Hemlock Stems in Autumn

Walking today nearby I came across these hemlock stems, what fantastic structures especially lit by the sunshine. Last year I sketched out a design with a hemlock seed-head and it's waiting to be made into a felt piece, although getting the detail of the lines will be a challenge, I think that's why I haven't made it yet!

My artist friend Tammy has just finished a linocut reduction of hemlock, which involves cutting away more of the design from the lino with each colour printed, I think the effect is lovely. She and I try to keep each other sane and meet up as often as we can for mutual support, coffee and chattering, check out her beautiful prints and paintings at her website.

Needle Felting a Robin

Here is my second attempt at needle felting, I'm not sure what the proper technique is but all I did was keep on stabbing the wool with a felting needle as I wrapped it round into a vaguely robin-like shape. Felting needles are so, so sharp with tiny barbs at the end which push the wool fibres through each other on the down-stroke, anchoring the fibres together. I have wet-felted balls before which have turned out very densely packed. For the robin though I didn't think he had to be so dense, so stopped stabbing him when he felt firm but still with a bit of give. I shaped the beak and wings by needle-felting tufts of wool, then firmly needled them onto his face and sides. I then just wetted and slightly felted his outside layer to smooth the surface a bit, and finished him with two beady black eyes. He is about 6cm tall and keeps falling onto his beak as I didn't shape his base quite flat enough, but I've already started to make some more. I only stabbed myself twice, which I was quite pleased with as I'm fairly clumsy.

A Beautiful Autumn Morning

Perfect weather for October, the leaves on our Acer have turned a lovely shade of russet.
Spent a lovely morning with a good friend walking in the nearby village of Market Bosworth, we both liked the herringbone pattern in this unusual wall - when we're not so busy we might have a go at constructing one in her garden - how hard can it be? It's lovely to see old bricks rather than the modern character-less ones, and the plants making a home for themselves in the nooks and crannies.

Very Small Felted Pots

I'd been wanting to make some really tiny pots, suitable for just keeping a few rings or paperclips in. I started out by coating the outside of a small plastic bowl in soap jelly, then added a few silk fibres over the top and then wool tops in two different colours.It's a bit fiddly holding the layers in place when the middle layer is supposed to be wrapping sideways around the bowl.
After felting for a while with the bowl still in place, when I was sure the layers were bonded I slipped the bowl out carefully and turned the felt over, replacing it inside-out for more felting. I then wrapped it in net and rolled it in a mat, first rolling from the base and then from the sides, alternating until it was fulled.
I tried two different styles, one plain and the other with 'petals' which I separated out early on as soon as the fibres had begun to hold together. These needed much more attention during the whole process to keep them from just felting onto the rest of the structure, but I think I prefer the more interesting form that resulted.
I ended up sewing on some beads to add a bit more colour to just finish them off.

Crochet Cat versus Real Cat

Now the weather is turning cooler, our cat Newton wants to be as warm as possible, which usually means climbing as high as he can and squeezing into a basket a couple of sizes too small. Here he is in the kitchen ontop of our tallest cupboard, just above the cat I made last year to almost match him.

Felt Flower Corsage

I bought a new coat last week. In fact, my friend and I bought exactly the same coat, in different colours. Anyway, I wanted to try and make a flower corsage to go with it, I'd seen lots, all different styles. I was aiming for something quite large and floppy, with some stamens in the middle. I'd previously tried to make felt flowers by wrapping the pre-formed stamens round a pebble, then covering the whole pebble with layers of fibres, felting, then cutting to form the petals and get the pebble out, I found all this quite complicated. So an experiment followed.
I first pre-felted two pieces of flat felt, then cut out large daisy shapes, and put one ontop of the other.
I also made some stamens by rolling very fine pieces in the middle until felted, while leaving the ends un-felted. What I hoped to do was to fold them in half and place the un-felted ends in the centre of the flower, then fold all the petals together around them, so that it looked like a bud, all closed up. Then I used some hot water on just the end which was the centre of the flower, wrapped it up in net and rolled the flower sideways in a blind.
The theory was ok, but in practice I found my petals had felted together a bit too much and I had to tease them apart. At this point I thought that trying to felt a two-layer flower with stamens all together was perhaps a bit too ambitious.
I persevered (it's important to not give up even when things don't quite work as you expect) carefully rolling first with the flower sideways, then with it folded in half flat with the petals at the top, finishing off shaping by hand.

The stamens have just about attached, and I've shaped each petal by folding it in half lengthways as it dried which gives the flower a lot more structure. I've over-estimated the shrinkage, so it's pretty big, but the colours have come out really well, and if you're going to wear a felt flower it might as well make a statement. And it did make me want to try more flowers with different colours.

Monday Morning

With an ill child at home what better way to spend a morning than finishing off bits and pieces of felt in between providing drinks. I ended up beading the edge of my mirror frame by threading beads onto a blanket stitch as I went round.

I've also managed to make the bits needed for a commissioned bag, ready to assemble, although I still need to do the lining. The flowers on the table are only there to make it look as though I'm so committed to having a nice looking kitchen that I always rush into the garden to cut fresh flowers. Of course the reality is there are usually no flowers in the kitchen, just lots of bags of wool, and wisps of roving mixed with dust wafting gently across the tiled floor, together with the occasional soap flake.