Inspired by Lichen and colour

Lichen inspires me! There are tiny worlds amongst the damp tendrils. Tiny flowers, shapes, textures and surprising bright colours.

This little piece of embroidery in progress has tiny crochet cups made with hand dyed silk thread. They have been sewn onto space dyed silk scrim which has been layered onto a piece of silk and merino Nuno felt. I have used the same thread to hand embroider french knots and feather stitches and there is a woven wheel on there too.

Crochet and Felt

At last week's Fabulous Felt course one of my learners was our Elizabeth, Director of the Community Learning Partnership. I have been running the course for a few years and she loves to see all the learners work but she has never really had the chance to make any felt herself. She is slightly addicted to wool though; the colours, its softness (its SMELL!!??) and all the amazing things can be made from those lovely wool tops! 

However, Elizabeth's greatest current addiction is Crochet. Whenever I go into the office she has crocheted something new or bought more delicious wool for our learners to use on our crochet courses. So it shouldn't be a surprise that she had been wondering if you could combine crochet with handmade felt.

The answer is, of course, YES!

Felt making is such an amazing adventure that we never stop learning how many different things you can do with it. The wackiest things work if you know the basics of how felt is made  
and you can embed all kinds of things into the fibres as they felt.

So this week, on part 2 of the course, she is going to bring some pieces of crochet to experiment with. In the meantime I had a little experiment of my own.

I found some gorgeous space dyed merino yarn in my stash and crocheted some circles of different kinds and sizes and added them to the bottom of of my seascape panel that I was using to demo felting to the class. As the felting was barely started the crocheted motifs adhered really well to the pre felt and moulded the bottom of the panel with some lovely curves.

I added shells and some stitching to finish it all off. I love adding crochet to felt! Thanks Elizabeth and lets see how our experiments turn out on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone's felt turns out. It is always wonderful to see beginners turn into Fabulous Felters.

I will post some  photos of the class work next week. 

Granny Squares: not just for Grannies!

Last Saturday my friend Elizabeth from the Community Learning Partnership treated me to a fab workshop in Intermediate Crochet with Nicki Trench who is the author of more scrummy books on crochet than we could count! We used Rooster and Debbie Bliss yarns which are just so beautiful they made what ever we crocheted look lovely.


I had wanted to learn to crochet for ages and a couple of years ago my fab stitch and bitch  buddy Camilla (of  Lovely&Lovely) who is brilliant at crochet taught us all how to begin. 


I wanted to learn how to make flowers and Granny Squares and with a bit of practice and guidance learned how to go round and round in all kinds of different ways to make flowers BUT the whole squarey thing of having corners totally eluded me and I decided I wasn't ever going to be able  to do it. 


Anyway, I was really happy doing flowers and always had a crochet hook and some yarn with me in my bag so I kind of forgot about being Granny Square challenged!

I made a LOT of flowers in all kinds of different threads and wools and cotton and silk....!


Well Nicki changed all that! With great patience and by showing me how to read a crochet pattern, I succeeded! Here is my first EVER square!! I am so happy.

She then taught me a different flower and a spiral rose! I can feel more flowers coming on but this time there will be some squares amongst them and I may even start a little cushion cover.

More ATCs

I have been looking through my zillions of ATCs.I wanted  to find some to show a very small selection of the different kinds of materials that can be used to make these addictive  little things. Below, starting from the top, opening and closing ones, fabric arches with lace that have opening doors, metal that has been embossed and coloured, knitting and crochet, fabric and card with mini tools, embossed hand made paper, recycled jeans, a mini fabric quilt, and sewing with tiny buttons. 
So....anything goes. Let your imagination lead you and play with tiny pieces of art that measure just 2.5"x3.5".