than its original €1 price tag when it hits the charity shop.
Did I ever find that elusive bamboo mat? Yes I did in the very last box in the room. It was worth the search. I am feeling virtuous (or is that a bit smug) with my finished projects, ‘new’ leather bag, happy daughter and completed upcycling project.
Oh yes and tidy workroom. Bets are on as to how long that lasts!
A little post script which happened since I uploaded the post. A friend of mine asked if I could help out with a handmade gift for a new arrival. Something small, so in the end we settled on booties. I wanted to keep the price as reasonable as I could for her so I searched through my stash of felt samples. In the middle of it I came across a hat which I made in my early days and which was waaaay too small for my head. So out came the scissors and I took over the role of shoe elf (part time). Thankfully I could work during day time when the real elves were asleep. I found a free pattern on Pattern Bee (https://patternbee.com/_images/free_stuff/FELT%20BABY%20SHOES.pdf) and got to work. So here is the result. I hope my friend and the new parents like them.
I will readily admit I spent quite some time out of my comfort zone putting together this post. Cutting into things does not come easy to me and I have fabrics that I caress every now and again, afraid that if I make that cut I will destroy it. But it was good to let go on items where I had nothing to lose if things went wrong. New things created from old things discarded.
Have you anything that you recently repurposed? Perhaps this post has inspired you to finish off a project that has lingered in the back of the cupboard. Perhaps you make do and mend. If so, we would love to see your work. Here is a link where you can upload a photo and write a brief description of what you have done https://wp.me/P1WEqk-cJX . The process is quick and simple and it’s just one click away. I would love for my next post to feature our reader’s work. Let’s get this conversation going. We can all inspire each other.
Today I have posted pictures with workshops that I have taught. I love to teach and have workshops every week. I think that when I teach , I have a different connection with each participant as we speak the same “language “. Its easy to create beautiful felted products with this rapport.
Back at the beginning of the Century, when I was a fairly new member of the Dorset Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers, and an enthusiastic entrant for challenges, the Association of Guilds of Weavers Spinners & Dyers (referred to by older members as “National”) via it’s quarterly magazine “The Journal” decided to run a Rare Breed Challenge.
National would provide a quantity of raw (unprocessed) fleece to any member of a Guild who entered with the intention that the member would process the fleece and send in a report for publication in the Journal. I thought that I should have a go.
The piece of fleece that arrived in October 2001 weighed 5¼ oz (145 gr.) before washing. The staple was 4” long with a pronounced crimp, and it was quite oily.
Staple
I placed the whole sample in my “patent fleece washer” (about which more sometime in the future) and left it to soak in plain rainwater for two days. The garden benefitted from the mucky water afterwards. The fleece was drained but not dried, and then given two further long soaks in rainwater and Fairy liquid. A final overnight soak in rainwater and Woolite was followed by two rinses in rainwater (it must have been a wet autumn). The fleece was drained again and then spread out on a rack in the airing cupboard to finish drying.
Raw Fleece, as it arrived
Washed Fleece
I was surprised to find that almost all of the lanoline had been removed from the fleece, despite the fact that the rainwater had not been heated at any time. However, as this was the first time that I had washed fleece, I should possibly have expected this result. Because the fleece was so dry, I added a smidgin of Johnson’s Baby Oil as I carded it. At least to begin with – until I got fed up with the smell and added some lavender oil.
I decided to make a shawl or stole, because the fibres felt a little too scratchy for a scarf or anything which would be close to the skin. I did not think that there would be sufficient yarn to make a garment to be worn on top of other clothes. I felt that a fine yarn to make into a lacy article would be best – it would go further than a thicker yarn and, with care, be “light and airy”.
I wanted to spin much more finely than I have done in the past and had read somewhere that thin rolags would be better for fine spinning. So when carding, I separated each bat into two layers (one from one carder and one from the other) and formed the rolags round a knitting needle to make long thin rolags.
Carding the fleece.
