My first felt work

Again, it's been a very long time since last I blogged. The reason is simple enough. I haven't been all that creative lately. I have had something to do anyway though. I've made a sale on an "old" item and gotten an order for a new purse which is almost done and will be blogged soon, I promise. In the meantime I'll entertain you with a little something I made for my friend Charlotte's birthday. (That's today by the way. YAAAY for Charlotte!!)

As the title suggests I've worked with felt for this project. I have worked with felt before, like when I made this bag for Ester in Croatia, but this was the first time I attempted to use the felt for more than just a simple one-piece decoration.

First I need to do some explaining so that you'll all understand the gift. Both Charlotte and me are great fans of the british TV-show Doctor Who and (almost) all things related to it. The main character in the show is called The Doctor and he travels through time and space in a spaceship-time machine called the TARDIS, which is one of the most awesome contraptions in sci-fi history. In my opinion, that is. But anyway, this is what The Doctor's TARDIS looks like:

So, now we can move on to the actual creation.

I decided to make Charlotte a TARDIS pillow, but I had no blue fabric and no money to purchase any. BUT, I did get my hands on some cheap felt in various colors and some black, slightly strechy fabric and there I had it. I could make a pillowcase out of the black fabric and the TARDIS itself out of felt! So the process began.

I first drew up the various bits of the TARDIS and cut them out of paper, then I cut them out from the felt. Then I cut the pieces for the pillow case (also my first) and sewed that together with my brand new sewing machine (I'll give my girl her own post later) and then I stitched the bits and pieces of felt-TARDIS on to each other and the case, stuffed an Irma pillow from IKEA inside and voila! TARDIS pillow!

You can't see from the picture (obviously), but the pillowcase closes in the back with two regular black buttons.

I'm happy with it. Yeah, it's a little wonky, but I'm wonky, Charlotte's wonky and not to mention Tho Doctor, he's very wonky. ;)

In addition to this I'm adding a picture of the bag I sold earlier this year and a link to the post in which I presented it the first time. It's no problem if you want a bag like this, just send me an e-mail and I'll get on it as soon as I have the time. You can find my e-mail adress in the right side column on the main page of the blog.

Bits and Pieces

It's been ages...

I know it has been ages since I last posted, but during these past few weeks I have been making a couple of things that I will present in a recap post soon. I just have to finish my recent project which is an kashmir hat for my boyfriend.

I'll see you soon, I promise!

Spontanious creation

I've finally created something again. This time it was a bit on the spot, 'cause as I was in the process of turning my old, crappy jeans into a comfortable pair of shorts the idea came to me; I need a pin cushion!

So, after finishing the pair of shorts, I took the pant legs that I just cut off (Yes, another pair of pants have been recycled.), a piece of old rubber foam I had in the closet, needle and thread and I was ready to go.
I really decided on the shape of a crescent moon, but it ended up looking like a kitchen chair cushion. Still love the shape though. Then I cut out the bits for it from the old abandoned pant leg, pinned it all together and sewed to my heart's content. I really think I'm starting to develop a liking for sewing by hand. I did it with the strap on the bag I sent off to Croatia and now this thing and I like having to really spend my time with the sewing and also having to be that thorough to make the seam neat and tidy.

After I finished the cushion itself I took out my bag of ancient embroidery thread, picked out a neat red colour and my flashy gold thread and got to work. My gran taught me how to do tiny knots a while back and I use that technique whenever I can because it looks fancy and it's fun to do. In this case I got little red knots, decorative in its own way, but also enabled me to give the cushion a little bit of structure change on one side by doing the knots tightly and pushing the cushion together a bit where I put the knots. And since I am Little Miss Obvious I embroidered "NEEDLES" in shiny gold letters as well.


Here you can see both the knotwork and my fabulous embroidery:


Here you can see its actual size (if you're able to compare it to the gold thread next to it) :


As I told my boyfriend earlier tonight when he was complaining about being bored; If you don't have anything to do, you got to make something up.

Have fun and stay creative!

