Colour, shapes... and a giveaway!

Over the last couple of days I have been revelling in the colour of beautiful new supplies - silk hankies from Sassalynne, Tussah silk roving from SilkAndShine, handdyed firestar from FeltStudioUK, and the most amazing 'wooly crumbs' from The Wool Peddler:

so much inspiration!

I'm also still trying to come up with new shape ideas for brooches and necklaces...  so I thought I would open it up to you!  Leave a comment on this post with your suggestions for new shapes for me to try - if I end up using any of your shape ideas, in return you get to pick an item of your choice from my Etsy shop that I will send to you as a thank you! 

I seem to prefer more abstract or organic shapes, and am limited to somewhat simpler forms (it's not possible to preserve detail in very complex shapes). Here are some shapes I have already tried, to get you going:

Thank you!

Sunburst and Vortex...

It has taken me quite a while to get these finished... . I've been otherwise engaged all over the place doing lots of fun things like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and travelling down to Birmingham to see my sister and nieces and going to the Festival of Quilts.  The Festival of Quilts was quite an event (I had never been before) - and although I am not a quilter we had a wonderful day drooling over all the stalls and getting lots of inspiration.  The highlight of the day though was actually getting to meet lovely Myfanwy of Sassalynne in person and to see (and buy!) a collection of her wonderful supplies 'in the flesh'.  Over the course of the day I bought lots of exciting and inspiring supplies, and discovered new sellers like 21st Century Yarns, which was great too.

Anyway, back to Sunburst and Vortex - these are prototype necklaces, the first two end results of my Sassalynne viscose felt project. 

'Vortex'

I haven't done any felting myself this time - the colours of the felt were so lovely I didn't want to cover them up by adding any more fibre.  Instead I just beaded and embroidered onto the surface, and experimented with a more 'ethnic' feel with dangly (not sure how else to describe them!) additions at the bottom of the felt piece and on the chain.

Glass beads and tiny sequins, with seed stitch in ribbon and cotton.

'Sunburst'

Glass beads, and seed and running stitches in gold thread.

The addition of the metal drops is a bit of a departure for me - the idea arose from wanting to try to incorporate a bit of movement into a necklace.

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.

Free time...

 As of this week my Thursdays are now free, meaning I have more time available to develop some ideas that have been brewing... .

I recently bought some absolutely beautiful hand-dyed viscose felt from the ever wonderful Myfanwy of Sassalynne (her Etsy shop is here).  As usual I have been 'sitting' on it for a wee while waiting for inspiration to strike - which it inevitably does, sooner or later, when one is lucky enough to have a store of such lovely supplies...  .  Here is the first stage of my idea - 9 versions to be precise - more to follow at a later date:

The colours and the texture of the felt are irresistible!

Another project I got to finish today is another 'bib'-style necklace - I've slightly tweaked the design with this one, and changed the parts that connect to the ribbon to a more 'pointed' rather than 'rounded' shape.

This one is called 'nightgarden'.

The felt piece is made of silk hankie fibre, cotton scrim, cotton nepps, and silk tops, embellished with many glass and antique metal beads, and colonial knot, seed, bullion knot, detached chain and woven spider's wheel 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.

New Year, new ideas...

I always have about 3 or 4 notebooks on the go at all times - for words, thoughts, ideas, notes.  

An idea has been developing over the last few days... here are my initial notes:

...more to follow on how it develops and turns out!

Wonderful Sarah of therainbowgirl also recently dyed some cotton scrim and muslin for me - I use scrim a lot and so was excited to try out some muslin.  Here is the first result - called 'niji' ( 虹 - Japanese for rainbow):

...so the background is muslin felted (with my embellisher) straight on to the batting that I use as backing for all of my felting.

Something else I would like to have a go at this year is designing and making some cuffs and bracelets - not kumihimo but felted, beaded and embroidered.   Need to have more thoughts and make more notes about this first, though!

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.

Necklace or brooch?

I finally got around to experimenting with one of my necklaces to see if I could make it into a brooch.  

I chose 'Marine': 

I removed the chain and firmly glued a 30mm brooch finding to her back, after sanding the metal surfaces with emery to make sure the glue could find purchase.

Here's how she turned out:

I'm going to change all the listings in my Etsy shop to reflect that it is now an option to have any of my 'bar'-type beaded, felted and embroidered necklaces made into a brooch instead!

My first ever custom order!

I recently completed my first ever custom order through my Etsy shop. The lovely Amanda, from HungryDesigns, asked me to come up with a necklace just for her :) - asking me to work with a palette of greys, browns or blacks.  Here's what I came up with!  I decided to make 3 different necklaces so that Amanda would have a choice, and hopefully one might suit!  

~*~

I called this first necklace 'Nebula', as the swirling greys and silvers were inspired by the incredible photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This picture shows me planning the placement of the beads, before I sew them on by hand.  I mask out the dimensions of the piece with paper to make sure I don't stray!  For this necklace I used tiny Sterling silver 15/0 beads, Japanese glass beads and tiny bugle beads, as well as freshwater pearls and vintage nailhead beads.

