resurrection fern

Snowflake Pendant Tutorial

Here is the little tutorial I promised yesterday inspired by the fresh fallen snow on the deep dark brown earth. It can be made in any color and with a simpler design. It could really be adapted to any thing you or your children might be inspired to stitch onto felt.

Materials : box board, template for circles, pencil, scissors, felt, embroidery thread, needles and a length of wool, ribbon or trim.

Step 1 : Trace some circles onto your box board. I used a small espresso shot glass but a small glass would be fine. The fern snow globe one was started in my office and I used my stethoscope as a template:)

 

Step 2:  Cut out the circles.

Step 3: Using your cardboard circles cut out two felt circles for each pendant. Cut the felt about 1/8 th of a inch wider than the cardboard. You will understand why later.

 

Step 4:  You are ready to embroider your snowflake or other pattern onto one of the felt circles. My design uses three simple stitches : outline stitch, chain stitch and the fly stitch. Hint when you are using the fly stitch start at the periphery and work your way inward. A great on-line source of stitch tutorials can be found here.

 

 

Step 5: Now turn it over, place the cardboard circle in the center and cover with the second piece of felt. 

 

Step 6:  Now you are ready to do a blanket stitch all around the edge starting just to the right of the center top of your pendant. Stop about 1/2 " from completing the circle.

 

Step 7:  Take a length of yarn, trim or ribbon at least 2 feet long and tie the ends. Place this knot behind the cardboard at the opening. 

 

 

Step 8:  Now continue the blanket stitch catching the wool as you stitch.

Step 9:  Secure the end of the embroidery thread and try it on.

 

 

Hint:  This could easily become a pendant by adding a pin to the back. It would look lovely on a hat or head band or even attached to a hair clip or pony tail holder. 

 

That of course is the first snow fall version of bench monday. I adore folkloric woolens.

first snow inspired embroidery

On the last post I hinted about a first snow inspired little hand sewing project. I was thinking about how the first snow really rekindles my dwindling inspiration reserves. At the end of autumn , especially when the calendar turns to November, the time changes and the number of daylight hours I am exposed to significantly diminishes, I find myself a little listless. I often feel like curling up with the kitties and taking naps. When I experience the first snow it revives me, unfurls me and gives me the much needed energy to create.

This is how I turned this experience into a small hand sewn felt medallion. It is a resurrection fern snow globe. On one side you see the fern ( me ) curled up with the snow lying on the ground. Then you only need hold it in your hand and shake it and like magic with the snow floating everywhere the fern ( me )  unfurls and awakens.

 

 

 

 

 

The snow melted the next day and we experienced almost summer temperatures on the weekend. The snow may be gone but the inspiration isn't. I already completed my next snow inspired pendant. I love the white snow against the dark brown earth. This will be a simple little tutorial for young and old to sew up some small gifts for special friends. The first snow always means the beginning of christmas gift making in my house. I hope to update my list of tutorials soon for easy access.

 

Have a great start to your week. Remember if you are longing for snow all you need are a needle and some snow white thread and then you will be ready to sew along.

le petit lapin noir

I finished an idea that has been hopping around in my mind for a while now. I wanted to combine some of my favorite things : crocheted lace, embroidery, linen, felt, lockets into something wearable. My eldest daughter said she saw a wild black bunny which is a very rare sighting. The wild rabbits are brown in this region. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chain is nice and long so I think it will look really lovely worn. I will attempt to get a picture on a model today but for now all the little bunnies in the house are still asleep. I will leave with this beautiful image from just outside my favorite morning coffee shop.

little bits and pieces

It is late when I am writing this post. I just got back from the swell season concert in Toronto which was well , fantastic. I love how the sweetness and raw energetic vocals and instrumentals came together seamlessly. Glen work a typical Canadian toque at the beginning of the concert that he said someone on the street gave him. You can see the large green pom pom in this dim photograph.

 

All I have to show you are a few bits and pieces of things I am working on little by little in the tiny cracks of spare time I have these days. These were photographed in the beautiful bright sunshine this morning before work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making those little droplet shaped crocheted bits is becoming a little addictive.

Wish me luck with a very long day ahead of me on the H1N1 front lines.

How to Make a Fabric Covered Button Badge

A few of you asked for a tutorial on how to make a covered button badge of your own. It doesn't take much persuasion to get me to do a little tutorial. I see my little blog as a little spring board. Giving some of you that extra little lift to get your crafting life off the ground. Before I start I am going to apologize for the poor photography. I had to use the flash, something I dread. No light when I get home from work these days. The apology out of the way I think the pictures are self explanatory but I will add very brief descriptions of the steps.

1. Gather up your materials. I like to gather up more than I need because once I get into that making mode I hate to get up and look for things. The basic things you need are fabric, a small piece of felt,  covered button kit size 60, one inch wide ribbon or trim, a ruler, needle and thread, scissors and safety pins or brooch fasteners. 

 

2. I cut out vintage fabrics and a lovely moose from fabric Lara Cameron. I decided to use the moose for this little tutorial. Make a covered button using the instructions with your kit.

 

3.  Cut a length of ribbon 12 inches long. 

 

4.  Thread a needle and gather the ribbon. You could use a sewing machine here but I like to sew by hand. Pull the gathering until the length measures 5 inches which is the circumference of the button. Tie a knot to secure the length.

5.  Now sew together the ends of the ribbon to form a gathered circle. 

 

6.  Center this on the back side of the covered button.

 

7.  Now thread the needle again and sew this onto the edge of the fabric covered button. You could probably glue it instead but I rarely use glue so I prefer to hand sew.

 

8.  Now cut a piece of felt into a circle 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Make two little openings and poke a safety pin through. Sew the pin down into place with a few small stitches. 

