Christmas thyme

Three years ago I was working on one of these gingerbread men up at a bach we were renting when I foolishly put all the pieces, the skeins of embroidery floss and my scissors into a paper bag that was then thrown out when we tidied up before leaving. It took me quite a long time to get over being such an idiot but I've finally gotten that monkey off my back. Hazel asked me why the brown one has white legs and I was forced to admit I had no idea but that's the way the pattern is. She thinks it looks a bit odd but I don't - or at least I didn't before she pointed it out! Maybe I should try a different brown and do brown legs as well. They do say things in three are more aesthetically pleasing...

I'm pleased to have kicked off Christmas so early, although admittedly this isn't present-related unless doing it for myself counts! The weather here has been rather dreary lately, warm and wet, but the bright side is that my herbs are going gangbusters and the thyme is looking rather picturesque between the sage and lavender (parsley and rosemary are off to the side 😉). 

The pattern is from the Fa La La Felt book. 

Felt bag with embroidered bird

It's done! Man, this took a lot longer to do than I expected, thick felt is tough to embroider through! But it was totally worth the sore fingers. The design is from Scandinavian Needlecraft by Clare Youngs.

The design itself isn't hard, and the stitches are simple.  I've never done a whipped stitch before and while it seemed like double-handling, it gives a lovely three-dimensional effect. I like how the design almost looks like yarn just sitting on the surface.

The instructions say to use "thick felt" but don't elaborate so I really wasn't sure what to use. I went looking and found Jenny Hislop's gorgeous version, and it sounded like just putting together two layers of thin felt wasn't going to really do the trick.  In the end I bought the most beautiful 3mm white felt from FilzFelt on Etsy and it was perfect. I got the 1/2 yard and it's not cheap, but I discovered that there's enough in that to do 2 bags plus have some left over for other small projects. It's really just amazing after dealing with the much thinner felts, the body it has is unique - plus it still smells like wool a little bit which makes it nice to work with.

In general, although the instructions are perfectly adequate, I did rather want a bit more detail in terms of stitch spacing and construction techniques. So I thought I'd just pop down my thoughts in case anyone was casting about for guidance.

• Cut it with a rotary cutter, even the cut-outs, it gives a beautiful edge. I just used a box cutter to trim into the points of the cut-outs and to get into the corners of the handle. I used a small cutter for the inside of the handle.
• Cut out the front and embroider it before cutting out the back to match it, the front changed in shape and size a bit and then I had to trim the back down which was a pain.
• You will probably need to tuck in the raw edges of the fabric behind the cut-outs and stitch it down to avoid fraying and to keep it tidier inside.
• I did the cross-stitching down the side spaced 10mm and 5mm in from the edge. More tightly spaced at maybe 8mm might have been good too, although more work! I marked the lines out with water-soluble marker to keep things even.
• You can do a lot of the embroidery without having to come through to the back of the felt which not only makes it much easier to work, but keeps the inside looking tidier.

So now I just have to work up the courage to actually use it - I have a really bad feeling it will get dirty around the handles fairly quickly and I'm not sure how well it will wash. I did briefly consider trying to put some sort of lining in it that would wrap around the inside of the handle but I actually think the thickness of the felt is particularly obvious around the handles and part of the appeal of the bag for me.

I pondered faithfully copying the original after seeing Jenny's interpretation, but in the end I decided that I'd seen the pattern and wanted THAT bag, not anything else, so it's not really a cop-out in terms of creativity. What do you feel about that kind of thing - do you always change things up a bit or do you tend to copy the original as closely as you can?

Small things

Felt tag, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

I did something! It's small, literally, but it's little steps to something bigger and totally awesome.

Wildlife

Well the kind that lives in our yard that is.

This hare (though we call him our bunny) hangs out in the front yard most days, secure in the knowledge that he's so well camouflaged no-one can see him.  Bunnies aren't very smart.


There is also the squirrel who tears around at a mad pace up and down trees, along his little paths and down tunnels in the snow, popping back up in other places and then doing it all again with a great deal of manic energy. I miss squirrels so much in New Zealand and sometimes I entertain the notion of smuggling a few back in my underpants.


