Crochet round stones, into hoops and round glass
I love to experiment with crocheting round things. I have a bog project planned along these lines once I have completed work on BRISWOOL which is a huge project I am leading to create a knitted, crocheted and needlefelted model of Bristol
II am back in the shop at work tomorrow ...in the meantime here are some photographs of crochet round objects ..all small experiments leading to bigger projects....i love to learn new skills
Tip - If you want to do this but yourself a good book of thread crochet motifs ..they size up well in dc cotton thread for jars etc and look great in thread crochet..and you need a steel hook for thread crochet and ive used a size 3mm hook for everything else ( soft touch hook)
Mad About Making
A blog about the compulsion I feel to make stuff. I crochet, I sew, I draw and I make stuff !! lots of it
Monday 13 January 2014
Saturday 11 January 2014
Felt experiments
Over the last year or two I have been exploring lots of ways of using felt and felting . ..we sell all kinds of materials for this in the shop but I don't get enough time to play with them
I have ruined many many wool jumpers buy accidentally felting them in the washing machine . The saddest example of this was a beautiful hand knitted jumper designed by my friend as part of a collection she was selling in Libertys in London . The jumper was like a magic carpet and was based around Indian miniatures ..it was gorgeous but sadly a momentary lapse about 20 years ago and it ended up about a quarter of the original size !!..I still miss that jumper
Anyways now I am experimenting with making things felt on purpose. I am waiting to take delivery next week of a range of yarns that are made for knitting or crocheting "Filtz" yarns f and its going to really good fun.
Here is a little flower i made with some red felting yarn. I crocheted a flower and then just washed it .. In the photograph are also some little red needelfelted hearts made by pricking in a cookie cutter......I stock hundreds of colours of merino tops. You just prick with your needlefelting needle inside the cookie cutter and hey presto you get a perfectly shaped bit of felt
here is a list of all the ways that you can felt
Wet Wrapping - using merino tops - ( those lovely unspun wool fibres ) you can wrap items such as plastic eggs or other shapes and then tie tightly in a pair of old tights and put in the washing machine..this way you can make hollow objects . You may need to wash twice to make the felt really firm
Wet felting - I tried this on a course and hated it - just made my hands really sore . You use lots of soap and a mat and basically rub the fibres together using friction and a rough mat . You can also make beads etc
Needlefelting round fibres. This is the method used to produce all those lovely little creatures etc We adapted this method during the coral reef project so that we could quickly produce 2d shapes of fish . here is a turtle that i made and some of the fish we made in the workshops i delivered. Most of the people had never done this before
Before Christmas I started to combine needlefelting with felties and here are some little reindeer I made this way
You can also felt around polystyrene balls and then embellish them with beads or sequins or embroidery . I have collected together lots of examples of this on Pinterest. I am currently making some but not ready to show them yet
You can felt jumpers deliberately ( must be wool) on boil wash in the machine and them needeleft on top of the felted jumper
Here is a picture of the yarns that you can use to knit or crochet and then felt in the washing machine. I made the bowl one evening. You can also use wool as long as it is not superwash as that has been treated not to shrink...These yarns are by Rico and hold the colour at 60. IM just waiting now to get some Austermann yarns for the shop and Ill be testing those and sharing in due course
Right I am off to play with resin, continue to crochet into some wire hoops and do a few more rows of my crochet flower rug x
Over the last year or two I have been exploring lots of ways of using felt and felting . ..we sell all kinds of materials for this in the shop but I don't get enough time to play with them
I have ruined many many wool jumpers buy accidentally felting them in the washing machine . The saddest example of this was a beautiful hand knitted jumper designed by my friend as part of a collection she was selling in Libertys in London . The jumper was like a magic carpet and was based around Indian miniatures ..it was gorgeous but sadly a momentary lapse about 20 years ago and it ended up about a quarter of the original size !!..I still miss that jumper
Anyways now I am experimenting with making things felt on purpose. I am waiting to take delivery next week of a range of yarns that are made for knitting or crocheting "Filtz" yarns f and its going to really good fun.
Here is a little flower i made with some red felting yarn. I crocheted a flower and then just washed it .. In the photograph are also some little red needelfelted hearts made by pricking in a cookie cutter......I stock hundreds of colours of merino tops. You just prick with your needlefelting needle inside the cookie cutter and hey presto you get a perfectly shaped bit of felt
here is a list of all the ways that you can felt
Wet Wrapping - using merino tops - ( those lovely unspun wool fibres ) you can wrap items such as plastic eggs or other shapes and then tie tightly in a pair of old tights and put in the washing machine..this way you can make hollow objects . You may need to wash twice to make the felt really firm
Wet felting - I tried this on a course and hated it - just made my hands really sore . You use lots of soap and a mat and basically rub the fibres together using friction and a rough mat . You can also make beads etc
Needlefelting round fibres. This is the method used to produce all those lovely little creatures etc We adapted this method during the coral reef project so that we could quickly produce 2d shapes of fish . here is a turtle that i made and some of the fish we made in the workshops i delivered. Most of the people had never done this before
Before Christmas I started to combine needlefelting with felties and here are some little reindeer I made this way
You can also felt around polystyrene balls and then embellish them with beads or sequins or embroidery . I have collected together lots of examples of this on Pinterest. I am currently making some but not ready to show them yet
You can felt jumpers deliberately ( must be wool) on boil wash in the machine and them needeleft on top of the felted jumper
Here is a picture of the yarns that you can use to knit or crochet and then felt in the washing machine. I made the bowl one evening. You can also use wool as long as it is not superwash as that has been treated not to shrink...These yarns are by Rico and hold the colour at 60. IM just waiting now to get some Austermann yarns for the shop and Ill be testing those and sharing in due course
Right I am off to play with resin, continue to crochet into some wire hoops and do a few more rows of my crochet flower rug x
Thursday 9 January 2014
In the beginning ..
I learnt to crochet because I cannot whistle ..REALLY. At school the children used to play a game called the whistling pony game and I could not whistle so they barred me and I sat feeling rather dejected on the side of the playing ground
A short while later I went away with my Grandma Vera and Auntie Bubbles ( so called because she had curly hair as a girl like the Pears soap advert ) She was called that all her life
Anyway I told them about the pony game and they suggested I learnt to crochet and took me to buy some yarn, I distinctly remember the colours. I chose greys and pinks and a bit of purple.
I used to sit for hours and hours in the porch at playtimes making bigger and bigger granny squares. I was particularly fascinated about what I could do with the colours. I was about 9yrs old at the time
I don't know what happened to those squares. No-oner got round to showing me how to sew them together. I used one to mend the leg on my favourite toy "Deda " I still have Deda but I don't have the rest of the crochet.
Tonight I am crocheting into metal hoops with thread crochet but I have spent most of this holiday "finishing things "..more on that another day ..here are some pics
Wednesday 8 January 2014
New year and a new start
So here it is my very own upgraded and ready to go blog. Here I will be writing about the things I make, things you can make, telling stories about making and memories of making and sharing ideas, inspirations and more . Some of it will be serious and some silly hopefully lots of it will make you smile
So here it is my very own upgraded and ready to go blog. Here I will be writing about the things I make, things you can make, telling stories about making and memories of making and sharing ideas, inspirations and more . Some of it will be serious and some silly hopefully lots of it will make you smile
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