Felty Rings

 Well I'm guessing most of you have seen (and fallen in love with) Mollie Makes?

The latest issue came with a little felt ring pack on the front and I thought, oh sweet I could do something with them.  To be honest I wondered how robust they would be with a felt shank, and dug through my jewellery making bits and found some metal sieve ring shanks.

Thats better, I could see this being robust enough to be worn every day.

Recently I have been doing a bit of sewing and I sometimes use a wrist pin cushion, it's rather annoying as it tends to get in the way a bit and keeps moving round my wrist so I thought, why not make a pin cushion ring?

So that's what I did.  This is my favourite little thing at the minute, it's so handy to have and I've used it loads already. 

Actually I'm off out tonight for a family meal and I'm planning to wear mine as a ring in it's own right!

These are quite easy to make, if a little fiddly; but why not give it a go. 



You will wonder how you lived without one. 

If you can't bear the thought of all that snipping and miniature sewing, I have popped a few in my shop (I know I'm shameless).

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~ 

Felty Brooch Makes

I'm just gonna sneak in here and get my May Monthly Makes in on the last day of the month!

I've been doing a bit of hand sewing this week or so and that included these little pretties.  I have a thing for brooches, and as soon as I made these I added the trusty brooch backs to them.

 

Using felt in what I would describe as 'Ice Cream' colours these just made me smile.  

I have given these ones all away now, I meant to keep one for myself, I'll have to get the felt back out.

Another little make was this bunting and cushion.  A friend at work asked about how best to make bunting so I offered my services.  It was a pleasure making pretty pink stuff for a little girl's bedroom with four boys it's something I've never had the chance to do.

 

I was given the fabric left over from the bedroom curtains and I made this double sided bunting.


Everywhere looks better with bunting I think!


The way I cut the fabric to try to get a decent pattern on each flag didn't leave much fabric but I was able to salvage some squares so I made a patchwork cushion to match.


As I am cushion mad I will enter this as my May Monthly Make.

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

Russian Doll Guide

As promised here is a little guide as to how I made my little Russian keyring / bag charm, be warned it is very photo heavy, but the photos are necessary to help support my ramblings.

It started with a drawing I made of what I wanted (promise not to laugh, I can’t draw but sometimes do when I get an idea in my head):

Following this I gathered different coloured felts, I used red, skin tone, brown and pink, but you can use whatever colours you have to hand:

I made a template from paper for the outline of my doll, this was done using a button for the head shape (40mm diameter) and freehand for the rest of the body. In order to make it symmetrical I drew a full head and half of the body and found the middle point in the head and folded the paper in half.

From here I cut the template out:

Using this template I cut out three copies of this shape from the red felt to make the back of the doll, the front of the doll and the headscarf.

For the headscarf section I folded the felt in half and cut a curve from the middle to make a symmetrical drape effect (keep the spare bit you cut off the headscarf for later).

Now for the face; I used a fabric marker to draw a circle shape straight onto the felt, again I used a button, smaller than the one previously used and cut this out:

For the hair I did the same again, cut a circle from brown felt using the same size button, and cut this circle in half:

Then as with the headscarf fold this in half and cut a curve from the middle to make a symmetrical drape effect:

Next you need to cut the last bits of felt you will need which consist of a little flower for your doll’s dress, the tie part of her headscarf (from the scrap bit you had earlier) and some cheeks:

These were just cut freehand from the felt, they don’t have to be perfect as they are quite small.
At this stage I cut out some fabric for her dress using the template I made earlier (I sound like someone from Blue Peter now!), I used a fabric with a small pattern for the best effect. I also cut a small strip of fabric to attach the doll to the clip. I ironed this fabric into a narrow strip and stitched up one side using blanket stitch:

Now to make the face (my favourite bit):

I roughly positioned the hair to see how much space I had left to work with and drew on some eyes and a mouth using a fabric marker pen.

Using black seed beads and a beading needle I attached her eyes, after tying off at the back I went back through the felt and gave her some eyelashes using the same thread.
Changing to red embroidery silk I embroidered a mouth onto her filling it in with little stitches.
The little felt cheeks were attached with four small stitches in pink cotton.
The hair was attached with brown thread, I gave her a parting and sewed the hair as below:

After the face I attached the little felty flower to the fabric of her dress with a few little stitches and attached the headscarf tie in the same way.
Now we have all the bits we need to make our little doll.