I made these ornaments for my friend Jess whose tree fell over last year (the great Christmas Tree Disaster of '09) and who lost a lot of precious decorations. The pattern is from Fa La La La Felt and they're very cute, this totally awful photo doesn't do them justice. The instructions say to cut the circles out freehand after doing the embroidery and so I did but oh boy it's hard to abandon perfect symmetry and embrace the wonk. Mum did one of them and had the same problem so I think it's probably an inherited thing ;)

Fa la la la Felt

A few weeks ago I had a lovely email from Sew Mama Sew letting me know that I'd won the book Fa la la la Felt in a giveaway they were doing. Aside from the fact I was so gobsmacked I'd actually won something I was excited because the projects I'd seen looked fun, I love felt, and I had it on my wishlist over at the Book Depository.  I've been anxiously awaiting it in the mail ever since!

It came yesterday so I thought I'd just share some of the projects that caught my eye.  I've realised that several of them were from the same designers, Cathy Gaubert and Esther Coar, it's kind of neat when you connect to someone's work so consistently!

These little guys are my hands-down favourites!

Hazel's in love with these

Good enough to eat!

The layering and embroidery on these is lovely.

There are so many other great projects, including a swathe of stockings, it's definitely a book worth looking into!  The Flickr Group is here.  It's also available as an ebook from Zinio which is pretty cool, and it's cheaper than buying the actual book. I have to say though, there's something very satisfying about having a book in the hand!

Little Pink House

I've been wanting to do the little pink house from the Sew Mama Sew tutorial since they first posted it, but it took Polka Dot Daze's Craft Day to get me going on it.  I only got the house done that day and slowly added the spots over the next couple weeks.  This was my first experience at gluing something into an embroidery frame to hang on the wall and I did my Hazelnuts header as one too (how long has this trend been big?) and I'm a bit of a fan now - only tempered by the problem that now I have no embroidery hoops left!

My hoop was a bit bigger so I ended up with more circles to fill it up - plus I just couldn't seem to stop adding them in! I obviously have a bit of a 'thing' for felt circles - if only there were an easier way of cutting them than by hand. Any suggestions? I wondered about the circle templates and cutters you can get for papercrafts but not sure they'd go through felt.  Anyways, great fun choosing the combinations, even if I did fret and change and curse trying to decide on colours at night! Which you can't really, so most of the choosing happened during the day and most of the sewing at night.

Love the whole thing, it's just gorgeous!  Originally I intended it for Hazel's room. Then I decided I wanted it, and then she decided she wanted it. So now it's in her room.  Typical really.

Totoro felt bag

I'm still in the process of trying to figure out which projects in the Martha Stewart book to show you, but one that I will are some cute little felt bags. Nothing stunningly innovative, but they're really quite adorable and of course the second Hazel sighted them it was the standard "can you make that for me mummy?" I love little projects like that because they're so quick and creatively satisfying so I said yes. Then Totoro came into her life and I had the clever idea I could just whip up a Totoro bag for her - you know, slap on a few bits of felt and voila! there would be a Totoro. Two days later...

Hazel told me tonight that she really likes my sewing, which was a huge compliment and I have to say I'm more than a little pleased with how it turned out! You know when you do something that you just like looking at because every time you do it gives you a wee rush of pleasure? I don't get it with everything but I do with this.

All I did was find an image from the rainy bus-stop scene (You Tube clip in the post here) and print it off, cut the various bits out and use them as patterns. I cut the brown felt out first, then cut out the tummy, eyes and nose pieces from the picture. I cut the various shapes very carefully and used the empty spaces left behind to position the felt elements on the brown background, and then stitched them down. After I had the tummy, nose and eyes done I cut the arm shape out and attached that. If I were to do this again I'd make the tummy round and put the arm over the top instead of the fiddly way I did this one with the shaped edge. I had planned on doing the little chevrons and claws out of felt but that proved insanely fiddly and essentially impossible so they're embroidered instead. The umbrella gave me no end of grief and there were many versions trying to replicate the inner and outer you can see in the picture. In the end I just made the outside and skipped the angled look to it. I'd love to try and make her a larger backpack with fuzzier fabrics though, that would be freaking amazing!

Other Totoro crafts I've found and bookmarked:

Blue crocheted Totoro from Heaven's Hellcat
Tiny Totoro doll's hat from Netherwood Creations
Knitted Totoro Hat by Hello Yarn
Totoro Norwegian-style mittens by Andrea (free Ravelry download)
Paper Totoro by Cubeecraft
Totoro bag pattern on DeviantArt

And here is Hazel "My destiny. It is out there. I face it with my Totoro bag."