“Pencil” Rolags
I had also heard that it would be easier to spin finely if I padded out my bobbins. (You can tell that I’m mainly self taught from watching others spin or reading books, as I don’t know the mechanics behind these theories – but I’m was learning.) I used foam pipe insulation around the spindle of my bobbins and this worked very well.
It appeared to be quite easy to spin finely, at least for the first two bobbins. After that I was using the rolags from the bottom of the pile. They had suffered from compression and were more difficult to spin without too many slubs appearing. I plied the first two bobbins and took off the resulting two-ply yarn onto my niddy noddy. This is a very handy size. It was made for me by my brother-in-law and each full round measures a yard. I was therefore easily able to calculate that the length of my first skein was 118 yards. I set the ply by dipping the skein in cold (tap) water and Fairy liquid.
When it had dried I found that, despite having been spun semi-worsted, the yarn was quite fluffy. I felt that this would result in a blurring of most pattern stitches and decided therefore to try Broomstick crochet. I made a sample (a very rare occurrence for me) and found that, if I combined Broomstick with Tunisian crochet, I could make quite an attractive triangular shawl.
In case you are not conversant with Tunisian Crochet, let me give you a brief lesson. The hook used for these stitches is crossed between a knitting needle and a standard crochet hook – i.e. a knitting needle with a hook at the opposite end to the knob. (It is also possible to get a double (hooked) ended Tunisian hook for more complicated work). Each row is worked in two halves – a forward and a return row. Tunisian Simple stitch forward row is in fact unfinished Double (Single in US) Crochet. The final loop of each stitch is left on the hook so that at the end of the row you have a hook full of stitches, as in knitting. The return row is made by chaining off the stitches so that you end up with just one loop on the hook and are ready to start the next row.
According to Muriel Kent (author of Exciting Crochet – a Course in Broomstick & Tunisian Crochet) Tunisian Crochet is known as Afghan Crochet in North America and has also been called Russian Stitch. She reports that it is a very old craft, older than both knitting and ordinary crochet, and that an example had been found in an Egyptian tomb. Broomstick crochet (or Witchcraft Lace!) is thought to have originated in North America, the principle being to make loops of a regular size by placing them onto a Broomstick – or very thick knitting needle – and to remove them in regular groups with double (single) crochet.
As I had not yet spun up all the prepared fleece, I had no idea how much yarn I would have in total. Also as time was now getting on, I thought I had better start on the shawl straight away, rather than wait until I had completed the spinning and plying. The safest way to cope with not knowing how much yarn I would finish up with was to start at the point and to increase at either end of the rows as I went along. Then, if I started to run out of yarn, I could avoid more easily ending up with an odd shape.
In the end the stitches I used were not quite those in the sample. I have used “Tunisian Broomstick” rather than Tunisian and Broomstick. After forming the Broomstick loops on a 20 mm Broomstick pin, I took them off in groups of six using a 4½ mm Tunisian crochet hook. Instead of finishing each double crochet in the usual way, I left the last loop on the hook, Tunisian fashion, and then chained them all off. The next row was Tunisian treble (double treble?) stitch, and the increase was carried out at each end of this row – doubling the 12 stitches above the first and last “fan” of Broomstick stitches. This was done by passing he hook through the stitch on the previous row for one stitch, and then between that stitch and the next on the previous row for the new stitch, six times, increasing the stitches on the hook by twelve in total. These three rows form the pattern and give a right angled triangle.
Starting the Shawl
Tunisian Broomstick
I did not get the shawl finished before I had to send in the report, so there was no photo of it, but I note that I did enter it in our Guild Special Exhibition in 2002 which formed part of the Dorset Arts & Crafts Exhibition that year.
For those of you who have not met Mr. Mer, here he is last year as I was working on his anatomy.
