Felt Bead Making Workshop

I'm pleased to share that I will be running some workshops in the Essex area! If you are local to Essex, or fancy making the trip (I can recommend some really nice places to visit if you wanted to make a day of it before the workshop), join me and learn how to make felt beads using a combination of wet and dry felting techniques. I love making felt beads, it's such a fun process and the beads can be used to make garlands, decorations, jewellery and much more and it's a great introduction to felting if you haven't tried it before. The price includes all materials, tea/coffee and cake- my fave combination for an evening of crafting! Please do get in touch if you'd like to come and join me.

How To... Make Felt Flowers

The weather here in this little corner of Essex is typically Spring like- beautiful spells of sunshine, followed by April showers, then back to bright blue skies! The countryside and gardens are looking so pretty, with the blossom in the trees and flowers in bloom and this is what inspired my latest How To. Using just scraps of felt and a needle and thread you can create your own felt flowers and bring some Spring sunshine into your home. Be sure to check back later in the week as I'll be sharing some ideas for how to use your floral creations. 

Here's how to make the flowers...

1) You will need

Scraps of felt, needle and thread, pins, fabric scissors, scrap of paper for template, something round to draw around to make the petal template (I used a cotton reel), pencil, glue gun (optional)

2) To make the template for the petals, draw around your cotton reel or other round object on scrap paper and cut out. I've found that something about the size of the end of a cotton reel or slightly smaller works really well for this technique, but you could experiment with other sizes

3) Pin the template to the felt and cut out five pieces

Now you have your five circles of felt, one will become the backing piece and four will become the petals

4) To make the petals, first take a circle of felt and fold it in half

5) Fold the circle again so you now have a quarter circle

6) Place the folded piece onto the top corner of the background circle, ensuring the edges of both pieces are flush. The straight edge of the folded piece should be facing the middle and the open folded edges should be facing the bottom of the circle. Hold in place with a pin and stitch in place with 3 or 4 stitches

7) Fold the next felt circle in exactly the same way as the previous one, stitching it to the background piece ensuring that the straight edges meet

8) Turn the piece upside down and repeat the process with the remaining two felt circles to complete the flower

9) Now to make the flower centres! Cut a long strip of felt measuring approx 1cm wide (or your chosen width- experiment to see what you like best) in your chosen colour. Don't worry if it's wonky, it won't notice in the end

10) Cut into the felt at regular intervals along the length, ensuring not to cut all the way through. Cut into strips approx 5-6cm long

11) Roll the small strips of felt and secure together with a few stitches

To make an alternative flower centre, don't cut into the felt strip, simply leave as it is and roll it up, securing with a few stitches

12) Add a small blob of glue (I've found using a glue gun works best) to the centre of the flower and press the centre into it. Alternatively, you could stitch the centre into the flower

That's all there is to it, so simple but very effective!

You can use any fabric to make these flowers but I find felt works so well because the stiffness of the fabric creates a more three dimensional flower compared with other fabrics and it's so easy to use because it doesn't fray!  If you would like to make the flowers using other fabrics, I find it best to iron interfacing onto the back first to help prevent fraying

I'll be back on Wednesday to share some suggestions of how to use your floral creations. Until then, happy making!

Fair Isle Felting Experiments!

I'm currently teaching myself Fair Isle knitting using Wendy Ramsdale British wool with an aim of creating a Fair Isle jewellery collection for the Winter. I'm trying out lots of different techniques at the moment to find out how the yarn behaves and here are some felting experiments I've been trying out, combing Fair Isle with other processes and then felting the samples in the washing machine. Here are some before and after photos!

For this piece I hand knitted a Fair Isle sample and then felted it in the washing machine at 60 degrees to see how the patterns came out when felted. I had tried washing it at 40 degrees but it only partly felted. It's made a lovely thick felt which would be great for making brooches and I'm pleased that you can still see the patterns- further experimentation required!