And look at those lemons! They'll be ripe in a couple of weeks and then it'll be lemons, lemons and more lemons. I'll have to make some lemon curd and some tarts and... They're not lemony lemons if you know what I mean, I think it must be some sort of Meyer cross, so they're fat, sweet and juicy but not very acidic. And they come all at once! So if you visit me in the near future I will probably offer you lemons to take home, which is never very successful in Auckland because most people are having similar problems!

Custom-sized mug cosy tutorial

I finally got around to documenting the very simple process for coming up with a custom-sized cosy for my mug which I wrote about here. I feel a bit silly putting this up in a way because it's so deadly easy but it actually took me a bit of thinking about the first time around, so in case there's anyone out there whose brain works like mine here we go:

Materials

You'll need your mug (this one from Szilasi Keramik), a piece of paper and a pencil or pen. I apologise for the extensive materials list but you need to be really prepared for this.

Put the mug in the middle of the paper, nice and straight. For this mug a piece of A4 paper wasn't quite long enough, but once I'd cut it down to the cosy size rather than the whole mug, the narrower shape actually did fit on, just. So if you've got a really huge mug you might need to tape a couple pieces together or use a larger bit of paper. Newspaper would be ideal.

Carefully roll the mug over to one side (I went to the left because it was easier to roll to the right and draw with my right hand at the same time). Don't allow it to wobble or skew, just roll in a smooth arc. If your mug has a handle you'll want to start it from one side of the handle and roll it along to the other side.

Start rolling the mug back to the right, tracing the top and bottom edges as you roll. I traced a bit of the top, then rolled it back and did the bottom and then back to the top and so-on. You can see if you're producing a smooth curve and can realign the mug if you need to. Roll the mug all the way over to the other side of the paper, tracing as you go. When you're done you should have something that looks like this (sorry the pencil line doesn't show so well):

Cut it out along top and bottom curves from the edge of the paper. I folded the pattern in half, matching the ends, and cut it out like that so both sides matched.

Now the step that I forgot to photograph is how you determine how long it should be around your mug. I put the cut pattern on the mug and just pinched the two edges together to get a line that I then cut along. I wanted to have a small gap between the edges so I left it like that, but if you want overlap this is the time to figure that out. In hindsight I should have added maybe .5cm to each edge to compensate for the thickness of the fabric, the gap ended up being a bit wide in the linen version (see below). Obviously if you have a handle on your mug then this gap is where it would go.

I decided that the fabric should be the width of my palm plus thumb, which is about 9cm, so I added 1cm on either side and measured in from the edges of the cup-sized pattern to get the right size. I didn't add seam allowance on the ends, it depends on how much of a gap you want.

Now the bit I have trouble getting my head around is that even though the edge is curved it will look straight on the mug. However, any obvious grain in the fabric will look to be on an angle. You also need to make sure any decorating you do takes this into account.

I made the first one for the red mug in linen with cotton batting sandwiched between and a simple running stitch in red. It's held on with elastic loops and buttons. Love it! It lives in at University on my desk.

For the other mug I thought I'd try a brighter cosy in orange felt. Same pattern but no seam allowances.

Again the running stitch and buttons with elastic loops, and this time you can see how the lines need to be curved but look straight when it's done up. That concept still ties my brain up in knots. I mean, I understand it on the level of that's obviously what you have to do, but any more thinking about how it then translates to straight-looking lines makes my head hurt for some reason. Which is weird because I'm actually pretty good spatially and with maps etc.

This cosy really sticks to the mug - felt and a matt surface work well together! I've used three layers of felt as I only have thin wool-blend felt, and it could almost be reversible with a hot pink on the other side, but the elastic and buttons are for the orange side. I figure it's a bit like sexy underwear - I know the pink's there :) I may add a third button/loop to try and stop that gaping. Or I may not. I can be reckless like that.

Patterns and sewing not for you? How about this one made from a felted sweater sleeve?  I might blanket-stitch around the top edge, just to get rid of the raw edge, but otherwise making it couldn't have been quicker or more satisfying - just push the mug down into the sleeve and cut.  If you have a handle all you'd need to do is cut a slit and pop the handle through.

Felt finger puppets

We're heading off for my father-in-laws 90th (!!) birthday party this weekend and I thought I'd take along some handsewing to do. I asked Hazel what she'd like out of Kata Golda's Hand Stitched Felt and she chose the finger puppets. So of course I started them last night while watching our weekly dose of surreal tv (Flash Forward and Lost) and I made 3 out of the 5. I finished them off today. Not sure what I'm going to do while we're away! Actually I think might try and make another set for my little niece Rebecca.

