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And the little critters who left me alone enough for a few minutes each night to let me finally finish it. PH and I have often lamented the sorry state of women's handbags. There are too many rhinestones, studs, gold latches, useless-decorative pockets, extra handles and patent leather parts for me to feel comfortable with. I don't want my purse looking like a cheap hooker. Not even with my new hair, it still is not me.
So I decided to make myself a test purse and then, if it worked, make it a flagship purse, one I really wanted to carry around flaunting it's happy existence without all the standard purse-deco, clutter garbage. The front panel is hard felted merino in blues and greens and silvers with a lot of sashiko mermaid stitching. The pocket on the front panel came from the leather coat I used on the back panel. This is truly and unsale-able item due to all the hours of stitching involved in it's subtle decoration.
The back panel is an up-cycled suede leather coat, and the inside is a fantastic flannel print with old cars and the appropriate accessories for traveling around in such ancient vehicles. I wish I had taken a photo of the fabric before it went inside the bag.
This is a close up of some of the stitching and (shame on me) my logo embroidered on in flashy red and white. I am a fame whore just waiting to be recognised :)
When I went to school for ceramics I would have called this red and white mark my 'chop' and stamped it on the underside of all my works as a signature of sorts. Somehow, even with the switch in mediums I still feel like this makers mark is important. Maybe even more important in a world filled with cheap, mass-produced goods where the items aren't even seen by the people whose names appear as the chop or brand.
After cursing and fiddling with the darning/free-motion foot I picked up for my sewing machine a month ago I finally had time to get it to work properly. The manual for my machine offers no insight and the package the foot came in has nothing printed on it other than the name. I assumed the best way to work this thing was without feed dogs to allow for the implied free-motion. HA HA! Silly me. I also assumed that using an inverted embroidery hoop would give me more control and allow for more even tension on the underlying fabric (wool felt in this case)I found a diagram to this effect. Again HA HA!
The stitches weren't catching and the tension was way off on the bottom. My frustration levels were rising and so was my blood pressure.... then I walked away (in an uncharacteristically grown-up fashion). I came back to my machine days later and pretended not to have any clue as to how free-motion sewing SHOULD work.
As it turns out, my machine would like the feed dogs up and engaged with nary an embroidery hoop in sight. Who knew?
Now that I do know though, I will likely need to buy thread in bulk. This free-motion stuff is fun and hypnotising and burns through thread like there is no tomorrow.
I had some scrap pieces of felt from making larger things and decided to make more cuffs. I love wearing big jewellery and mostly can't afford it. I have some issues with all the leather cuffs out there too. They are a bit boring. In any case, I sweated over making this felt and I don't intend to waste any. So I went out and found some glass beads and shell buttons and did my best to blind myself sewing into the dark of night to satisfy my craving for felt that sparkles. Imagine satisfaction in blinding yourself. I should be locked up!
Yeah, who knew. I was asked about a year ago to make a felted stag costume for my step-father in law. I said sure. The deadline was not for a year, LOADS of time. Naturally I didn't think anything more about it until the mad halloween scramble hit our house in September. At which time I also needed costumes for two small girls. Luckily for me the girls found princess costumes at a thrift shop and were quite happy for me to do nothing other than their make-up. I was pleased enough to be a witch for the third year running. Sadly for me (though a relief to him) I didn't have time to make or find Boss Hog a costume. I was thinking of Sherlock Holmes for him but will have to save that for next year.
I did manage to drag him outside to pose in the stag hat before we sent it off. It was about three degrees outside and the only white shirt he had was thin linen. Boss Hog was a soldier and let me pose him for about 15 minutes before the camera battery died and I let him go back inside. I am a cruel and unusual task master, no?
I know, really, does it get any funnier. I just had to post and get it over with. No more puns, at least not in this post, I promise.
We are back from a wild August of super fun. We went camping with two other couples and all our kids in Rock Creek. We came home for 12 hours and drove to Vancouver to renovate my parents guest bathroom. From there we went to stay in a hotel for four days while Boss Hog was at a conference. Then on to Sechelt to visit Grandpa N and back to my parents for one more night before coming home and getting back in the regular school year groove.
Whew. It is tiring just to type all that. It was actually a lot of fun and we did see so many people that we don't get to spend regular time with anymore that the craziness was worth it. But man am I glad to have my bed back.
Since we've been home I have dyed, and felted and sewn and am currently working on some new posters for our Friends of the Library Society. I haven't even stopped to photograph anything. I think it's because when we were packing up for our marathon vacation I made sure I packed a clear tote full of little traveling projects to work on when the kids napped and in the evenings. I checked and re-checked to be sure I had a bit of everything for any crafting whim that swept me up.
And then I forgot the box. Seriously. Even Boss Hog looked a little worried that I might rip the curtains down at the hotel and sew them into a dress with dental floss. I made it through nearly a whole four weeks without making anything. I think it was good for me to be a bit more still, but I have been in a bit of a making frenzy since we got back.
This wool I dyed with CIBA acid dye to make felted chair pads for our new kitchen chairs. I love the colour but have only made one chair pad so far and think that it kind of sucks design wise. I am waiting to get a bit farther back into the making groove so that the rest of the chair pads are more interesting. Wish me luck.
Here are the last felted wool wall hangings for the show in two weeks. The first picture is remarkably bad (notice the wrinkled sheet? could you even see past it? it almost makes my eyes bleed, but I digress...).
The horses were based on the Swedish Dala horse, and a book I got out of the library called Per and the Dala Horse by Rebecca Hickox and illustrated by Yvonne Gilbert. I took it out of the library for the munchkins, Eden and Arlo, so the book is intended for the five and under set but it did inspire me to research and make work based on the original carved pine horses from Sweden. In fact, I don't think I'm done with the Dala horse yet.
Alright, enough procrastinating to avoid first post anxiety... here it is the first big felting project that I used up most of my first 5lbs of fibre on. It's a rug I'm working on for my oldest daughter's new 'big girl' room.
I learned a lot from this project. First, that felting on this scale is hard on the wrists and i might need a personal trainer to prepare me for the next rug. Second, that if you like your kitchen table, FELT SOMEWHERE ELSE! I've rubbed the finish off the table in a few spots. Next, that my kitchen table, and indeed my kitchen, are only large enough to produce a rug roughly 2.5 x 4.5 feet. (And this was two kitchen table sized sections joined end to end) This is not really as much rug as I would have liked for the output of elbow grease that was required. However, I just got 10lbs more lovely merino wool to mess with so there is more felting on the horizon to be sure. I think though that I will try to learn more on smaller projects and save up my wrists for when I make a truly great rug sometime in the future.
The polka dots were all kool-aid dye experiments that needed to be used up on a base of un-dyed merino wool. Even looking at this now I wonder at putting a white rug in a three year old girls bedroom. Luckily, since it's my first rug, by the time it is finished I will probably hate it. I don't tend to be too precious about finished works. A few hours after it's finished I'm already plotting the next project. Which is much smaller in scale and much easier on the wrists. Hammered silver wire jewelry.
I'm nothing if not diverse.
There has been a lot of quilting. It isn't something I thought I would like but as it turns out, it's pretty addictive. I really enjoy that they always keep you warm and you don't have to worry about making them flattering. Quilts fit everybody.
And some non-felted art for the same show based on the very amusing novel Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters.
And all the while teaching myself how to do my own eyebrows and make myself look like the undead. A girl only has so much time to perfect these critical things.
I know I could have spread these projects out to get the maximum air-play from each of them but time marches on. There will be more in the future but I am leaving you for now with this charming picture of myself at Halloween.
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