A Few New Things

I have been making up a few new things ready for my stall next month.

I had the idea of doing some medic alert seat belt covers, that can personalised with names if wanted and medical conditions. 

 They are fastened onto the seat belt with kam snaps, and washable.

 A 3d dragon dreamcatchers

 He is all stitched out on organza

 I also stitched out Horatio Owl, he stands 15 inches tall and is fitted with a proper working clock

 Today has been some fun glove puppets

 They are all made from fleece.

Crafting For Me

Now my order book is closed and all orders are completed, the last of them goes in the post tomorrow, Saturday I have my last craft fair of the year.

I can turn my thoughts to other crafts for a while 

Today I made something for me 

I was so impressed with the fleece welly socks I got for my birthday last month, I decided to make myself a pair.

I have loads of fleece so I didn't need to buy anything in.

Of course I showed them to a friend and now she wants some, no pressure I will have them done next week for her.

Last Friday we had another pottery session, this time it was to add some colour and surface decoration to our fired pieces.

 All the pieces after there first firing, there are some great pieces there.

 My tea light holder and money bag

 A tile I practised some of the colours on

 In theory this should come out orange on the outside and yellow on the inside, we shall see

 Bovey Belle praying for divine creativity

 Her prayers have been answered I think, some lovely design work

 another great BB piece

 I didn't get a finished photo of this but BB painted little flowers on it.

My money bag, brown on the outside and red on the inside and the cord should come out yellow.

The pieces have all gone off to be dipped in a glaze and a final firing.

We get them back this week end I am looking forward to seeing how they come out :-)

And More New Lines

 I have made up some pink pig fleece hats in toddler and child size

 My sister wanted a poppy brooch, the top one I made with Organza didn't really like how it turned out, I then made a couple out of felt, much preferred them, I have stitched brooch pins on the backs of them, Martin has take the one for my sister to deliver to her today. The other two can go on the stall.

Chicken doorstops, I have a couple of these upstairs and when a friend who came to stay saw them she asked if I could make three for her she picked out a neutral fabric, I finally  got round to making them today, Martin can take them back and deliver them next week, I have some of the fabric left so will make another couple to go on the stall, to add some weight to them I fill a plastic bag with unscented cat litter and add that to door stops. Clean cheap and is better than adding grains.

I have also been working on some cheeky country angel's, I have a few different designs in this range to do.

New Lines

I have been working when time allowed this week on some new lines for my craft stall

 I got this bag done yesterday, its made from leatherette vinyl, the squares were all embroidered separately then stitched together to make the panels, its all been lined. 

 I have done these today, adult and child size fleece hats

 I have just done this second design

 

and another hat done on the knitting loom, I enjoy doing these hats in the evening on the loom, they knit up really quick.

That's my crafting this week back in the cabin tomorrow :-)

Stitch In Time

I have been so busy stitching getting ready for the Autumn fair in October

 Tissue Holders, Gift Card Holders

 Fleece hats for babies

 Candy Cane Mice, Candy Cane Horses, Mini felt stockings

 Candy Cane Owls

 Bottle Aprons

 Gingerbread Men Pomanders

Hats for toddlers.

This all mainly samples the stock that is made is all packaged now, still have more hats to do, waiting delivery on some blank baby bibs and some clear vinyl for another range of items.

I have been having a great time :-)

Fermenting Fleece part 2

About 4 weeks I set Lambert's fleece to self clean by the Fermenting Suint method 

details of the method can be found here Fermenting Suint

I will start back at the beginning 

 Lambert was sheared you can see how dirty he is

 This was back in spring lovely and clean underneath

 Four weeks ago his fleece was put into a black bin filled with rainwater lid on and left

 Today was the day, I set up and old fire guard (never throw anything away) over a big container

 Took the lid off the bin phew did it stink

 pulled out the fleece and left it to drain

 the water that drained off was poured back into the bin

 and another fleece I was given a few weeks ago was put in to start fermenting

 this fleece should work a lot quicker you can re-use the water lots of times

I rinsed off the fleece with rainwater several times until there was no more smell, the fleece you can see is a lot cleaner and its now drying off in the sunshine, once dry I can card it and then it will be ready for spinning.

It was a bit smelly to do but nothing worse than a muck heap :-)

Fermenting Fleece

Yes I am fermenting a sheep's fleece

Lambert's fleece has been put into a big dustbin and is soaking in rainwater, this method is suppose to clean the fleece, it will stay in there for two weeks then be rinsed off and dried ready for spinning,

Once his fleece comes out another will go into the same water and so on until I have all four sheep fleeces done.

There is more details on this method here Fermenting Fleece

Revisable Fleece Gillet

Fleece blankets are cheap and there is lots of colourful ones out there, I got myself a couple of new books by Nancy Cornwell the queen of fleece.

I decided to make a revisable fleece gillet from her book 90 Minute Fleece

There is a full multi sized tissue pattern for the gillet that comes with the book, I re-traced the parts in the size I wanted onto dressmakers paper, this way I keep the original pattern in all sizes.

I chose lilac and grey and cut out the parts

The inner and outer were sewen up and stitched together, I also stitched out some leaf shapes onto the front panels

 I trimmed all the edges with pinking shears, the beauty of working with fleece it doesn't need hemming you can leave raw edges, I also cut out the top layer of fleece in the leaf shapes, (reverse cut away applique) 

The reverse side just shows the stitching of the leaves.

I think it took  bit longer than 90 minuets but now I have the pattern cut out it wont so long to do.

I could make 1 gillet from one fleece blanket in the same colour inside and out, so it works out very cost effective.