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1-2 Mr. Mer 2021
Mr. Mer was underwhelmed with how I had left his basic under-structure of his fishy bits. I agreed with him that he was not quite as pike-like as I would like. The fish part of the body needed to be thicker and more muscular when compared to my photo reference. How can you fight snapping turtles with such a scrawny lower body? I still liked the vestigial knees but felt the idea had not yet coalesced into a good integration between man and fish. I will think more on this as I add bulk to his fishiness.
3 parts of the green fibre collection.
I dug through the greens I had been using, I was almost out of one of the colours I had blended and will have to blend more of it! I was using the large ball of “Olive” Corriedale as the base and adding other greens to mottle and create the colour for the under-structure. The darker top that I was blending with the olive I am pretty sure some was the Superwash I had bought from the Black lamb.
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4-5 blending wool to build up Mr. Mer’s fish body and tail.
Since I needed a reasonable amount of fibre to build up his fish end I used the hand carders to partly blend the colours. (Nature tends not to have flat colours.) Although I usually hand blend small amounts for details, using the handcards or even dog brushes is easier on the hands and wrists than working with the same amount of fibre hand blending. When I take the fibre off the cards, it is still quite a long staple. For the under layer and blocking in the basic shape this will work. However, as I get closer to the final shape I tend to tear the fibre into pieces from half an inch to an inch long.
Although I started with the armature and adding shapes build-up of fibre as per Sara’s instructions I have deviated well away from her original Mer-Maid design. She tends to work by adding formed shapes, but for this one, she added a wet felted skin layer to put over her under-structure. I have had more fun using a more blended approach of both additive and subtractive sculpture. (Adding pre-formed shapes and felting them into place is a lot faster than what I tend to do with using layers and small amounts of loose fibre to sculpt into the desired shape).
You can see I have moved from legs with a tail shape Mer-Man to the beginnings of a more human-fish hybrid.
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6-8 upgrading Fishy-bits underway
I like the direction but need to increase the height and a bit more width of the fish section. I am investigating the popliteal space (the area behind the knees). I like the angle of the intersection but want to raise the fish spine a bit higher.
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9-10 Needs a bit more
Oh no, he is not going to like the way that tail looks, it’s a bit bear. I over fanned the armature of the tail and then added wisps of full-length staple. I added a bit to each side using a variety of needles and finally the punch tool (fake clover tool). so when I adjust the tail to the correct position the webbing should ripple like partly closing a fan.
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11-12 Working on the tail
That seems a bit better so I switched back to the body again.
13 elevating the top line of the fish body
I have made both the top line higher and am investigating the angle of integrating behind the knees. Tomorrow Is Library Day for the guild and I will ask Ann what she thinks. So it’s time for Mr. Mer to get into his project bag (not that I expect to have any time to work on him tomorrow) but I am sure he will enjoy getting out of the house and Ann will like seeing how he is coming along.
14 On Library Day, Ann Checked out Mr. Mer’s Progress, she had a few suggestions.
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15-17 Ann critiques him
As we got the library ready for book pick up, Mr. Mer took up position on top of a small 8 harness loom to watch for guild members wanting their requested books.
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18-20 Mr. Mer is watching for Library patrons
I noticed he was having trouble bending and has to maintain a push-up to allow him to look out the window. I have to see what I can do to help him. I will start with an assessment of his ROM (Range of Motion) particularly at his waist but that will be in my next post.
I will hope you are not getting bored with the fishiness of my posts and promise to try to work on something different, but the next post will be part 2. There may be surgery involved!
I declare throwback Tuesday. I seem to have run out of time this week so I thought you might like to see this post from 2017. Jan posted some pictures in our guild group and it reminded me and I thought it was worth another look. I hope it and the links to the other 2 posts about it will give you lots of inspiration for your own work.
I have been working away on my nuno felt landscapes this winter. I always sell more work in the summertime, so it’s good to get ahead of the game and get work ready to be framed in the spring. So what to do with this background. I felt like the diagonal lines of color felt too “tie dyed” and needed to break them up. The colors reminded me of summer flowers so that’s where I decided to go with this background.
I played around with a variety of cotton fabric and cheesecloth and laid these out on the nuno background.
