Knitting and Stiching Show

I spent a long and tiring but very enjoyable day at Alexandra Palace on Saturday with my friend Jo visiting the Knitting and Stitching Show.

It was, as always, a feast for the ardent crafter with so much to see and inspire. We felt a two day visit would have done it more justice. Of course there was the obligatory buying of 'goodies' ! I think I was quite restrained with just a little collection of rust themed fibre, threads and other metally bits.



I also saw these wonderful copper buttons which I bought from Dale Rollerson's Thread Studio. It was great to see Dale and introduce myself as it was her Embellish Stitch Enrich course that I took earlier this year. I was looking for some sort of embellishment to put on one of my rust pieces and these just fit the bill. They are already sewn in place and look great.


There were a few more purchases - mainly stock things like calico and buttons. I also bought some knitting yarn for my daughter. She had described something new she'd seen so I hope I;ve got the right stuff. She will no doubt enjoy playing with it regardless.

On Sunday we car booted and I purchased these lace bits for 50p - bargain! They have already been dyed orange and brown and will appear in a rust piece at some later date.

I am ashamed!

Ashamed that it is over a month since my last post!

I could give a long list of reasons why I haven't posted, but instead I will be positive and post a few photos of a few things I have done.

I'm slowly getting on with the Embellish Stitch Enrich course, having reached Lesson 5. This has been a "heat it and see" lesson, mainly using kunin felt which is suppose to melt when heated. i say "supposed" as I had varying results. The black felt melted without any problem but the mauve colour scorched rather than melt.

This first one worked a treat. it was just swirls of wool fibred placed in a spiral and felted to the kunin felt. I then felted various yarns before applying the heat gun from the back.

With this second one I added some chiffon to the top. The felt would not melt and as you might be able to see from the detail, it scorched.

In this final one I had Tissutex on top of a felt layer with various things - silk rods, foil, fibres, threads - on top

Lesson 4 complete

This week I've finally got around to finishing the samples from Lesson 4 of Embellish, Stitch, Enrich so here they are ....

Again this is a knitted square, felted to a piece of felt with hand stitching and beads added.

The next four are more of the hand knitted squares which I have machine embroidered between two sheets of Romeo water-soluble fabric using metallic thread. This took me back years to when I did C&G Embroidery. Enjoyed it so much I think I will have to give it another go.

This next sample has squares cut from a piece I knitted using a very textured yarn. I had intended making flowers with it but it came out much thicker than I wanted so I cut it up to felt on to a piece of felt. Again I added hand stitches and buttons to finish. There are also two squares which are fibres felted from the back so they appear like shadows.

The final piece again uses the textured knitted squares which are felted to a felt background and finished with hand stitches. The second one is a detail.

Felting catch-up

I've managed to find some time over the last few weeks to spend on the embellishing machine. These are the samples (with details) from Lesson 4 of Embellish Stitch Enrich. There are a few more to do from this lesson and then it's on to Lesson 5.

For this first one I knitted up a plain piece using a varigated wool and then cut it up and felted it to a piece of felt. Hand stitches and buttons finished it off.



The second piece also has knitting on it but this time I left the squares intact and felted them, again to a piece of felt. The smaller pieces in the centre of each knitted square are pieces of left overs from previous samples. More of the same yarn that I used for the knitting was felted around the squares.



For the final sample I first felted some small pieces of organza and silk between felt and a piece of black lace. I then cut up the piece into squares, machined around the edges with metallic thread and felted them on to a foiled piece of felt. Stitches and beads were added to finish.



As with previous samples, I have also made a small square sample using similar techniques. The first three are all similar to the above samples.

For this last one I first knitted a very textured yarn which I felted. However, it came out much thicker than I thought it would as I had planned to use it for making some flower brooches. Having cut out a flower I'm not sure whether or not I will carry on with the plan. However, the bits left from the cutting out were used for this square which I felted to the felt background under some organza. Yet again I couldn't resist adding the buttons to finish!

