All inspired...

I went to the Fashion and Embroidery Show on Saturday. It's just down the road from me at Harrogate Yorkshire Showground. It was really good value for money, only £3.50 to get in, and there is so much to see and inspire. Here are all my purchases....
The scarf is from Bombay Stores ( just my colour) . The wooden buttons were a bargain, 3 for £1. They were from button-it. I want to use them on my bags, I am trying to make a range to go in my new etsy shop. The red, wooden thing is for holding 4 felting needles at once. My best buy was the flower stamp for printing wax onto fabric. I bought a wax pot a few years ago, and have been wanting a stamp for a while. Now I'll have to get my wax pot out of the loft and give it a bit of a dust!!

I spent Sunday afternoon in the garage felting. I have a range of un-dyed fleeces that I had carded, ready to use in a wall hanging. However, I just couldn't resist using some colour, so I made these two wall hangings using a combination of dyed merino wool and un-dyed fleece. I think the tree needs to be smaller in comparison to the sky, so I am going to felt another. The owl isn't finished yet, I am going to needle felt and add some embroidery so he stands out a bit more.

Felting Workshops

I am now starting to do felt making workshops. These will be held in Harrogate, N. Yorkshire. The first one is Saturday the 4th of November 10 to 3. This is for beginners, it will cover all the basics of wet felting, and students will make a small wall hanging and a simple purse. The second is Saturday the 2nd of December 10 to 3. This will cover resist felting and students will make a seamless bag. Both workshops are £25.00 each. This includes all materials, instruction sheets and drinks. Please contact me for more information at fibrespace@gmail.com

Here's the hat...
Here is the hat that I made at Vivienne Morpeth's workshop. There was some photographs of me modelling it, but I wasn't brave enough to post them. The workshop was great, really inspiring, and I'm hoping to make a hat for my daughter some time soon. Since taking this photograph I have chopped off the spikey bits, they looked great, but I'm not the sort of person who likes to attract attention and I would just feel to self conscious wearing it. I should really have taken that into consideration when I designed it!! I am going to tweak it a bit then I'll post the finished results.
I wanted to post this series of photographs as an example of how a disaster in felting will often lead you in a new, exciting direction. Never think of those mistakes as a waste of time and effort. The small felted bowls above were meant to be purses. I felted around a small ball, then slit them open to take the ball out and felted them some more. They were just the right size for loose change but I was too impatient for them to dry, so I stuck them in the dryer for a bit. Unfortunately I forgot about them and when they came out they were very, very small. Not wanting to waste all the time and effort I put into making them I gave them a trim and displayed them on my mantle piece as miniature (and a little impractical) bowls. I loved the shape and as I sat trying to watch telly I was drawn to them and couldn't resist getting the scissors out again. This time I cut one of the bowls into a flower shape, and ended up making the necklace shown below.

It's a bit rough looking, the bowl was really a bit too thick but, I really like the shape, so I'm hoping to make some more. In the mean time I've been making some flower necklaces with re-cycled jumpers, as shown below. I'm going to be listing them in my new etsy shop which has just opened. At the moment I only have the pink flower bag listed, but I am working on a bit of a collection, vintage style bags, cuffs and accessories.