At this stage I attached bondaweb to the back of the face and headscarf to be extra sure that they don’t come off, but this is not essential:

Then to assemble it all:
The face is attached to the headscarf, dress attached to the body, headscarf attached on top of the dress. The face and headscarf were then sewn to the body with little stitches.

At this stage I secured the narrow fabric strip with the clip to the front inside of the doll with lots of little stitches (in the middle). Then it was time to stitch her up. She was stitched up with a little blanket stitch around ¾ of her circumference leaving a small space for stuffing:

Then stitch her up!
That’s it – she’s done:

I thought she looked a little lonely so...

… I made some more!

If you make any be sure to let me know.

Back Soon ♥

Russian Doll ~ Matryoshkas

Following my Russian Doll find last week at the Bank Holiday car boot sale it got me thinking. Recently I have seen some lovely Russian Doll type fabric and accessories about and thought I would have a go myself.

This was the result:

I drew her shape out freehand with a fabric marker (which will disappear, so please ignore the purple pen marks), with a little help from a couple of buttons for her head and face shapes, and kind of made the rest up as I went along.

A little felt and fabric matryoshka key ring (or bag charm).

I really enjoyed making this little lady and I have already started making more of these. They are very easy to do and it is all hand sewn so (as no sewing machine is required) if you have a stinking headache (like I did at the time) this quiet sewing project is the thing to do (if anyone is interested I will do a little tutorial).

~ ♥ ~
Don’t forget it’s not too late to join my giveaway (see button at top right), the winner’s name will be plucked from the Rington’s teapot on Thursday night by my son.

Back Soon ♥

Felty Flowers Tutorial

The lovely Louise asked me to make a little tutorial to show how I made my felt flowers. This is my first attempt at a tutorial, so please be gentle with me….

I apologise for the layout of this blog, I have had many problems getting the pictures and wording in the right places, will try harder next time.

Felty Flowers

For these flowers I have cut a strip of felt the full length of the felt square and about 3-4 cm high.

Cut the felt in a gentle curving wave to give some shape to the finished flower.
At each end cut the felt to a curved point (so you don’t have a blunt squared end petal).

Now, using a strong cotton start with a running stitch close to the bottom of the felt (about 3-5 mm).

I have used a contrasting coloured cotton for illustration purposes only, I would suggest you use a cotton to match your flower, but it should not really matter as the sewing should not be visible on the flower once it’s finished.

For the pansy type flowers:

















Continue the running stitch to the end of the felt and gently gather the felt as you go, make this as loose or tight as you like, the more tight the gather, the smaller the finished flower will be.
















Tie your cotton off and you should now have a curly wiggly felt spring type thing (…well, you can’t accuse me of being too technical).


Now gather the felt into a flower shape, curling it over itself (like orange peel) until you get a flower shape you are happy with. Stitch it in place with a few stitches at the back. Don’t worry of there is a little hole in the middle of your flower we can fix this next.


















If you have a hole left, cut a small flower shape from your scrap felt in a contrasting colour and attach this to the middle of the flower with a couple of stitches. Hide your stitches in the middle by adding a small bead or button to the centre of your flower. If there is no hole just add a button or bead.

















For the rose flowers:
















Very similar to the above method except that you gather and sew as you go.


Start curling the felt round itself to make a rosebud shape, every couple of turns add a stitch to the bottom to keep it in place.



















Every few turns fold the felt back on itself for about 1 to1.5 cm and stitch this in place.

Continue curling to make your rose. Tie your cotton off underneath and you are done!








Leaves


If you want to add leaves, these are really simple to make.
















Cut green or brown felt into a double leaf shape, I just do this freehand and get all kinds of weird and wonderful leaf shapes.

With embroidery cotton backstitch your veins onto the leaf in a contrasting colour and tie off on the back.



















You can then fold the leaves to be next to each other or have one each side of your flower.

Simply tack these onto the back of your flower and you are done!

















Hope you were able to make sense of this, if not let me know and I will try to make it make sense (see what I mean).

Luv Kandi x