I added a small bud to the small, lower right hand flower.
I pinned the pieces in place and added interfacing to the back to provide support for the machine stitching. I could have fused them down but I find that I don’t like the way the fusing flattens the fabric and doesn’t allow “movement” of the fabric with stitching. This is a personal preference and it is easier to stitch if everything is fused in place but I prefer to pin or baste the pieces in place. I also was looking at possibly bringing some of the dark blue up into the area above the flowers. I tested this out by cutting some small bits of #5 perle cotton and laying it down to give the impression of blue flower stalks.
I free motion machine stitched all the green first. I used two different shades of green to give a little depth to the stems and leaves.
I used three different shades of thread in the centers of the flowers and two colors on the petals. I decided to bring a bit of the burnt orange down into the petals to give a look of a bit of shadows near the centers. Last, I added dark brown to the bottom of the centers which definitely helped define the centers.
Lastly, I added blue French knots with #5 perle cotton thread. I then stitched it down to the background “matte” fabric and laced it on to card. So it’s ready to frame. I decided to call this one “Summer Fireworks”. I have run out of nuno felted backgrounds so I guess that will be my next project.
This is our first blog for 2022 and I can’t believe we are in February already! Christmas seems ages ago now, but I wanted to talk about a gift that I had for Christmas. I’ve been wanting to have a go at weaving, and have been looking for an excuse to splash out on a loom for quite some time. But I was really lucky, because my partner Peter bought me one for Christmas. Boy was I chuffed!! Having it as a Christmas present meant I didn’t have to explain why I was adding even more fibre equipment to my ever-expanding hobby! Poor Pete, at this rate he’ll be baa-ing me from the house! I knew that he was getting me one, as having tried to find his way around the copious models and types of loom, he thankfully realised that a surprise was probably not the best way to proceed! So I was lucky enough to get the loom I’d had my eye on for about 8 months, having settled on an Ashford 16″ loom as it looked to be a great starter model and the reviews were good. Nothing to do with the fact that about six months ago, Pete offered to go and pick up a second hand loom I bought off Facebook Marketplace, that turned out to be a 16″ Vari-dent reed instead!! (It could only happen to me lol)
So, after Christmas, I couldn’t wait to get started on putting it together. I’d watched YouTube tutorials, so had a pretty good idea how to put it together, but I also wanted to make my setup my own, by staining some of the wood a different colour. I knew from a previous project, that if I diluted Cuprinol external wood paint, I could change the colour whilst still allowing the grain to show through. Having stained the stand the colour I wanted using a sponge as an applicator, I left those pieces to dry before waxing every piece of the loom and stand as advised.
Then the fun part – putting it all together.
I’m quite pleased with the final result, and I like some of the parts show the original colour of the wood. I like that the stand is a different colour from the loom. But I found later on that I had not assembled the stand correctly, as the loom wouldn’t tilt downwards. I found out that the diagonal struts supporting the loom should have been on the outside and not on the inside of the loom! Thank goodness for Facebook, where there are a wealth of knowledgeable people to ask for advice!!!
Once I had corrected the stand, I was ready to start weaving my first project. Now anyone who knows me, also knows that I want to run before I can walk. I had told myself that I needed to start with some basic wool, to practice with first. Mmmm….that didn’t quite happen!!!!!!! I was so enamoured with this beautiful hand spun Merino Sock Crimpy Yarn I bought from a local Welsh Etsy seller called Misguided Sheep, that I just couldn’t resist the temptation. Risky I know, but I figured that if I really didn’t like the end result, I could always take it apart and start again!
It’s so lush, I just couldn’t wait to use it!
For the warp, I dug out some lovely cotton yarn that I had left over from previous projects, which I had used to crochet babies’ hats. I looked at the cerise pink yarn, and having tested it was strong enough, decided that I would use this for the warp. I liked the contrast of this yarn with the Merino Crimpy yarn, and decided to experiment.