The thing I like about the projects in this book, and probably about handsewing felt in general, is how easy it is, nice to work with, and totally and absolutely satisfying! The fact that a little unevenness actually looks great is a total bonus :)

Of course, mine don't approach the rustic feel of the originals because I Just. Can't. Do. It. I try. I try really hard to be wonky. But my innate anal retentiveness won't allow me. It's a total battle as I go, part of my brain is saying in a very James Kirk way "Must. Be. Wonky." and the other part of me is saying in a Church Lady kind of voice "Tidiness is a virtue"

Part of the fun of the finger puppets is that she suggests you make various changes for different animals (as seen in her examples) but the tails are a mystery so I had to come up with my own versions for each animal (except the mouse). From left to right that would be: dog, mouse, rabbit, cat, hamster. I probably shouldn't have placed the cat next to the hamster but on second thought the hamster looks big enough to take care of itself.

I'm feeling a little dissatisfied with my photos recently. I know why and it's Photoshop action envy. I ended up at MCP Actions via Pioneer Woman's photography blog, and I have this horrible lingering feeling that if I could just afford to buy one of those packages then my photos would suddenly be breathtaking. I hate the hazy, slightly faded look they have sometimes and while I can Photoshop them a bit by myself or use the PW action sets I have (limited but great I should add) I really wish they had the depth of colour, clarity and sparkle that the pros manage.

Last minute felt Valentine's pins

Somehow Valentine's crept up on me like a small creeping thing and it pounced me when I wasn't expecting it. I decided I would make something for Hazel and her two best friends Alex and Suzie, and maybe something for Hazel on the day - she's certainly expecting it! I love these little wrapped matchboxes over at Inchmark, so maybe one of those.

Last year I made a bunch of felt heart-shaped 'cookies' and I really enjoyed the process so I went with something similar, but did them as pins instead. It was really simple and I made the lot while watching the new Flash Forward and Lost last night.

I started by cutting out a large heart (6cm at widest point) from red felt for the back, and for the front one large heart from dark pink and one smaller heart from the lighter pink. I sewed the lighter pink onto the darker pink heart with a running stitch in a silky embroidery floss, and then embroidered the initial on using red floss and stem stitch. I just drew the initial on with water-soluble pen the best I could. Then I cut out a tiny little red heart and attached it to the edge of the light pink with a single red bead in the middle. I think cutting out that darned heart was the hardest part!

Then I sewed the pin thingy on the back of the red felt, with a scrap of felt on the other side to provide a bit more stability. I initially sewed it on more in the middle, but discovered that the heart flopped downwards when worn, so I moved it up as far as I could and now it sits nicely.

The last step was to sew both sides together with a simple running stitch and push in a little fibrefill to give it some shape. A Valentine's heart should be a bit squishy right? :) I did the running stitch in a similar dark pink to the felt so that it didn't stand out and make the heart too fussy.

So that was easy-peasy lemon-squeezy and I love how they turned out. Hazel loves hers, and so does Alex so they're obviously a successful 4-5 year old gift. Since I like them too they'd probably be good for adults too. Maybe just the ladies though, can't quite see my husband sporting one at work somehow...

The little girl's puppy purse

While the shirt may have had a bit of a setback (drafted new sleeve and armhole this afternoon though) my other project came off beautifully! One of the books I got with my Christmas Fishpond book voucher was Kata Golda's Hand-Stitched Felt. I'd had it on my wishlist for ages, after reading a great review of it on Heather Ross' blog. There was also this very cute little video for it



The book arrived on Thursday and since I was doing some babysitting for a friend that night I cut out the felt to do the Little Girl's Puppy Purse and sewed it up while I was out. I even managed to forget the book and it still came together without instructions and I had plenty of time to watch lots of really bad tv. Seriously easy project! And very cute



Hazel loves it, mostly for the puppy I think. She's fascinated by the fact that one of its ears flops



The only thing I regret about not having the book with me while making it was the puppy placement, mine is all square and centred, the book's is on an angle and looks a bit more playful. That's so me though, everything all lined up and squared away ;)