For this sample I knitted a plain piece in Ramsdale yarn and embroidered Fair Isle influenced patterns onto it using the same wool. Again I felted the piece in the washing machine at 60 degrees. I like the effect both before and after felting, especially as you can still see some of the embroidered detail, although I'd like the felt to be a little less fuzzy looking

I then knitted a piece combing Fair Isle and cable patterns, again putting it into the washing machine to felt at 60 degrees. Unfortunately the detail of the cables has been lost through the felting process, but it's all part of experimenting

 Take a look at more Fair Isle patterns I've knitted with Ramsdale here and read about how I tried Fair Isle in fabric! Now I'm off to experiment with combining cable, Fair Isle and embroidery in other ways, so I'll keep you posted!

The Cornershop- a whole shop filled with groceries made of felt!

This weekend I was lucky enough to visit The Cornershop, a former derelict shop in Bethnal Green, London, which artist Lucy Sparrow has completely filled with everyday grocery items, all hand made in felt! Such a fun idea! The shop contains over 4,000 felt versions of everything you can think of that you can find in a grocery store, ranging from newspapers, tins of beans, packets of biscuits, chocolate bars and frozen chips! It's just like walking into your local corner shop, except the stock isn't edible and is much more cuddly!

Such is Lucy's dedication to her theme, even the till is made of felt and Lucy stood behind her counter (in front of the felted tobacco kiosk!) making more felt groceries. The whole project took Lucy 7 months to complete and Lucy's aim is to engage the local community within accessible art and through sewing workshops.

Guilt free Chocolate Digestives! No calories!

The shelves were fully stocked, just as you would expect in a regular grocery store. It really is a feat of the handmade and great craftsmanship that Lucy and her assistant handmade each of the 4,000 items themselves

Read all about it! In felt!

The felt confectionery was my favourite part of the exhibition, there is such an amazing amount of detail in each piece

The shop in Bethnal Green will be open until the end of August, before moving on to Brighton in October. Find out more and how to get there here! I thoroughly recommend a visit to admire the craftsmanship that's gone into the project and perhaps even buy your very own felt can of beans! Grocery shopping doesn't get more fun than this!

New rings in my Etsy shop!

I've just added a selection of new handmade knitted, Harris Tweed and felt rings to my Etsy shop- check them out here! 

The rings come beautifully presented in a hand branded gift box, making them a lovely gift

Today I'm also debuting a new design inspired by my flower hair slides (also available in my Etsy shop)- over sized flower rings embellished with Swarovski Crystals or a vintage button! If you would like a ring in a particular colour you can't see featured in my shop, I'm always happy to make a custom order, just ask!

My other train of thought

I'd like to share with you some previous work to give some background to my working process.

I love to have the freedom to develop ideas without the constraints of making a functional piece and it is mostly through working in this way that the ideas for my jewellery are formed and developed.

"Curiosity"

As you will know by now, my obsessions are knitting and felting and my main objective through my work is to explore the possibilities of these crafts and subvert wool as much as I can! For my last main big project "Curiosity" I was lucky enough to have a month long residency in the Benham Gallery at Cuckoo Farm Studios, which was essentially an exploration into the sculptural and textural possibilities of knit and felt. This subject is something I want to continue to return to in order to explore the infinite possibilities surrounding this subject and I hope that one day I will have the time and the organisational skills (!) to work the two strands of my work, being the conceptual pieces and jewellery, side by side. Ultimately, in everything I make I want to ensure that there is integrity in the thought processes behind the pieces.

I made this piece from two separate knitted tubes and Shibori felting experiments.


The bobbles run all the way through the middle of the piece! The pieces were hung from the ceiling using invisible thread, creating an ethereal presentation.





Many visitors to the exhibition said the pieces reminded them of sea creatures

Knit and crochet piece- I added my Crocheted strings by hooking them into the knitting machine needles when constructing the tube 

Once I get the Gallery section of my site up and running I can share more, but for now I hope this gives you some insight into how my work and my thoughts develop!

Swarovski and Pearls

These are just a few of the pieces that I've been making this week. Tomorrow I'll be transforming them into rings and they'll be all set to go off to the gallery! I stitch all the beads and stones onto the felt backing by hand-  I am an obsessive embellisher! People are always surprised that I stitch them all rather than glue them on, but I think this gives the best results and I love the process of it.

The big round rings are made from handmade felt beads which are then embellished- they really are statement rings!

It's not a ring yet, but it will be!

Statement ring!

 I also make jewellery to commission, so if there's something particular you'd like please contact me!