Christmas decorations

Our Christmas tree has a rather eclectic collection of decorations from handmade to purchased. 

 



Felted balls with added beads, see here for instructions by Judy Coates Perez.

These are super easy and fun to make.

 

Hand crafted decorations from stitching friends















 
Felted hearts

Two pieces of acrylic felt decorated then blanket-stitched together with a small amount of stuffing.  

Some have had other fibres, including sparkly angelina fibres, needlefelted onto the felt before stitching.

Just one more

Well I couldn't help myself, I delivered another Blue 12x12 for the Aotearoa Quilters Blue 12x12 exhibition.  (see here for my other entry)

I started it the day of my Guild's January meeting so I could take along some hand stitching.  The January meeting is just an informal night where you can stitch, knit, whatever and chat.  The usual monthly meetings are more formal and involve a speaker, show and tell, etc.

So I quickly felted up a blue piece.  Starting with acrylic felt I needlefelted (with my trusty Janome needlefelting machine) a selection of blue wool, silk rovings, with vague white crosses and some bits of black.  During the Guild meeting I added some handstitching and then took the piece on holiday with the intention to stitch more - yeah right.  It spent the whole time in its wee bag.

Back at home and completely uninspired with it - it sat in its wee bag. Until last Wednesday (two days before the deadline), when again I needed some handstitching to take to my Wednesday evening stitching group (the first for the year).  Quickly added a bit of machine quilting to firm it up abit, some bobbin work, then sewed on the facing strips that could be handstitched that night.

So 4pm Friday afternoon I delivered this ...

The quilts will be exhibited at the Craft Fairs in Christchurch and Palmerston North and the quilts will all be for sale at $125.  Not sure what I'll do with this if it doesn't sell and is returned.

Thermoformable felt

A while ago I received some thermoformable felt from Dale at thethreadstudio.com. The idea was to have a play and send her the results.  

The felt is 90% wool and 10% polyester.  It can be shaped by adding heat.  The instructions said to pop it in the oven at 150deg C for 20 minutes.  The kitchen did smell a little like warm wet wool.

The starting piece of felt was quite thick, using my Janome needle-felter I added some merino/alpaca/silk blends and hand-stitching.  Then using various bits and pieces from the kitchen, a bit of cooking ...

felted, stitched, ready for shaping

useful kitchen items

 

shaping tools

end results

The bowls held their shape quite well, even before the cooking.  I might just need to revisit this interesting stuff.

Snakes on Ladders

Snakes on Ladders is my first piece using silk sari strips, my son suggested the name.

I buy over-dyed sari ribbon from Dale Rollerson (www.thethreadstudio.com). One of her techniques is blanket stitching the sari strips onto a base fabric. This created an interesting piece - but what to do with it? 

After machine needle-felting the whole piece I still didn't know what to do with it.   

So I cut some strips and some more, laid them on some woollen-mix felt and eventually came up with an arrangement that I liked.



I entered this (about a year ago) into Aotearoa Quilters online challenge 'On the Line' and won Best of Show! the prize being a great pack of fabric from Distressed Threads.


I've created a grey and pink version called Fishnets that I've entered into SAQA's Benefit Online 2013 Auction, more about that in a later entry.