A new apology and a finished project

So.. First of all I want to say that I'm sorry about being so incredibly slow on this post, but I haven't been very productive and also I haven't been able to get pictures from my camera and onto my computer for quite a while so the blogging haven't exactly been easy. Plus I've been very very lazy since before Christmas. But anyway..In the end of November I got an order. My very first international order. It came from a girl in Croatia, with whom I used to play World of Warcraft (yes, I am -that- pathetic). She wanted a bag and so I started making a bag after her descriptions. On March the second it was finished. I know it was slow work but alot was going on, like Christmas and a couple of injuries (there will be a picture of one of them further down the post) and such, but my "customer" was okay with it.
The bag is 30cm (about 12") wide, about 45cm (17,7") long and the strap is 120cm (47,2") long. The bag itself is made from wool and as you can probably see by now the technique is needlebinding. The buttons are regular hard plastic and the red heart is felt. The lining of the bag (which you cannot see in the pictures) is a cotton/elastan mix. And for those of you that actually recognise that sort of fabric, yes I have recycled an old pair of pants from technically being trash to being a usefull part of my crafts. Not the first time I've done something like that either. I just might do a post on that at a later time. But back to the original bag. The only thing I should have done differently was that I miscalculated the length of the strap so it's a bit short for the girl that ordered it, but she managed to find a way to use it anyway so everyone's happy.
Here are the pictures of the finished product.

The bag from the front:

The bag's lid and buttons up close, unfortunatly the flash stole a lot of colour from it:


The bag's behind:

The felt heart and the stitching up close:

Ester with the bag in various ways and poses:




And here we have what sometimes happen when you work on your own and don't know the difference between finger and fabric when you're using the sewing machine:


Thanks for having a peek!

Stay creative!

Bracelet making

Earlier today I bought 25meters (82feet) of black 1mm leather string because I thought that might come in handy some time, and it allready has.
A few weeks ago I got an idea for a "new" use for needle binding. I read on Wikipedia that the women of the Nanti tribe in Peru used the technique to make bracelets and I thought "Hmmm, I wonder if that can be done with leather string?". And it could!

I used a regular, pretty large, blunt needle and bound as usual and in the pictures below you can see the result of this prototype project. It's a little uneven, but pretty good as far as a first attempt go.

This is the bracelet on my boyfriend's wrist. He asked me if he could have it so it's his now.

Here you can see the details a little bit better.
And here's a real close up so the knotwork really shows.

Learning something new

So, since my last post I've learnt a more modern, yet classic technique than my usual needlebinding. I've learnt to crochet! And here I'm going to present my very first crochet project: My shawl of many colours!


This shawl started out as just me practising my crocheting with some forest green wool, then it evolved into a left-over yarn project, but I ran out of left overs so then I had to go to the shop and buy some more. Yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't qualify as left-overs when I had to buy it, but what was a girl to do?
The shawl is about 165cm (65") wide and about 100cm (39,4") long.
The yarn I've used is called Cortina and is lovely, soft superwash wool and I used a 9mm crochet needle.

Bits and pieces

In this post I'm gonna show you a few bits and pieces I made earlier this summer and that I was planning on selling on markets, but Madam Fate didn't want it that way, so I've still got them.

First:
This purse was supposed to be just any old purse, but then I decided to do the lid with my spiral technique and it started looking slightly like an owl and when I got an old button from a duffle coat from my neighbour to close it with it became whole. And fully an owl, complete with a beak and everything! This is really one of my favourite items.
The purse is made from wool, the button/beak is horn (I don't know from which animal) and the technique is needle binding. The measurements of the purse is 15cm (5,9") long, 21cm (8,3") wide, the lid is about 10cm (3,9") and the strap is 75cm (29,5").

Second:
A small tote bag-ish thing for carrying little things, like a wallet, glasses, things like that. This is the first time I've noticed that it looks a little bit like a squid. Again, it's made from wool and needle bound. The green decorations along the strap is embroidered in woolen yarn. The bag is 13cm (5,1") wide, 18cm (7,1") long and the strap is 82cm (32,3").

Third:
A simple pair of wrist warmers. I actually had three pairs, the white ones, a pair in forest green and another one in dark grey but I gave away the grey ones to Beate and the green ones I modified and added abit to and gave to my friend Charlotte for her birthday.
The warmers are about 6cm (2,4") in diameter and 10cm (3,9") long. They, like most other of my creations, are made from wool and needle bound.