Happy New Year!

Apologies for the lack of posts in December, I have been travelling in Hong Kong and New Zealand but I promise to post some kiwi and HK inspired work in the next few days.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year filled with creativity and to thank those whose blogs I follow for your generous sharing of techniques and ideas, you are truly inspirational.

I don’t subscribe to setting New Year’s resolutions, most seem to fail before we even reach February, but I do think it is important to follow your dreams and that usually involves setting some goals…

Here are my goals for 2014:

  • dedicate more time to creative activities (I have already “bought” some extra annual leave at work that should allow me to spend 1 day every 2 weeks dedicated to felt making and other creative interests)
  • create at least 50 good quality pieces for sale
  • find alternative sources for selling my works, including at least 2 craft fairs and improve marketing of my work
  • complete my City and Guilds felt making course before August
  • post at least once per week
What are your goals for 2014?
Happy New Year!

Something for myself 2 of 2

Today I sewed up the handbag I felted yesterday. First pinning and sewing the internal pockets into place. The gap between the two pockets will be the base of the bag.

Pinning the side seams for stitching (right sides together).

Attaching the handle, this was stitched to the side panels and the top of the front panel stitched down over the top of the handle ends, you can see where I have pinned the handle into place on the right.
I added a magnetic clasp and decorative ceramic button.

To give an idea of scale…

I have already “moved in”, here is the inside full of my junk… the 3 compartments are going to be really useful.

Something for myself

Having spent the last 4 weeks furiously finishing pieces for the Christmas fair last Thursday I thought I would take a weekend off from felting but have failed miserably, I didn’t even manage to get out of bed this morning before I was buzzing with ideas for a handbag. I could do with a new bag, so this one will be just for me.

I made an evening purse for the craft table, which to be honest is my favourite out of the bags I had for sale, but it doesn’t contain enough pockets for my day-to-day use so I wanted to create something a little less glitzy, a little more boxy (so it can hold more of my “essential” junk) and have some pockets for phone and pens (I can never seem to find pens when I want them despite there always being at least 3 milling about in the depths of my handbag).

This is the evening bag I made a few weeks ago:

I have used purples and pinks for this bag with some rainbow dyed silk hankies for sheen and colour variation on what will be the front flap (bottom of the picture).

This is the same piece after felting. The wider section will form the sides of the bag to give it a box shape once it is stitched together. The lower part of the picture will form the flap, it is not very clear from the picture but the silk hankies have a lovely sheen to them.

And the internal sections with the pen and phone pockets, these pieces will be stitched into the “box” to create 3 separate compartments inside the bag.

I hope to get this sewn up tomorrow, pardon the pun ;o), so expect to share the finished bag with you tomorrow evening.

First Craft Fair

I attended my first craft fair as a seller today. It was the annual Christmas Fayre where I do my day job. I approached it as a marketing opportunity so was pleasantly surprised by how much of my work sold (about 10% of the stock I took with me).

It was lovely to chat to the people I normally work with about crafting and had one person sign up to join our arts and crafts group which was a bonus :o)

I’m afraid the pictures I took are a bit rubbish but hopefully this will give you a flavour:

Experiments in fabric lamination – some finished pieces

Inspired by Ruth Lane’s stitching on her ammonites shells, I put the free motion embroidery foot on my machine and started stitching, these are the results…

I turned this piece into a tablet case with some silver and blue embroidery.

This is the back, I can’t decide how to hold the flap closed, I’m not keen on velcro and don’t want to use press studs or magnetic clasps for fear of damaging the tablet. I’m leaning towards an elastic strap over the top that the flap will slide under but I’m open to suggestions?

 The foil flowers became an iphone case with a cute little flower-shaped button to hold it closed on the back.

I also got around to sewing up some flexi-frame pouches.

This is a really interesting technique I learned from the Sew Sister stand at Woolfest this year. They recommend machine embroidery but I mostly used hand embroidery (chain stitch) and needle felting for these cases. The method involves stitching a piece of fabric to a prefelt base and then felting it in the washing machine. As the prefelt shrinks the areas that have been stitched remain flat but the areas in between become rippled, resulting in a very thick, padded fabric.

1 … 38 39 40 41 42 … 45