Most of the other projects in the book look like they'd be as quick and easy as this one - it's all hand-sewing and simple stitches. Nothing fancy here! Several of the projects are guaranteed to send small (and larger) girls into transports of cute, but there are lots of home decor and personal items like glasses cases, mug cosies etc. for the grownups :) My only quibble with this, and I'm not even sure if it's a legit one, is that part of the reason the projects look so gorgeous is her lovely felt, which the books says is available from her website, but in reality it's only as kitsets for the projects and they're fairly pricey. Found out that her felt comes from OhMa Felt and you can buy by the piece. You can get nice felt pieces from other sources, but it's not cheap even in that form and some of these projects call for a fair amount, making them potentially very expensive. I think that if you were going to get serious about having a set of large felt buckets then either you learn to felt your own wool, or you go with cheaper non-handmade versions. This purse was made from a thin blended felt and I doubt it will last for long as the handles will eventually stretch out. Still, it's perfect for carrying around little things, which is what Hazel's all about these days :)

Mum's tea cosy

Remember these spots?



They were from a tea cosy I made for my mum



I hope she likes it! It seemed a good pattern for a cold winter's day - perhaps the bright colours and busyness will confuse the cold molecules :) It also comes with a wool pad to sit the tea pot on (not shown because it's boring and grey).

Sew Mama Sew December Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who participated in my giveaway, it's been such fun reading all the comments! I'm off to generate the winning number and will be posting it above shortly.

Welcome to my giveaway for the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! Up for grabs is this cute little bag made from dark grey wool and lots of felt spots.



It measures approx. 19 x 10.5cm (about 7.5 x 4") and is lined with pink cotton. The spots are wool-blend felt and and the buttons are from my button box.



I had an awful time trying to photograph it so that the colours were true, the camera couldn't handle the intense orange and pink of some of the spots! I've desaturated the photos a little so you can see the details, in real life it's a bit more fun and vibrant.

What do you need to do to win this wee bag? Well I'm going to make you really work for it - in your comment I want you to tell me where you're from in the big wide world. That's it. :) I'm happy to ship worldwide too (because let's face it, pretty much everywhere is overseas from New Zealand!)

The giveaway will be open until 2pm, December 7th NZ time which works out to 8pm December 6th EST. The winner will be chosen by random number generator. Please make sure that you've either left your blog URL or an email - if you have your Blogger profile set up to be private I have no way of contacting you other than to post your name here, and I'll redraw in 24 hours if I haven't heard from you. The bag will be mailed immediately but I'm not sure it will make North America or Europe by Christmas, so might end up being a nice little post-Christmas pressie.



I should add that I got the bag pattern from this great tutorial and I love the way the zipper is put in, it makes it look really professional.

ETA: I just have to add that it's already killing me not to reply to some of the comments but I know if I do it'll screw up figuring out what post belongs to the winning number. I'm being strong, but it's going to be a long few days (and the official part hasn't even started yet!).

Scrappy felt

Felt is my life at the moment, but it's not too bad having to look at such beautiful colours.



My favourite is the orange, especially when paired with pink.

Felt pouch #3

Felt pouch #3, originally uploaded by Ansis68.

I made this for Hazel this afternoon. She'd admired the two I did yesterday and especially this flower button, so I figured we'd keep the button in the family and I'd put it somewhere she would be less likely to lose it. It really is a fabulous button, I think she's got great taste! I'm going to have to stop making these little bags though, they're strangely addictive and I can see I could end up with lots around the house with no real purpose. I think it's the sheer ease of making them - start in one corner, up the side, around the top and down the other side, stitch the buttonhole, attach the button and voila! I did this one while watching half an hour of Spongebob Squarepants with Hazel.

Kristen wondered if I'd do a tutorial for the blanket stitch, but I'd recommend this one at Futuregirl because I actually learned how to go around corners and start a new strand of floss half way through. Also check out this YouTube video, sometimes it's good to see someone doing it in real time rather than just photos. Personally I almost always forget how to start it off, unless I have been doing it a lot recently, so I have to look it up in my embroidery stitch book. Nice to know there are online options for when I can't find it!

My effort for the day

Felt pouches, originally uploaded by Ansis68.

Little felt pouches for little things. About 8.5cm wide with a button from the button box. I'm quite pleased with them, there's something about blanket stitch that's just so appealing.

Bunny eyes

I just finished a Felt Bunny commission so no proper photos of it until it's been received, but I had a play with an idea I had for future bunny eyes. I'm not sure if it's really a goer for a general bunny, but if you wanted a bunny to express particular emotions I think it'd be quite effective!

Sleepy bunny


Bored/ambivalent bunny eyes


Angry bunny eyes! Or is it more indignant? He sort of looks like someone just butted into the queue in front of him.