Aeluin...

Aeluin is my first finished 'Paisley'-shaped brooch prototype. She measure 7.5cm x 4.8cm at her longest and widest points.

I made Aeluin by felting onto thick black felt baize with my embellisher - using merino roving, silk threads, wool nepps and silk noil. I added hand embroidery and lots of glass beads, before whip-stitching around the edges in azure blue.

I decided to leave the back 'bare' this time - rather than covering it up with another piece of black felt before sewing on the brooch finding.

I'm not sure what I think about it - I like the fact that you can see all the stitching that's gone on, but sometimes I think it looks a bit messy. Any thoughts, anyone?

Although I'm not yet decided about what to do about the back, I really like the shape, so am working on the other prototypes...watch this space!

Lunar...

A ring inspired by and made in honour of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing!

The ring setting and a piece of felt made with my embellisher from wool locks, wool roving, silk noil, silk ribbon and silk fibre

Working out the beading

Closeup of the finished beading and hand embroidery

Side view

On my hand to give an idea of scale

Thank you for the inspiration, NASA!

New necklace prototypes - at last!

Well, it's taken me a while (after the build-up to the craft fair in May, I couldn't face anymore whip-stitching for a good long while!) but I've finally finished a couple of new necklace prototypes.

Introducing 'Carnivale'

and 'Mer' ~!

Carnivale's felt is made from rainbow coloured silk throwsters waste, silk ribbon, cotton nepps and silk fibre, embellished with glass beads and hand embroidery.

Mer's felt is made from a beautiful turquoise mixed fibre batt from ArtemisArtemis - including fibres such as wool roving, bamboo, angelina and angora, which has then again been embellished with glass beads and hand embroidery.

No metal backing for the necklaces this time - just felt, so they are very lightweight.

Carnivale measures 8cm long by 2.5cm wide, on 45cm of chain...

...and Mer measures 9cm long by 2.5cm wide, again on 45cm of chain.

I'm definitely liking the curved shape, and I've added lots of wonderful new fibres to my stash recently from the likes of fibrespacesupplies, therainbowgirl, flightsofwhimzy, thredfairy, lalafelt, All Twisted Up, and Jacinta Leishman, so I'm feeling quite inspired to try a few more of these in both sizes :D

A crafty Saturday afternoon...

Had a fun afternoon experimenting with solvy, machine embroidery and my embellisher, in between catching up with slightly more hi-tech craftiness happening on Space Shuttle Endeavour/the ISS via Nasa TV (totally obsessed by mission STS-127 right now - can't get enough of astronauts carrying out such complex, hi-tech tasks in their socks!).

So, in my socks too, but with gravity, although without any robotic arms, here's what I came up with! Haven't dissolved the Solvy yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

Following a suggestion a while back from Lin Moon, (thank you!), I'm going to make a couple of the pieces into paisley-shaped brooch prototypes. Also below are the 'new' necklace prototypes (*ahem* got a bit distracted by other crafty things and still haven't finished these yet) - so these 4 are what I'll work on over the rest of the weekend.

Progress update..

Here's what happened next!

The kumihimo bracelet (top) and felted, beaded and embroidered fibre art card (bottom) are now up in my etsy shop.

I'm not sure whether I've finished the middle project yet - think I'll mull it over for a while and see...!

Current works in progress...

Some sneak peeks at some of the projects I'm working on at the moment...

Using beautiful handdyed threads from Sassalynne

A linocut print onto cotton made with help from my friend Thomas

Wee pieces of embellished felt for more of my fibre art cards

I'm also going to have my first shot at some free machine embroidery today, having equipped my old sewing machine for the task... I'm quite excited but totally clueless, so we'll see what happens!!

Music...

This blog is normally reserved for my crafty pursuits, but I just wanted to make a wee post about the other major project I have been working on for about the last 3 years!

It is finally nearing completion, so I recently updated the website.

Check it out here... .