Felted Friends Workshop with Sue Pearl

The creature workshop on Sunday with Sue Pearl hatched out a very colourful purple and turquoise duck. He's not quite finished but once he has dried out (he's currently snoozing in my airing cupboard...) and opened his eyes, he'll be ready to play.

In the meantime-

A Cautionary Tale

Earlier this year my lovely friend Julie bought 2 rose corsages from me. A pretty pink one and a gorgeous green. The other day she arrived at school looking sheepish..... She had left one on her cardigan and washed it by mistake!!

The photo shows a before and after shot as I had another which has now replaced the shrunken one!!!!

Felted Tree Update

A couple of the bands of colour on my felted tree are looking a bit sorry for themselves. I was quite sad to see it when I was at playgroup last week, until Matina informed me they were being attacked by squirrels. What makes it more interesting is only one colour seems to be affected.

I love the idea somewhere nearby there is a family of squirrels curled up in a bed of lilac merino wool!

Beret, scarf and flower commission.

As promised here are pictures:-

Can you spot the theme??  The scarf had little poppies hand sewn on the bottom (both sides) to add dimension and tiny seed beads in the centre of each.

And the results are.....

It's finished!! Pics follow:-

Making Day

Busy day making today. Finished prepping a nuno scarf made with an old silk scarf and a piece of gorgeous flamingo felbi pre felt. I'm not sure about the dots on the scarf side yet. They may disappear before felting.

Then I have been making cakes for the AGM tomorrow- flapjacks and Grandma Wheeler's 'bit of rough'! See pics!

And tonight I'm screen printing. 3 colour teasel!!

Teasels

Saw the most amazing thing..........


Lady driving down the M40 in a sports car with the roof down and a huge bunch of teasels in the back seat - as she was going along all the teasel seeds were being spread along the embankments. What a brilliant idea - is it guerilla gardening?


Good news for all the goldfinches and other hungry birds next year.


And inspiration for me - my next screen print is a 3 colour teasel.

Screen printing!!

So last night I went to learn screen printing. It's such an immediate result. My head is buzzing with felt/print combos. Watch this space! In the mean time here are my first 3 prints ever!!

Glove workshop

Last Sunday found me in a north London basement learning how to make felt gloves with Cathy Unwin. I just wanted to post some pics of final product! Many thanks to Cathy, I love them. Pics of cuffs to follow!

Also a picture of the glove in progress - to show how big they start off - they shrink down surprisingly quickly once they start.

BeeBeeCrafts on blogs

Had two lovely surprises today. BeeBeeCrafts has been featured on two blogs. Bertie Bee is on www.thiscraftinglife.blogspot.com and my remembrance poppy is on www.ello-design.blogspot.com. I feel very honoured to be included alongside such gorgeous items. Thank you very much!

It does confirm what a 'dangerous' (for my purse!) site folksy is! So many lovely things............

It has been quite an exciting couple of days......  in terms of felting and felting projects..... 

I have had a flurry of orders on folksy - I have been at the local post office nearly every day in  the last week and BeeBeeCrafts has gone international!  Bertie Bumble Bee is winging his way across the atlantic as I type - I hope he copes ok with the journey!

Then I have commisions to make a beret, scarf and flower for a lovely lady's birthday (can't say any more as it's a surprise....), a blue heart wedding card, a green rose brooch, some slippers, another scarf and just today another scarf!

Finally and probably most exciting I went to meet a friend this morning who works with ceramics - Debbie Shaw, and she had seen my poppy lampshade which is on display at the Caramel Square and wants us to collabarate on a project where she makes lamp bases and I do the shades.  As I said, VERY excited!!!  I went to her house to see the kind of bases she is planning and was shown round her magical garden - there were heads, angels, horses, dragons, mermaids, poppy seeds, buddha, suns, figures, and more everywhere.

If all goes according to plan they should be on display in a shop in Flackwell Heath later in the year.  Did I mention I was excited?!!

I shall keep you posted.....

Sheila Smith workshop teaser - more details to follow!

Laying out the patchwork pieces prior to felting - it's going to be a bag....

Felting a tree......

For most of last year my youngest went to playgroup 3 mornings a week.  Staff and parents have been doing up the garden bit by bit.  So far we have built a living willow dome and tunnel, and painted most things that stand still long enough (the children were obviously safe from this!).  There was one corner which remained dark and dingy - solution?  Felt a tree!


I know it sounds mad but it's a colourful take on a very old idea where people used to wrap and felt trees with old fleeces to protect them from the worst of the winter weather.  It doesn't damage the tree as the wool is breathable.

The before picture

Wrapping up the tree - I did 3 layers in total, 2 x white merino then the top layer.

Giving the tree a rub down

The finished tree

Whilst the tree got a make over outside, inside the children decorated prefelt handprints to make a handprint tree wallhanging and made felt beads and sausages to make mobiles to hang in the trees. 

Many thanks to the staff and parents who helped make everything work.

Think pink - Baby booties!

