Felt fun!

I have been having fun making some Christmas ornaments from felt,  I have recently joined a woman's group and they are planning to hold a market stall and sell decorations for Christmas so I have been mulling over what I could contribute.

I have had a good friend using felted wool and old wool blankets in her textile art so I started thinking along that line and decided on felting some wool jumpers and making Scandinavian inspired decorations.

I managed to score a 100% wool vest and jumper from an op shop sale and put them through the washing machine at a high heat and then through the dryer.  The grey jumper I bought was already starting to felt so felted beautifully.  I ended up putting the navy vest in for a second run and it has the most gorgeous suede look to it now.

I recently attended the craft fair n Brisbane and got to see and feel some commercial wool felt.  It is way nicer than the synthetic based ones you can buy at the chain fabric stores but still stiffer than my lovely soft felt.  However I am thinking about using it in the future because of the range of colours you can get it in.  Perfect for Santa faces and the like.

I was loaned a Sissix with some cutting dyes and have been able to cut perfect circles and stars.  So much fun to use!

So I trawled the Internet and found some snowflake designs to embroider and just had fun!  I made the cords by the twirling method and love the finish it has given the ornaments.  Some were made into coasters as the circles just felt right for it and the wool doubled up is perfect for protecting furniture.

Is anyone else crafting for Christmas? If you love these but don't want to make your own, I have listed some in my Etsy shop  - SusySewandSew.etsy,com.

Happy Christmas crafting everyone!  Ciao for now!

Last dress for 2008

Before our work Xmas lunch I was able to make this dress Simplicity 3833. I made it in Linen so it was nice and cool to wear in our summertime Christmas. I found it very comfortable to wear, particularly useful that it is not too fitted, after many returns to the buffet!

My review is here for those interested.

What did Santa bring me?

In response to this post at Gorgeous Things Blog, I received for Christmas -

• A voucher for a body treatment (yay!)
• some beautiful bath fizzies and chocolate
• a book 'The little Black Book of Style' by Nina Garcia
• and some money my parents gave me - I intend to invest in a ironing board! ... lol... you have to be a sewist to think that is a good gift! My ironing board is tiny and I want a nice large one and couldn't justify spending the money but now it has been gifted to me I will!

Everyone else in the family received new computers so I have the hand-me-down lap-top and I was going to scan the book cover in but couldn't get it to work so there is the first issue I have found.

Anyway I am very happy and love that my family know what I like... maybe it was all those hints I dropped... clang!

My Xmas Pressie

I must have been a good girl this year as I received a camera for Christmas. Now I can stop borrowing my son's camera. Also I can now put some effort in and learn how to use it properly. I have included some photos taken at my place on my new toy, including one of some of the family dishing up Christmas Dinner. There is also another book cover I made, in a space theme. This one was a gift for my hubby.

Since Christmas, I have spent a bit more time on my Challenge Quilt and got it to a stage I need to let it sit for a while ( and mature like a fine wine). My next project was a UFO. A few years ago I started the BOM called Around the World with Jinny Beyer. I had completed nearly all of the blocks except the mariners star type blocks. The quilt is all made with foundation piecing and has been quite repetitive to work on, so that is why it got pushed to the bottom of the pile. However now that I have tidied up my sewing space I thought I would finish a UFO this Xmas break and I feel good that I have at last started on that goal. I have been thwarted today as my youngest son has some mates over and they are sitting playing Xbox or Nintendo in my sewing space. Sadly it is a shared space and when it is full of teenage boys all yelling at the screen it is time for me to find something else to do. I may have to move them on soon though as I really feel the need to visit my Bernina.

Christmas strikes!

Why do men seem to think that woman like wrapping presents? How come work outside suddenly became so important when I sat down to wrap presents. I needed to get them organised as I had to mail some away - mainly to his family (well I have been married into them for a long time now, but he still knew them before me!) AAARRGHHH!

Anyway the good thing to come out of it is that I found I am pretty well set up except for some last minute baked items, which I will do this week. I saw a good hint for wrapping presents in the free Woolworths magazine. I didn't have enough Chrissy paper, so I used brown paper and then wrapped the Chrissy paper around the middle only, with ribbon etc. I also used some of the offcuts from my silk paper book cover to make tags for the presents. I thought they looked quite pretty! I had to add Coco's picture as well as she wanted one taken!

I have also taken a photo of a stitchery I made earlier this year. It is for my youngest niece. I framed it in a shadow box frame and it came up quite well. It was from a Country Threads magazine. I don't subscribe anymore but occasionally they have issues with really nice stitcheries.