More brooches...

Today I finished the rest of the wooden bezel brooches - here are Topaz, Lavandel, Natsu, Nimbus, Baya, Melocoton and Agua.

I still can't get enough of these wooden bezels: I love the way the beautifully smooth wood contrasts with the texture of the felted pieces.

Sakura...

I'm really ready for proper Spring now.  We woke up to snow this morning!  That just doesn't seem right.

The crocuses and snowdrops are out here at least, but I'm longing for narcissi... and cherry blossom!

This is a piece that has been in progress for some time.  She's my first experiment in slightly more 3D work (she's not hugely 3D but I needed to start somewhere).

'Sakura'

Sakura is made from 5 petals made from beaded and embroidered felt:

After making each petal, I gave them a little bit of extra shape:

and then joined them all together...

...into a brooch!

Aegis...

'Aegis' is another new necklace prototype I have been working on - I wanted something a little smaller than the 'bib' idea, but still large enough to give me a good area to play with :).  I have been trying to think of iconic shapes, but steering clear of anything too figurative like hearts or stars.  Eventually I was reminded of a 'shield' shape (inspired by beautiful earrings I bought from ILDVED on Etsy) - ok so still quite figurative but more unusual, and the symbolism of protection and strength really appeals to me.

So, I tried a few shapes and sizes out in card, came up with a prototype stencil, and here is the finished result:

in situ:

I made the felt from silk hankie fibre, merino roving, abaca tissue, silk throwsters waste and cotton nepps.  Then I added couched thread, glass beads, and seed and colonial knot hand embroidery stitches.

Verdure

My second 'bib'-style necklace prototype is called 'Verdure'

She is smaller than 'Flare', and measures 13.5cm x 5cm at her widest and longest parts.

To make her, first I made a piece of felt with my embellisher, using silk hankie fibre, cotton scrim, cotton nepps, silk throwsters waste and silk thread. Once I've drawn up and decided on the necklace shape, I mask off the area with paper so I know where to work:

Next, I added couched silk boucle thread, and lots of glass beads in shades of green, yellow and gold:

and then seed, bullion knot, detached fly and colonial knot hand embroidery stitches in silk ribbon, cotton, rayon and silk threads:

Usually by this time I have decided on a name for the piece - although as you can see I changed my mind with this one!

Once the beading and embroidery is finished, I carefully cut out the felt shape and then whip-stitch around the edges:

Then I added hand-dyed variegated silk ribbon, joined to the felt piece with bronze jump rings and tiny stitches:

I decided to go with ribbon rather than chain to make sure the necklace would be adjustable to the right length for any wearer.  

And finally, to give a (rough!) idea of what the necklace looks like in situ:

I've really enjoyed making these necklaces - it's been a real treat to have a larger 'canvas' to work on and I love the amount of detail and texture it allows me to add.  Although I've decided to keep 'Flare' for myself, I'll be adding 'Verdure' to my Etsy shop later today.

In progress...

Well now the show is over I have some time to work on a few other projects and to start developing new ideas. I had a very enjoyable and relaxed felting session this afternoon with my embellisher... I am definitely beginning to feel more confident with colour and am feeling more able to experiment with combining colours within pieces. This week I have had a major clearout and 'streamline' (!) of my craft stash, and during the process I came across lots of wee bits and pieces of work that let me see how things have developed since I first set off down this path just over two years ago.  It's all been trial and error really - I'm still not very good at detailed planning, I tend much more to go with my 'instinct' (whatever that is!) - but it's interesting to see a thread of continuity between pieces that I have made along the way.  Anyway, here is what I've been working on today:

The larger pieces are for attempts at a new jewellery idea.  More about that soon!

Also this week I've been able to finish another project I wrote about recently - here's the back of it:

can you tell what it is yet? :P 

Right now the finished piece is stretching its legs on the wall in our living room - more photos to follow!

Cardorama!

(last cheesy title, I promise :P)

It's finally done: the last of the big projects I needed to finish before the craft fair:

lots of fibre art cards!

- I love looking at these once they are finished but boy do they take up the most room and time to make!

That's everything major finished now - my last decision is whether to make up a few more kumihimo rings and earrings.  

The earrings were popular at the last craft fair but don't sell well on my Etsy shop - and the rings are a fairly new idea so they weren't around last time.  To be honest I think I have enough to cover the table (!) but maybe people would like the option of matching bracelets and earrings/rings.... what do you think?

Braidelicious!

(I just can't enough of these cheesy post titles. Really.)

Here are some other things I've been working on...

...bracelets!  

Thanks so much as always to Sarah and Myfanwy for the beautiful threads that I love to work with so much :)

Ringtastic!

I'm busily crafting away building up stock for the craft fair... .

My favourite things to make are still

rings!!