Needlefelt samples

In this first sample I felted various fibres to a piece of felt that I had foiled and then felted organza over it. The whole piece was then cut into strips and woven together.

In this piece I felted some dyed scrim on to felt, cut it into strips and then wove it together. I want to add some hand stitching but haven't quite got the right colour thread so this will have to wait until a trip to the shops.

In this piece I felted various yarns into felt and again cut it into strips and wove it together. I found I prefered the back side of the piece as it was more muted in colour. I feel I need to do something more to this but at the moment I can't quite decide what it is. I've decdied to leave it and see if inspiration comes to me. If anyone out there has an suggestions, feel free to share them with me.

The final ones in lesson 3 use sari silk which I felted to a felt background. The whole thing was then bonded to a piece of Bondaweb on which I then cut into squares cut on the cross. The tiny pieces were then assembled onto another piece of felt and bonded to the background. I stitched down each join with a cotton perle thread using fly stitch.

Before cutting

After cutting and assembling

Detail

One of my 4" samples

This final piece was the challenge from Lesson 2 which was to interpret a photo of the Kimberleys in north-west Australia. For this I felted small pieces of felt, fibres and fabrics to a felt background which I had foiled first. Again a put organza over the top and felted it. The lines of dyed yarn were couched on with a copper thread and to finish I added some beads. The final photo shows a detail.

Don't forget the ideas for these experiements come from the EmbellishStitchEnrich course I'm doing with Dale Rollerson - her ideas, my interpretation.

Lesson 2 - EmbellishEnrichStitch

Here are the samples I've done for Lesson Two of the Embelllish Enrich Stitch course.

The first one is my interpretation of a beach landscape I took last year at Pagham. I've put the photo with it so show the inspiration. The background was made with small pieces of fibre, threads and fabrics felted into a piece of black felt. Piece of fabric were added for the plant in the foreground and the two posts. Hand stiches were added to finish.

The background of this next one was made from small pieces of fabric, fibres and threads which were felted into a felt background which had foil applied to it first. I then felted a piece of chiffon over the top, zapped it with a heat gun and added some hand stitches and beads.

The background for this next sample also had foil applied to it first and then felt and organza squares were added with buttons and beads. I felted yarns to create the "cross hatching". The background was a bit brighter that I anticipated!

The following piece was shapes cut from a piece I made from felted fibres and threads on a flet background. These shapes were in trun felted on to black felt. I then added some shapes cut from fusible foil, felted organza over the top and zapped it with a heat gun. I have found that when using the heat gun on felted organza it doesn't melt as much as when I've used it on machine stitched work. Not too sure why, it may be that the fibres have gone so far into the felt that there are less to burn?

Detail of above

This was strips of different fabrics felted into a piece of felt that had had paint applied on a piece of Bondaweb.

This final sample is one of the small sample pieces I am making as I go. It was done again using small pieces of fibres and fabric which were covered with organza, felted and then heated with the heat gun. I added hand stitching to finish.

More embellished samples

Here are some more samples from Lesson one of the Embellish Stitch Enrich course I am doing.

This has wool and silk fibres felted into a felt background, running stitched in varigated cotton perle and finally two flowers, made again from wool and silk fibres felted into felt, attached with french knots.

This was a piece of scrim over black felt. The dyed felt heart shapes were felted into the surface and then I felted heart shapes from the back. I think the shapes came out a little heavy although this was improved when I added the running stitches which does break up the black. The hand stitching was again done with varigated cotton perle.

This was the final challenge piece for lesson one. The background is strips of sari silk felted into a felt background. The flowers were again made with wool and silk fibres felted into felt and attached with two layered buttons. The stems were also sari silk.

These final three are small pieces -about 3.1/2 inches square - which use different techniques from the lesson.

They are made on a base on 4mm thick felt and I am going to make similar ones as I progress through the course.