Following the birth of beautiful Macy Abigail in April (if she is my cousin's daughter, does that make her my second cousin?) I was inspired to make these cute pink booties.  Any excuse to play with pink having a house full of blue....

They are merino wool with cerise pink silk laps on the surface.  They are lovely but unfortunately by the time I gave them to Macy (it had to be in person obviously) they were a little on the small size...... maybe they work as a keepsake?  I had also put a small slit in the front to help getting them on and off but no joy.  Size adjustment required for the template I think.  

Puppets and parties.

My oldest son turned 5 at the weekend(Happy Birthday!) , and he has just finished his first year of school - unbelievable. Time really does fly.  As a present for his teacher I made this felted hand puppet.  

Many thanks to Jellipot for the inspiration.  About a month ago I took delivery of a gorgeous turquoise and red hand felted thingymabobber (to use Jellipot's terminology).  He has pride of place on my work table, when he hasn't been kidnapped by one or other of the boys, and he helped me make the rainbow version for Mrs Bennett.  To see the original puppets and other lovely fluffy things see www.jellipot.folksy.com.

Poppy Lampshade

Many thanks to Zed for the inspiration for this lampshade. I'm really pleased with it.  I'm going to try a bluebell one next.
I wet felted the base with merino and blue faced leicester then added needle felted poppies to make it more 3D.
Hope you like it....

Experimenting with silk laps and nuno felt

I bought some silk laps from Sue Pearl on her workshop.  It's a gorgeous sheet of silk which opens up into a sort of net and can be put straight on top of the wool and then wet felted in.  I wanted to do some samples to get an idea of different effects and how it would felt.

Turquoise silk laps on clementine merino wool.  You can make the silk have a fairly thick coverage or open it up more to get more gaps.

The winter light doesn't really do it justice, it has a really gorgeous shine which contrasts well with the felt.

Silk laps on a tanzanite merino wool background, I tried adding texture with marbles... my first experiment with this!  I don't think the white wool background works, maybe a contrasting colour?? 

Close up, again, the shine hasn't shown up.

 I also wanted to try out some different fabrics for nuno felting.  I had some organza (not silk) fragments so had a go with those.

Experiment with felting organza.  It took quite a while to get it to felt but the effect was quite cool.  I like the way it concertinas up when the wool shrinks.

I love this effect.  Add a network of wool to organza and you end up with bubbles of fabric. 

 Finally I wanted to have a go at making a felt vessel.  I made this by using a sheet of plastic as a resist and then shaping during the fulling process.  It was a bit like making a clay pot!  Although I never had much success with that when I have tried it.  I think felt is a bit more forgiving!

Felt vessel, made from blue faced leicester with turquoise tussah silk.

Sue Pearl - Nuno and Cobweb felt workshop

So following the regional meeting I decided to book on as many feltmaking courses as possible.   The first of which was run by Sue Pearl in her studio in North London.  A very intensive day of cobweb and nuno feltmaking.  There was so much to take in, Sue is obviously very passionate about feltmaking and had so many ideas and suggestions I thought my head was going to explode!  I have been madly making things ever since and trying things out.  Photos to follow of those.  Here are some photos of the lovely things I made on Sue's workshop.  

Sample piece of cobweb felt

Close up

First attempt at nuno felt.  Merino wool on cotton scrim background.  When the sun finally shines I will take another photo of this.  The colours work better than this shows.

Close up

Merino wool on silk nuno felt scarf

IFA Region 5 Meeting

Late last year I joined the International Feltmakers Association (IFA).  Each region in the UK runs workshops, either formal where there is a tutor or informal where the members get together to share ideas.  I went to my first ever meeting earlier this month.  It was an informal workshop to make things for the Living Crafts show at Hatfield House in May.  The theme was Spring - Bursting with colour.   Region 5 Coordinators Hilary and Julie welcomed me and explained the set up.  It was really great to meet the other members and watch them create some amazing pieces.  I can't wait to see the finished results.  Everyone was so welcoming and friendly, and happy to help the novice! (Like having lots of tutors!)  I've been putting a lot of the tips into practice since, hopefully you will start to see the difference!


Here are some of the things I have been making, most are works in progress....

Snowdrop picture, cut pre-felt pieces wet felted into the blue base.  I still need to add some green detail to the flowers and bud.

Hilary showed us how to make flowers on a silk square base (my first experience of nuno felt!)  I think I may add some beads in the centre....

I think one of the suggestions was to pin these around the stand at Living Crafts

Laying out the bluebell picture before wetting down.  I mixed the wool colours using carders I got for Christmas, thank you to Hilary for showing me how to actually use them!

The finished picture (bit of a wonky shape but I'm pleased with the colours)

Big poppy, drying over a bowl to keep the domed shape.  This is the inside.

The outside of the poppy.  I have now stitched a red wool covered wire around the edge and I'm trying to decide what stiffener to try on the middle.  I think the plan is to hang them.  To see what it should look like see Carol Huber Cypher's book 'How we felt'.  This colour combo is taken straight out of there.  I'm really pleased with the result though so I'm going to have a go at some different colours next.