Mini Textured Felt Landscapes and Vintage Inspired Cards

 I've found this a great way to test new fabrics and yarns.

And from one fairly small piece of felt......

I can make quite a few cards......

And some more abstract ones....

And because I recently did a Vintage and Handmade Market I tried to do some Vintage looking ones ...

 

Will be putting a card making kit in my Etsy shop soon.

The making of the Minibeast Felt Wall Hanging

Here's how we did it:

I laid down a 130cm square of World of Wool natural prefelt - it comes in 1 metre widths so behind the joins I put a bright green merino to act as sticky plasters!

This was my only job - the kids did all the rest in groups of 6.

 (I'm sorry that I can't include the children in the photos but nowadays you need permission from the parents).

The first group laid down the background from merino wool. It looks yellow in the photo but we used three shades of bright citrus greens. This was so the grass and leaves they placed on top would show up better.

The second group used the prefelt they had made, World of Wool prefelt and yarns to make grass and leaves.

The third group then started to lay down some of the flowers that had already been made and also cut out extra leaves. Two of the boys had made dragonflies so they wanted to put them on.

The fourth group then started to put on the minibeasts that their class had made.

And the last group (forgot to take their photo!) positioned the minibeasts made by the Year 6 class and put legs on the ants - as well as a crown for the Queen Ant which was so small it got lost later! And generally checked that everything looked okay.

So all the children had some input which I think is important. Positioning everything took about one and a half hours.

A lot of the children were really keen to wet it! The first group even missed part of their lunch time to wet the piece and then the other four groups took turns rubbing it and they also had a go with my water sprinkler in a washing up bowl, if they wanted to - which they all did!

It's surprising how much they enjoyed rubbing the piece - the thin plastic which we laid on top was very soapy at times! We rubbed for about an hour - I really wanted to make sure that everything was secure before we started rolling.

Rolling clashed with their weekly golden time where the children get to choose a special activity but even so sone of the children wanted to roll instead!

We rolled it in bubble wrap, securing with velcro ties fairly gently for five minutes - turning 90 degees four times and then we turned it over and did the same again.

I was left to rinse it myself and took it home to dry. It shrunk another 5 cm whilst drying and ended up about 108cm - which was perfect for a 1 metre by 1 metre canvas.

I was hoping for a sunny day to take some better photos before I took it in to the school yesterday but it was very wet so couldn't take it outside - did take a few with the sun shining on it through the window though which shows some of the sparkly angelina thread (Tip for next time: put the angelina and bamboo fibres on both sides when making the prefelt - some things were positioned upside down!).

Two School Felt Projects

The last two weeks I've had the pleasure of working with 90 lovely children at Brookburn Primary School on a minibeast project (above) and 90 equally lovely children at Chorlton CE Primary School on a 'Musicalitree', as the Headteacher likes to call it (below).

The minibeast project started with the first class - 6 to 7 year olds making lots of prefelt and then a minbeast for themselves, the second class - 8 to 9 year olds cut flowers and minibeasts from the prefelt  as well as making a minibeast to take home and the last class - 10 to 11 year olds did the same as the second class.

Here are some of the minibeasts the children made for themselves.

And here"s the finished felt wall hanging that the Year 4"s put together.

I think they did a fantastic job. They were very enthusiastic and worked really well together to decide where everything was going to go.

Then over two days this week I worked with Years 3, 4 and 5 at Chorlton CE Primary School.  The wall hanging is for a new arts and music room and as well as looking great will hopefully help with the acoustics in the room. Again I think it's amazing how creative children are and think they've produced a great piece of wall art.

And here they are together with my little helper who definitely thinks they are real masterpieces!

Needle Felt and Nuno Felt Elephants and Tortoises

I've been enjoying making some tortoises and elephants. It all started with making a tortoise for my son's friend - to give his real life tortoise a buddy (I did give him money too - don't think a needle felt tortoise on its own would have gone down too well with an eleven year old!).

I was quite sorry to see him go - almost decided to keep him! So just had to make some more. Then I went on to make some elephants since I think they're cute too.

Carried on the theme by making some sewing kits for  a craft fair.

And made two little tortoises with some left overs.

So although I love owls I think it's time some other little creatures got a look in!