Christmas Leftovers

Continuing the theme, I also made this tree as part of a Ravelry Christmas Swap:

It's knitted and felted and was quick to do: the pattern is here.

This was the content of the parcel I sent out, which I'm pleased to say went down well.

Catching Up

I have been rather slack on this blog recently, many apologies, work and life have got the better of me. I am going to attempt to do some quick catching up on the 'makes' I've not got around to putting up, so expect lots of pictures in the next little while.

I'll start with the left overs from Christmas, before it seems too unseasonal to mention them:

I made a lot of these knitted and felted mistletoe pieces and added pins to the back to make broaches. The pattern can be found here, but I did do a bit of tweeking as I went along to get the leaves to be more of the shape that I think of as mistletoe like.

 They made cute little stocking fillers along with a nice lip gloss.

fabric scraps broach

Here's a broach that I made out of layers of fabric scraps randomly machined together then trimmed into a circle. I embellished it with some small glass beads and embroidered with a running stitch and french knots and glued a spare felted 'bead' from previous projects into the centre. Simple and  very quick.

felted scrap mini-beasts

When we were making felted necklaces the other day there were some tiny ends that we didn't want to use as beads. My daughter (7) disappeared and here is what she came up with:

Her mini beasts were made from little bits of felt trimmings stuck down on some paper with PVA glue and then drawn around to add the other shapes/ legs etc. I think they are quite cute.

More felted necklace fun.

My d.d. and I have been continuing with our felted necklace fun.

We are mad on these, they are such fun to make and get loads of good comments when worn. Thanks to Kleas blog for the original instructions.

This is how we go about it:

We start by sorting out which colours of wool roving we want to use. My daughter has to use at least one shade of pink!

She spread out the fibres and made some multicoloured piles which were then rolled up into sausages and dunked in warm (as hot as she liked) water.

There was then a lot of rolling and rubbing with a piece of soap and some net fabric wrapped around the felt. In the hot water, out again and rub.... keeping going until ...............

a roughly held together felt snake (or two) had been made.

 (The Secret bit: at this stage she went to bed and I cunningly put the sausages inside a dedicates washing net then threw them in the washing machine with a load of washing. They came out smaller and more solidly felted and needed a bit of pulling to make them straight.)

When dry they were then chopped up with sharp scissors to make the disc/ beads and threaded together to make the necklaces. Clear elastic thread seems to be a good solution.

This one was made for me and the bottom one was made for her, because it's got more pink in it!

Definitely good fun to make, great as gifts for children to make and be genuinely wearable.

There's a 7 year old girl at my daughter's swimming class who always comes to see me to check out what I'm knitting and what necklace I have on. She is desperate for her mum to help her make one, so hopefully this will be of some use!

Felted Necklace

I thought that I should get round to putting on a picture of the felted necklace that my daughter and I made since whenever I wear it I always get loads of positive comments and end up describing how to make one. I'm not going to do a set of instructions since it's not my idea, but one I got from Kleas blog which takes you beautifully through the whole process. She really enjoyed making it and threaded it all up herself which accounts for the wobbly angles of the beads and which I think is all the better for. We'll definitely be developing this idea over the summer holidays.

Not bad for a first felting project