After the beading, I added some hand embroidery stitches (running, colonial knot, bullion knot and split), before cutting the piece out and whip-stitching around the edges with cotton thread.

The finished necklace - completed with gunmetal grey chain.

The next piece I made had more of a black and silver theme.  I embroidered several roses in ribbon, and added Japanese and Italian glass beads, vintage nailhead beads, and hand embroidery stitches.  I called this necklace 'Midnight Rose'.

Here she is with the beading and embroidery finished, ready to be cut to shape.

And the finished article! Again completed with a gunmetal grey chain.

Last but not least, I made a necklace in shades of nut browns, called 'Chestnut'.

Here's what the pile of fibres for the base felt look like before they get felted with my embellisher.  For this felt, I used wool roving, wool locks, yarn, silk noil, silk fabric, and silk throwsters waste.

And this is how it looks after felting!

I added tiny vintage gold metal beads, tiny bugle beads, a big bronze metal bead and Japanese glass beads, along with hand embroidery stitches (Cretan, fly, chain, seed, colonial knot and Portuguese stem - phew!).

This necklace was finished with an antique bronze chain.

So, Midnight Rose, Chestnut and Nebula were my three answers to the brief - I sent pictures to Amanda, who was kind enough to buy both Midnight Rose and Chestnut - I was over the moon!

Finally, to top it all off, Amanda wrote this lovely post in her blog about my work.

All in all I really enjoyed the experience of making a custom order - although it is nerve-wracking hoping that you will produce something the customer will like, the challenge of being given a brief including elements you might not usually try is really exciting.  Thanks so much Amanda!

Taur-im-Duinath

I bought some amazing tussah silk roving from the wonderful Jacinta's Etsy shop - it was so beautiful that I had to make something with it right away!  The colourway was called 'Ironbark', and reminded me of forests.  I have been listening to the audiobook of the wonderful 'The Silmarillion' whilst crafting recently, and so Taur-im-Duinath came to life.

Taur-im-Duinath was a great, dark forest in the south of Beleriand in 'The Silmarillion'.

First of all I made the felt with my embellisher.  As well as the tussah silk, I used scrim, Cotswold locks (from another fantastic Etsy seller) ,  and wool roving.

To make sure I stuck to the basic shape of the pendant when it came to adding surface embellishment, I cut out a guide and tacked it onto the felt.  I then added more scrim, a metal bead and many more Toho Japanese glass beads as well as some tiny vintage Italian glass beads, as well as some hand embroidery (French and colonial knot, stem, split, chain and running stitches) in cotton and rayon threads.

To finish it off I whip-stitched around the edges with cotton thread.

The finished felt.

I mounted the felt onto a vintage brass tag to give it a good weight for hanging as a pendant, and then added some lovely delicate brass chain for the necklace.

The finished piece.

I really enjoyed making this necklace.  It feels like my ideas have evolved a bit since I last tried making a necklace in this way - particularly the idea to whip around the edges which tidies them up and frames the piece well.

My first silver necklace!

I finished my first project in my metalsmithing evening class: a necklace in silver and felt.  The whole process of silversmithing is so time-consuming and physical - gives me a whole new appreciation of jewellery I see in shops.  

For this necklace I wanted to somehow combine felt and embroidery with silver.  My teacher at the class had shown us how to make stone settings (like those used in rings or brooches) - and I thought maybe I could use the same technique to create a place for felt on a piece of jewellery.

The finished piece!

I decided straight off that I would just make the main part of the necklace - chain is a nightmare to make, and there's no way I could make the delicate sort of chain that I wanted.  So, I bought in raw silver chain and finished the ends myself (but that comes a bit later... first, the main part!).

To make the main part, first I sawed out a piece of silver, and textured it with hammer marks.  To make the 'setting' I used a narrow, long, and thinner piece of silver which I shaped into a circle and then soldered on to the silver 'base'.  (This really is a quick summary, and doesn't give a true picture of the complexity of the soldering, or the time spent waiting for the silver to enjoy an acid bath, or the filing.... oh, the filing!)  

On this photo you can see the hammered texture, as well as the solder join on the setting ring.  I brushed the silver with a metal brush, and also sandpaper, to get a more matte effect on the metal. 

I already had a piece of turquoise felt I had made, that I had in mind to use, so I added a few French Knot embroidery stitches to it, and some tiny glass beads and freshwater pearl beads too.  Then I cut it to size, and glued it into position in the setting (usually, with stone settings, the metal of the setting ring is gently and subtly bent over the stone to hold it in place - but in this case that wouldn't have been any use due to the flexibility of the felt).

Then all that was left was to drill tiny holes in the top corners to take circular jump rings, so that I could attach the chain.

It was difficult to decide whether to round off the corners or leave them more sharp.  In the end I opted for sharp corners, but I'll try something different with my next project.  

I started working on my next pieces at last week's class - I'm sticking with the idea of 'setting' a piece of felt, but this time I'm trying to make earrings and a couple of different pendant necklaces.  Futher posts on this to follow!