Catch up time

I have really lost the knack for this whole blogging lark - as in I have no idea what to actually WRITE - but here are some pretty pictures of stuff wot I have been doing recently....

First of all, over there on the left, I'm pretty proud of this one.

It's a painting of Matthew the Raven (from the Sandman comics) - he took me months as he’s a big old fella (about 5 feet tall, see blurry pic of me below for scale) – and I thought I might never get him finished.  But I got there in the end – yay! - and I have proudly hung him at the top of the stairs.

Next up, a couple of circle journal pages:

This first one was for the Stay At Home CJ over on Collabor-Art – the theme was Mermaid Tales ….. you can see the whole gallery of everyone else’s entries here

And the second was for the Fabric CJ I’m a part of over at UKScrappers.  The theme, as you might have guessed, was cupcakes.  Very much not my usual style this one!  But I enjoyed the needle felting element, it’s always fun to get stabby!!

Starry starry night

It's Artistic Licence Circle Journal time again - and this time our given muse is Van Gogh.

We were each issued a blank canvas board, and asked to pay homage to any Van Gogh painting using a technique of our choice

I chose this painting:

Starry Night Over The Rhone, painted in 1888

and made my own needle felted version  (above).

It seems, that if you start needle felting during your lunch break at work, everyone thinks you are a little bit odd.  I think it's the repeated stabbing motions.

Cue the music from the Psycho shower scene ;)

Dedicated to ladies with complicated love lives everywhere...

This is my latest entry for the fabric round robin I'm a part of. Am enjoying this project so much, I'll be sad when it's over. 8 down, 4 to go.

I wanted to use needle felting on this one, so needed a fairly bold/simple focal motif. I settled on a heart and a triangle. No reason! :)

I didn't have a big enough piece of wool felt to use as the background, so sliced up two smaller pieces and sewed them back together in a stripey pattern.

Next the heart was felted on using merino roving, a border was cross stitched around it, and then I embroidered the three points of the triangle.

The background looked a little empty at this point, so I added some purple seed stitches to liven it up a bit.

A bit of red bias binding to finish, and it was all done.

A close up of all the textures, this one is very strokable:



Roll on the next one!

Forgot to take a decent photo ...

... this was just snapped with my phone

A needle felted tree (and somewhat wonky sun) for Alison's birthday card

I hope she likes it

Needle felting is the shizz!!!

I've admired the look of needle felted bits and bobs for a while, but being a pure textile-phobe, I really didn't think it was "for me".

But in true "you have to face your fear to conquer it" style, I signed up for a fabric circle journal this week (eeeeeeeeeeeeeekk!!!) - and so I duly trotted off to Hobbycraft to buy quilting wadding and material and needles and cotton and all that alien stuff :)

While I was looking at said alien stuff, I caught sight of needle felting equipment, and I thought, "I am fearless, you don't scare me" and popped it in my basket.

And you know what? It's FAB! And not difficult at ALL!

Admittedly, my very first experiment was random, and rubbish. See circular blob:

But at that point I was really just experimenting with the mechanics of the felting needle and how the wool sticks together, etc.

The next thing I made was the heart on the canvas up there ^. It was really just another experiment - and if I made another I would use more wool, as it's rather flat - but I was pleased enough with it to want to do something with it. So I plopped it on a quick canvas with some grungeboard wings.

(standard disclaimer goes here - the flash has nobbled the colours - they go together better IRL honestly - the lines on the wings don't show up that much really - blah blah)

Then tonight I thought I would be really brave and try something 3D. The reason bravery is required is that this involves a much higher likelihood of stabbing yourself in the finger. and I did indeed do so. 4 times. ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch.

But it was worth it - because I made a little bead and I really like it.

It took a while, though, so at this rate I'll have a whole necklace by Christmas. 2010. :)

All you have to do is form some fairly rough wool woving (I used Corriedale) into a loose ball shape roughly twice the size of the required bead. And then poke it all over with a barbed felting needle until it shrinks and firms up. You can leave it at that or add more roving to make patterns, as I did with this one. (The dark green was the base bead - the light green and orange are Merino roving felted onto the surface)

I'm looking forward to making more felted pieces to use in my fabric journal.

A girl can't have too many hobbies, eh? :)