I love to think of them bobbing along on needles all over the world, helping create wonderful items. So after the rush was dealt with I decided to give felting another go and make something for me.
I love felting, the smell of the wool, cats LOVE it too and have to be banned from the kitchen once I get going and I get 3 or 4 faces sat on the windowsill all staring in longingly at me laying out the wool and assuring me that they could help!
I wanted to make a new bag that I take the post to the Post Office from felt. Being a sort of can't wait to start and see how it goes rather than planning in detail, the first attempt ended up being a wall hanging. The plan was to make some felt fabric and then cut it up and sew into a bag. Firstly I shrunk it too much so it wasn't being enough and secondly I felt it was too pretty to cut up!
This is it just after felting out on the line to dry.
Luckily the weather was warm so it dried quite quickly and in a few days I could get on to the machine embroidery. I have a very old sewing machine who has seen better days and gets quite temperamental at times, chews fabric and gets stuck! When it is behaving all goes smoothly but I do frequently shout at it when it's being naughty! I should buy a new one really or maybe get it serviced as old machines seem to be made better. Anyway after a few machine 'issues' and a steep learning curve about sewing onto felt I felt it was finished. Less is more isn't in my vocabulary and I had to stop myself adding more to it!
Sewing is not my strong point, but I was happy with the finished result and it now hangs over the fireplace. It was a good test piece as I felt there were too many big flowers, but I did learn how to get the curly locks to felt in (previous attempts they came away).
I also learnt different techniques for making flowers...some worked well, others didn't. So all in all it was lots of fun and a good learning curve !
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