Makers' Market table rehearsal...part 1

My second ever craft fair is looming on the horizon (ok, it's not until 3rd July but that feels quite soon!) - this afternoon I tried my first 'dry-run' of my table set-up, so I know what still needs to be done.  I have a lot to go on from last time - so I have most of the necessary bits and pieces.  The challenge this time is that I have a greater range of pieces that I somehow have to arrange and fit onto the table!

Here's my first attempt:

(so my kitchen table is actually 2' shorter than the 6' table I'll have at the fair, but you get the general idea!)

I haven't finished a few things as yet (there'll be more bracelets, more felted rings, and the box on the far left will be filled with greetings cards rather than cake :P) so this is just a general idea.  I've gone for rings on a piece of Indian slate, and some earrings on a plate (I'll source a more interesting and suitable plate somehow before the event!).

As always, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.  What do you think of the earrings display - too busy?  Too busy in general?  Should I group similarly shaped brooches together or mix them up?  So many options!!

The other most exciting crafty thing happening has been the arrival of some new threads from the ever-wonderful Sarah of therainbowgirl.  She has produced the most amazing custom selection of hand-dyed mixed threads for me to use for new kumihimo bracelets - check out these beauties:

yum!

Prototype hairband...

Here is the other prototype I have been working on that I mentioned recently: a prototype hairband/fascinator:

I've found this particularly difficult to take photos of!

It's a gunmetal grey hairband, with two circles of beaded and embroidered felt in pinks, purples and blues with a hint of yellow. 

The felt pieces have a wee 'sleeve' of felt sewn to their back so that the hairband can slide in and out - meaning that it can be worn on either side of the head and with the larger circle top or bottom.

Here it is in situ, modelled by my friend Rachael and her beautiful hair :D :

(thanks Rach!)

I'm quite liking this hairband idea - but have found it so difficult to photograph well that it almost puts me off making any more!  I have other ideas for different shapes to try out though, so I think I'll persevere :)

Brooch prototypes....

So here is the result of one of my recent projects: an experimental fibre brooch - this one is made from the raw materials in the first photo in my previous post.

My aim with these brooches was to explore making something less 'tidy' and more freestyle.  Fibres feel so good to touch I quite like having the edges left raw and fraying, and to be able to watch them wear over time.  I made the brooch by layering cotton fabric, fibres (silk hankie fibre and cotton nepps), cotton scrim and mixed threads. I held them together with 'magic film' and then machine embroidered over the top to trap them in place.

Here are some others that I made:

They all measure about 6cm x 6cm ish.

I'm not totally sure what I think about them, to be honest.  I like being able to feel the raw edges of the fibres but I'm so used to having neat edges, having a more freestyle look like this takes a bit of getting used to!  Maybe the idea is good but I need to develop it a bit.  I made more prototypes than this, but the 'magic film' malfunctioned a bit and they had to be abandoned (the magic film gets trapped by the machine embroidery and then you iron the piece, which is meant to make the film evaporate - but if you don't do it right it just goes sticky and that is disastrous!) - so before I try to develop the idea further I think I'll try an alternative - maybe Solvy.

Work still progresses on the other project - photos to follow soon!

Another craft fair...

Well, I've bitten the bullet and have decided to do another craft fair - on Saturday July 3rd, at the Columcille Centre in Morningside, here in Edinburgh:

It's organised by Craft Fairs Scotland  but also has its own website and blog. 

You may remember I did my first craft fair last May in Portobello - organised by the same company - so I'm sure this one will be just as well organised.  

I've had mixed feelings about doing another fair - mostly because my Etsy shop has been rather busy lately and I'm slightly worried about being able to keep up with demand as my pieces are so time-consuming to make.  After a lot of thought though I decided that the face-to-face feedback you get from being at a fair is so valuable it was worth giving it another go.  Many of my current jewellery styles have been directly developed from constructive criticism or comments that people made at the last craft fair - mostly about making the lines of my jewellery shapes softer and more curvaceous, which let me to make my curved necklaces:

'Solferino'

and my Paisley-shaped brooches:

'Terne'

-so that sort of feedback is worth doing the fair for in itself.

So now I just need to work on building up a selection of items and planning how I'm going to coordinate everything with the Etsy shop - I think I'll avoid listing online everything I have made, and I also plan to make use of the handy 'vacation mode' in the shop for a few weeks before the fair just so I'll have a clear idea of what pieces are available to show.

I have to say the bit I enjoy most is doing the practice run-through of my table set-up :D - watch this space for photos closer to the time!

Brooches in progress...

This weekend I'm working on some new Paisley-shaped brooches.  I particularly enjoy these as they're a bit bigger than my rings or necklaces so I have a larger area of felt to play with.  Again their colours have been inspired by my new supply of felt hankie fibre - and I'm trying to be a bit more adventurous with my bead colour choice, mixing colours together rather than sticking to shade variations of one colour.