I didn’t take a photo of the cotton yarn to show you, but I did work out that the WPI (wraps per inch) was 20, to give you some idea of the thickness of this yarn. I do have a photo of some of the hats I have made with this supply of yarn!
So – having finally managed to secure my loom at one end of my craft table and the peg at the other, I started warping my loom for the very first time!!!
I don’t think I did too badly for my first attempt. I did have a panic at one point, as I thought I was doing something wrong when the yarn returning from the peg seemed to want to go above the warp stick sometimes and over the warp stick at other times. But thanks for my friend YouTube, I realised that it is supposed to alternate between over and under each time you go around the warp stick!!! Oh, the joys of self-taught crafts!!
The next step was threading alternate threads through the eye of each heddle reed. The reed I used was the basic 7.5 DPI (30/10) one that came with the loom.
Once that was done, then I needed to tie the ends as neatly as I could to the front warping stick.
Yayyyyyy! I had done it!!!! Now for loading my shuttle with my beautiful ‘Opalescence’ blended yarn!!
But before I did that, I had to work out how to transfer the wool from a skein! I’ve not used wool from a skein before, so this was quite a nerve-wracking moment for me as I had a vision of disappearing under bird’s nest of yarn but I managed to sort it out without too much effort, with the help (or potential interference) of Eccles (one day, I’ll be trusted to do a project without feline supervision!!!).
I found the loom useful for holding the yarn for me, much to the disappointment of Eccles, who only wanted to help bless her! (Likely story!)
So – once that was done, I was ready to start weaving…
I was quite pleased with the effect. I love how the bobbly bits stand out from the rest of the weave. The other thing that surprised me was how quickly the project progressed, far quicker than if I had knitted it.
I found it interesting how the bright cerise yarn changed the overall colour of the wool….
One thing I didn’t mention, was that Alex came home for Christmas, but unfortunately the day before he was due to return home, we both tested positive for Covid. Thankfully, he sailed though it with no major problems, and the up side of covid was that by the time I managed to assemble the loom, he was still here to help me get started with the weaving!! He really enjoyed learning to weave alongside me…
as you can see………. by the smile on his face!!!!
We were both really pleased with the final result, and we decided to have some ‘Welsh Felters’ labels printed, just for the fun of it, which I attached to the bottom corner of the scarf!
We know it’s not perfect, but it’s not bad for our first attempt!! After Alex went home, I decided to have another go, and used the same type of cotton yarn for the warp and the same crimpy yarn for the weft. But this time, I decided to try alternating two different shades of lilac for the warp….
I love the candy stripes!!!
It’s surprising the difference it makes, just changing one component. I think there is some improvement second time around, as the weave looks to be a little more even I think?
One think is for sure, we’ll be weaving more projects very soon!!!
Last year I enrolled on Ruth’s class for Paper Fabric Lamination.
I really enjoyed this class, and once the initial mystique of the technique had dissolved, this method of making decorative felt was wonderful to discover.
This is one of the pieces that I made for the class. I chose the bright pink merino, because that was the largest quantity of wool I had at the time, and that I could use during the class.
The ‘net curtain’ fabric was nuno felted to the pink merino after it had been laminated. The areas of darker pink are from the pattern of roses that is on the curtain fabric. The lamination gives a lovely crinkled effect, caused by the acrylic medium that prevented the wool working it’s way through the curtain fabric
When I was thinking about what to make for my post to the forum for February, I looked at this piece again, and thought that it would make a lovely little clutch bag. I drew a rough pattern, adjusting it so that I could use as much of the felt as possible for the bag.
My pattern:
The clutch bag would have a slight curved top, with a zip closure, and a wristlet for security – to use, or not, if desired.
I was not sure whether I could use iron on interfacing on the felt, so I decided to use a small piece of quilt wadding, and cotton fabric in a contrasting colour for the lining.
I had a piece of cotton fabric that I found in a charity shop, to line the bag, for the zip tabs, and the wrist strap.