 

9.  Now center this felt backing on the undersurface of your badge and sew it into place. 

 

10.  Add any detail you would like with a needle and embroidery thread. I added a tiny patch of moose moss to munch. 

 

I attempted to take a picture of it on a top of mine but it is late at night and again I apologize for the poor quality photographs. 

 

That is my closet door:)

 

I hope to have my hat pattern posted tomorrow. It is so quick and easy to knit up. 

 

By the way you will find a little post about me on Whip up and you can purchase my plush you 2009 items here. I think they would make wonderful gifts this holiday season and it would be like the gift that keeps giving since I am donating my portion of the sale to Greenpeace. Both the turtle and Halvard include crochet covered sea stones. 

owls and acorns and liberty, oh my

Last night I was watching a few episodes of madmen ( a current favorite) online and I made a windfall of crocheted acorns, started a little embroidery project and a new little covered stone character , an owl with liberty wings. A quick little photo shoot on my way to work this morning and voila!!

 

 

 

 

I think my favorite is the one in the top picture, made from cashmere yarn from my stash.

 

I think this little purple owl on woodsy liberty fabric will turn into a very large button for a new scarfette I plan to knit up with some hand spun wool. I think it would make a sweet gift for someone.

 

 

 

He was really trying very hard to fly over those hills and far away but having a stone belly makes it very difficult to gain any altitude. Better to just to sit for a while with a complementary acorn.

 

A few more pictures of some really beautiful seed pods, off to bed and then to the office for a very long day at work. I might have to bring Oliver ( the stone Owl) to keep me smiling.

 

things to come

As soon as I get my etsy shop sold items packed up and on there merry way I am looking forward to getting back to work on some textile accessories I have been working on and some mixed media shadow boxes. 

Sometimes I think I may be a little moth in disguise as I flit from one little project to another. The problem is that I have at least a multiple of ten times more ideas in my little journal that have yet to come to life and there are another multiple of ten times more ideas that I have not even written in the journal. I seriously think I might need to offer myself up for cloning experiments. I could really use another set of hands at least. 

I have been working on more jelly fish made from embroidered liberty tana lawn cotton and hand crocheted with vintage crochet cottons. They make amazing long necklaces or at least my daughter's think so. I also think they look lovely just hanging somewhere special. I have made three unique sea creatures so far. I have also made a few very special tiny fabric and crocheted mushrooms and pieces for a very special brooch. I haven't taken pictures of all of these yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am working on some multi media pieces and this is the first one I have almost finished. It incorporates a hand embroidered spider, a spider web inspired crochet covered stone with a dangling thread and some pieces of the forest collected from some of my walks this fall. The back ground is a very old piece of handwoven linen mounted inside one of my all purpose natural wooden trays.  I am really hoping to pursue this idea in many different forms combining my love of nature and collecting with my love of fiber art and hand made nature inspired objects.

 

This piece is titled dangling participle in red. I will post more when I have them put together and photographed.  

like a bird on a wire

I had a "tiny happy" sort of morning. If you know the lovely melissa and her always inspiring blog you will relate to this. The other night as I was driving home I had to pull over a take a picture of birds, power lines and sky.

I got out my blue linen, made some white sponged areas for the hint of clouds, black embroidery thread and stitched up this. One of the things I love most about melissa  is how she sees something that inspires her and in no time flat she has translated it freehand onto fabric with a needle and thread.

TIP: How to make a tiny little bird with two french knots and three tiny stitches. Make a french knot wrapping the single thread 5 times for the body. Close by make a french know for the head wrapping 3 times. One little stitch for the beak and two in a chevron shape for the tail. There you have a tiny little bird.

Related links :

>powerlines mini trend scroll down to the post on the 11th of september

repeat fabric

my second favorite leonard cohen song

(the first is suzanne)

this new flickr contact and amazing artist

this flickr group

"I have tried in way to be free" 

free to wander,

free to observe,

free to create

thank you summer of 2009

 

vintage embroidered abc's

I found a large piece of vintage linen that had large colorful letters embroidered to form a german phrase that I couldn't manage to translate. I bought it for next to nothing because it was badly stained and had a few holes in it. I must have been in a wanting to take a break from hand sewing and I was also in a back to school mood. I found a large piece of felt and enlisted the help of my sewing machine to sew a felt back onto the lines of german words. I cut out the letters and arranged them on the porch table in alphabet order. I am only missing p,q,x and y. I have extra fabric so I could embroider these one day if I find I can't live without them. Some of the letters are very flamboyant and a little difficult to decipher but the array of colors and shapes make them great fun to spell with.  At first we were just having fun laying them out on the table but later I came up with the idea of a felt board in a quilting hoop. The felt backing on the letters now made complete sense.

Don't you love those capital letters?

One last one to go along with this photograph I took this evening.

All things illuminated.

I will have all the winners of the week of blog giveaways later today. Since I am actually writing this post before midnight it just wouldn't be fair to announce the winners already. 

dream weaver

I watched hundreds of tiny golden spiderlings hatch in May from an egg sac that was tucked under one of my porch window boxes. Now just over three months later some of these little ones survived wind, rain, almost tornadoes, birds and scavengers to reach full potential. Now as the nights become cool and crisp they are weaving huge webs, trapping and consuming a large number of insects so that they might mate, lay their dreams for next spring and die. This post is my small way of showing to these tireless dream weaver survivors that their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Dream weaver
Ive just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind
Ooh dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light

                                                                lyrics by Reo Speedwagon

I would like to have a requiem for a dream weaver and would love your contributions. You can leave it in the comments below and I will draw a name to win one of the orb spider hoop embroideries on the fourth day of September at midnight.