This brooch will be called 'Chartreuse' - I'm really loving these delicate spring green shades at the moment:

I generally play around with bead placing for a while before I make the final decision (although sometimes it evolves as I go along).  It's pretty much impossible to keep the un-sewn-on beads on the felt as I sew, so these wee beauties come in very useful:

These are some of a set of tiny wee ceramic dishes made for me by Karen of hodgepodgearts - they are handy for so many crafty purposes, but I particularly use them for holding my beads as I work.  They are works of art in themselves (Karen made me a beautiful set of 8, each a different size and colour) and I just love to use them.

I've also been working on 'Iroiro' this weekend:

Still loving the rainbow colour combination, and I can't resist adding in a touch of gold with the beads.

I generally seem to do the beading first before the embroidery - I feel somehow that the beads give structure in a way that embroidery doesn't, so I tend to fit the embroidery stitches in around the felt textures and beads.  Embroidery for Iroiro and Chartreuse will hopefully be happening this evening!

Earrings in progress...

One of my favourite parts of the earring making process is when all the stitching is finished, and the felt pieces have spent a while under a pile of books getting nice and securely fixed on to their metal tags.  I carefully take them out and delicately check them over, front back and edges - it's like a little surprise to see them again and to remember it was me who made them!

This is my latest collection - Turmeric (orange), Levant (burgundy), Lupin (multicolour) and Carduus (purple).

Choosing names for my pieces is another favourite part of the process.  I love my thesaurus, and the internet (particularly Google images) is also an invaluable resource.  Sometimes I go for simpler, or more complicated, colour names (it gets more and more difficult... finding new names for purple shades these days is giving me a big challenge!), and other times something more abstract or that sums up what the piece reminds me of.  I also use quite a few Elvish names for the more nature-like pieces - I find Tolkien's invented language to be beautiful, and there are such evocative descriptions of nature in his writings.

Silk hankies and general fibre goodness...

The penultimate item of my recent fibre order extravaganza arrived this week - beautiful silk hankie fibres from EndlessInspiration. 

 Did I mention how much I'm loving working with silk hankie/bell cap fibre at the moment?  Although it's a bit tricky to manipulate with my dry winter hands, it's just so light and beautiful, and a little goes such a long way!  

This wonderful  rainbow mix of colours inspired me to have a go at making a start on a project prototype.  It's an idea I've been thinking about trying for a while, which then became more defined through discussion with my sister when I was visiting with her recently.

I won't say any more just yet, but here is a sneak peek at the initial stages - I made a start on 2 different versions today:

Last of all, I've been really enjoying working on more rings - here they all are:

...rather fiddly (even by my standards!) but very satisfying :)

A rainy afternoon...

There's not much I like better than getting down to some embellisher action on a dreary, misty, moisty Saturday afternoon... .

I had quite a busy December and January in my shop, which has meant I've been able to splash out on some gorgeous new fibres.  I'm particularly loving silk bell caps/hankies at the moment - a little goes such a long way, and with wonderful dyers out there like fibercottage and knotmydayjob providing such beautiful colour inspiration, I've been having fun this afternoon!

So, here's what I came up with.  I'm particularly excited as more ring blanks have arrived from Olay, so I'll be getting to work on more felted, embroidered and beaded rings this evening.

These will become rings, earrings, necklaces and brooches sometime soon :D

More ring prototypes...

A couple of ring prototypes with a mossy theme:

Sphagnum...

....and Bryophyte.

Autumn felted and embroidered journal cover...

So as promised, here are some photos of the 'Autumn' themed journal cover.

Here is all the fibre laid out, pre-felting.  You can't see how deep it is from this angle - it's about 4cm!

There's a whole mixture of fibres, including many from a wonderful mixed pack from a recent discovery: Stone Creek Silk. All in all there's merino roving, silk throwsters waste, silk tops, silk noil, flax fibre, bamboo fibre, soy silk, angelina and wool locks.

After the felting I added some couched threads on the front cover side, and some embroidery on the back cover side.

On the back cover I used cast-on stitch to represent falling leaves (in lovely space-dyed threads from Stef Francis)

And on the front cover I couched on silk boucle thread in a classic Japanese 'gust of wind' design.  I also added a wonderful handmade burr wood button (courtesy of  Julie and her husband of Roseland Bags), and again I made two different kumihimo braids as pagemarker and for closure.

I lined the very inside with plain green cotton, and for the cover holders I used another piece of antique kimono fabric from Kyoto.

Here's the front laid out:

...and a detail of the button closure:

All in all I was pleased with how these two journal covers turned out - although they're quite substantial, and not really delicate, I love the colours, and they feel wonderful to hold.