Needle felting and glorious tins

ARE YOU GETTING USED TO THESE MESSAGES YET? I AM GOBSMACKED, SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE JOINED THE "ALL THE COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW" SWAP ALREADY, THANK YOU SO MUCH, GIRLS. THERE ARE STILL A FEW COLOURS LEFT, SO IF YOU HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT........... JUST DO IT, PUT YOUR NAME DOWN FOR A COLOUR! PARTNERS WILL BE DRAWN ON MONDAY, YIPPEE!

Remember those felt beads I made whilst we were in France? Well, I had a lot of those wool tops left over, and I had been fascinated by needle felting for a long time, so I decided to give that a go. Now what needle would one use? Nice thick darning needle, a very thin beading needle, normal sewing needle? Errrmm, apparently none of those, lol. When I read up on needle felting, it appeared that there are very special felting needles, deadly little whatsits actually, with barbs! They sounded really cruel, lol, and I wasn't at all sure that I would be able to find one locally. But, as on many occasions before, our lovely little local shop Thimbelina proved to be a little goldmine, they did stock felting needles and even a few wool tops for felting.

Wool tops

Dang, those little darlings are lethal! I have a number of puncture marks on my fingers to prove it. Let me see whether I can get a close up of those wicked little barbs, hmm..... nah, they won't show up, they are tiny, just take my word for it, they might be tiny but they are horrid.

I love all sorts of different corsages, I pin different ones to different jumpers all the time, so naturally I had to try needle felting flowers. It really is very therapeutic, making felt from wool tops, just using a needle and a foam pad. The repetative needle movement is quite soothing, but...... its also great when you are feeling somewhat peed off with somebody or something, stabbing madly at the wool does wonders for getting rid of aggression, lol.

Here are my first three attempts at making corsages using the needle felting technique. They are as light as a feather, so delicate-

First one, embellished with freshwater pearls

Second one, embellished with a gorgeous vintage glass button

Third one, decorated with three vintage orange buttons and a freshwater pearl, quite autumnal

And whilst we are talking of making stuff, I finally got around to taking a few pics of that decoupage box I had been talking about in an earlier post. I had bought some very old embroidery magazines ( 50cents ), which were literally falling to pieces, which was fine with me, because I wanted to decorate a shoe box with them. I could never bring myself to cut up old magazines which were in good order, lol. So I spent a few hours cutting out lots of different patterns, very carefully, mind, because the paper was quite fragile, and then spent a lovely morning in the garden arranging them on the shoe box. Its not finished yet, I need to apply a couple more coats of varnish. The really old magazine has discoloured much more, it is looking quite brown, whereas the other bits have kept their lighter colour-


Ooh oooh, and taking that box out reminded me of the lovely old tins I had found at the vide greniers and in Emmaus. Wanna see them today, or shall I post them later? Oh, alright then, today. Just as well, because I have a two day fair coming up this weekend and might not be blogging for a few days.

Here goes, lots of loooooooooovely old tins, oh, and one box, this one, a lovely fabric covered box-


Lovely set of three toile de jouy print tins
Just look at that gorgeous, intense deep blue




Gorgeous little money box tin, just look at that fab aqua colour on the shields
I love this tin, the bamboo background and the sweet flowers

Crochet, crafts and comfy dogs

I was just looking through our holiday photos again, and I noticed that quite a few shots of crochety bits had crept in. Hmmm. Remember the granny square blanket, which took me two years to complete? And the zigzaggy cushion I made with the left over wools? Well, those two now live happily in our cottage in France and the dogs instantly claimed both for themselves! I couldn't keep them away, they just loved snuggling down with the lanky and the cushion -

Poppy

Hector

Hector again

Poppy again, she loves burrowing under cushions and lankies, covering herself up

Mind you, its not just that blanket and not just that cushion. I started crocheting a very straight forward easy stripey lanky. I wanted something bright and cheerful, loud and in your face, for the garden, really summery. I had taken a whole lot of yarns with me, and I just picked them out of the box without looking for a totally random placement of the colours. Could I keep the dogs off my work in progress? Of course not -

Poppy telling everybody this is going to be HERS, so hands off

And Hector guarding HIS lanky while I was working on it in the garden

Sigh, these doggies are very good at finding the most comfortable things and claiming them.

This was my comfy outdoor spot, where I did some of the crocheting.The little blanket came from a bootsale a few years ago. I do love the colours and the starry pattern -


I started using it as a cover for my little table after a while,

well, after I found this at a charity shop and used it on that chair instead of the lanky. It was a very comfy cushion............

so of course I lost that comfy spot pretty quickly as well -

Oh, and while I am talking about the cushion from the charity shop, here are a couple of crocheted bits which I am going to make into cushions, from the same charity shop -

There you go, thats the crochet and comfy dogs bits done, now for the crafty bits. I had the best intentions of making all sorts of things while I was out there, but of course there was never enough time, hmmm, don't ask me why not, I really have no idea, but somehow there was always someone to visit, or we had visitors, or we were out shopping, or doing stuff in the garden or the house......

I managed to finish one felted flower corsage and one lot of felted beads. Many months ago I obviously had a completely mad moment and had put a fluffety thick cardigan in the wash, with disastrous results. It came out Barbie doll size and very well felted, lol. Of course I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, I knew there was something I would eventually do with it. I had vague ideas of making a felted cushion, I seem to recall. Anyway, before the hols I came across it again, and thought " flower corsage, yay", cut it up and took the bits with me to France. Along with a few beads and embroidery threads etc etc. It was really nice sitting under the trees and messing around with it, and I am quite pleased with the result. The flower is big and bold, and I love the colours-


Felted beads, hmmm. I loved the idea of felted beads and a very lovely and generous friend of mine, Ruth, had sent me some beautiful wool tops to mess around with. Gorgeously soft and almost too beautiful to use for felt beads really, but I was determined to give it a go. I had read an article on how to make felt beads in a beading magazine, but of course I had forgotten to take it with me, silly girl that I am. I remembered hot soapy water and lots of rolling around between your hands. I tell ya, I had the cleanest hands in the whole of France after making the beads for this necklace! Felted beads are not as easy to make as you might imagine. There was a certain amount of bad language flying around, because I couldn't get rid of little, well, sort of fissures, in the beads, grrrr. Still, for a first attempt they didn't turn out too bad, but I do need a lot more practice -



Thats quite enough for one post, methinks. I'll be back tomorrow with a few more pics from our little piece of heaven in France. Toodlepip xx