I secured the wadding to the felt with a few decorative machine stitches, and then attached the zip. It was quite difficult to attach the zip, because of the thickness of the fabric and zip, and my sewing machine groaned a little during the effort, but eventually success was achieved. I had the same battle attaching the lining at the zip edge.
I decided to make a tab with a D ring, so that I could attach a wrist strap for security.
I used a little of the lining fabric for this, and a swivel clip. I wanted a pink zip too, but I could not find one locally, and made do with a beige coloured one that was in my box of ‘bits’.
I stitched up the sides, ‘boxed’ the corners and left a gap at the bottom edge of the lining for turning through. Once I turned the pouch the the right way out, I stitched up the turning through gap.
I think the bag looks very pretty, and it will hold a mobile, small purse, tissues, keys, lipstick or other small essentials for a night out wearing a posh frock!
Photos of both sides.
I enjoyed making this little pouch. It perhaps would have been easier to stitch if I had used an iron on interfacing, but the wadding does give the pouch a lovely ‘squishy’ feel too. Just a shame about the lack of a pink zip! I am very pleased to find a good use for the piece of work that I made in Ruth’s class.
Continuing on from stitch camp I have started stitching. I like the pieces with a lot of negative space best but thought I should try to do something outside my natural inclination. So I picked one with mostly yellow but a nice distribution of blue too to start with.
I did a bit of stitching but decided it was too soft and floppy to work well. The stitching was distorting the fabric even though it wasn’t pulled too tight. Another thing I could see, that might happen, is the messy stitching on the backside might show through the white fabric. Iron-on interfacing would solve both problems. I know I have some……somewhere. And the Iron, I have one of those too, I am sure I saw it recently.
I found the iron first, but not before a mouse had found it. The mouse (the one we caught in the fall,) had chewed up the cord. Not a nice chew in half or in one spot but all the way along. You can tell how often Iron because the mouse was caught in the fall, late September or early October. Well, I didn’t like that iron anyway it tended to leak. I will have to buy a new one. Sorry, no picture of the chewed-up cord. I tossed it out on garbage day.
I never know what to buy, so I picked the middle price and the one that says it does not leak on the box. I was tempted by the one with the retractable cord but it was digital with little buttons. I don’t think my iron needs electronics.
Then I found my one-sided iron-on interfacing.
I am less thrilled with the pieces than I was so I picked 3 of the double pieces and one of the singles to use and I will see how that goes. If I start liking them better I can do some more.
I have 2 ironing boards. on is under siege in the spare bedroom and the other one, the small one, disappeared into the packed things. so I had to do it the old-fashioned way with a wool blanket on the table. I used a small piece of sheeting for the ironing cloth.
Stitching with the interfacing is better.
When I did this bit of badly done satin stitch, I noticed the distortion starting. Adding the interfacing and ironing seems to have fixed it.
I don’t know what stitching to do. I know it’s all just an exercise but I still want it to look good. I did some seed stitch and that is probably my favourite so far. I thought it was done but looking at it now it needs something else across the join down near the bottom between the woven circle and the yellow seed stitch I think.
Since I started writing this post I started the second piece. One of the more blue ones. I decided to use some green thread as there are some green spots where the blue and yellow paint crossed.
So far so good. I find it hard to decide where to stitch and what to stitch. I am enjoying it and I hope my stitching will improve with the practice. I find it hard to get my needle to go in or come up exactly where |I want it to. I am using a rounded tip needle. Perhaps a sharp one would work better but I didn’t have one with me. Another thing to look for. It is probably stuck in a piece of foam with some felting needles in a project bag or box.
It wasn’t until I started editing the pictures that I noticed this piece has a parrot in it. It is funny how we don’t see things until we take a picture of them. Do you see it too?
3 parts of the green fibre collection.
13 elevating the top line of the fish body
14 On Library Day, Ann Checked out Mr. Mer’s Progress, she had a few suggestions.
It’s so lush, I just couldn’t wait to use it!
I love the candy stripes!!!
