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.

Experiments in fabric lamination – take 2

Feeling a bit disappointed with the results from various metallic and hollographic papers I thought I would give fusible film a try. This will require a slightly different approach, the shapes will need to be cut out of the film before applying to the organza. I had expected to be able to fuse the film directly to the organza without the need for acrylic medium but that did not work. The film only limply attached to the organza, peeling away as soon as the organza was moved.

Acrylic medium to the rescue! Painting a thin layer of medium onto the fusible film and the pressing to the organza was successful. The fusible film was firmly attached, I gave it a quick iron before felting (literally less than 10 seconds on a medium heat).

As this had worked so well I thought I would give the aluminium foil another try, cutting out shapes, painting on the medium and pressing the shapes onto the organza. So far so good…. I’m afraid I did not think to take any pictures at this stage – sorry, but here are some after felting each piece.

This is fusible film, I laid out 2 colours, green and purple in a grid, some folds have appeared in the film where the wool has shrunk dragging the organza and film with it. As you would probably expect the felt has not attached where the film lies between the wool and the organza.

 

I love the metallic, multicoloured effect of the film. It is almost holographic in the way it changes colour as the direction of light changes.

I also had a play with aluminium foil.

The foil has rippled where the wool shrank. Laying the laminate with foil beneath the organza means the foil takes on the hue of the organza, in this case a pale blue.

I also experimented with using my die-cutter to produce more elaborate shapes, this sort of worked but the shapes are a little distorted from felting.

In this picture you can see how the foil prevents the felt from attaching to the organza where the foil has lifted in the lower right corner.

Finally, I tried one piece with the foil uppermost. This worked surprisingly well but I don’t expect it will be as durable, although the foil feels well attached now I can easily see it being torn in the bottom of a handbag if I made this felt into a gadget case.

 

 

I plan to follow Ruth Lane’s lead and embroider some of these pieces. Her machine embroidery of the laminated fossil shells really lifted the shapes and made them very special.

Further experiments in fabric lamination

I have been playing with some different materials for laminating with including aluminium foil, metallic and hollographic papers to see if they will laminate and what the effects will be once they are nuno felted. These images on the left were taken after applying the medium through some Christmassy stencils. The images on the right after soaking in warm water overnight and attempting to remove what had not been glued to the organza.

Aluminium foil
All the foil detached from the medium leaving just the medium attached to the organza.


Holographic paper
Again, the holographic foil preferred to detach from the organza than from it’s card backing

Foiled wrapping paper
This one worked reasonably well although the medium is a little thick in places leading to white lines.

Mirrored card
The red plastic film on top of the “mirror” partially adhered but obviously was not longer reflective.


Metallic card
This sort of worked, at least it detached easily from the paper but the result is not very metallic.


Textured metallic card
This did not work at all, it behaved a lot like aluminium foil in that the non-glued areas refused to detach.

The only one that really worked out of this batch was the metallic red wrapping paper. A bit disappointing really. :o(

I still attempted to felt a few of them, the medium on its own is quite effective.

Foil wrapping paper
The medium on its own 

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