Felt Workshop Hoops

I'm hopefully going to be starting some workshops in Brighton at a new gallery/workshop space that is opening up. It's called Pretty Neat Gallery and they are starting completely from scratch so things are taking a little longer than originally planned. I was meant to be doing some children's felt workshops in April but the gallery is now not going to be able to open until May so they have been postponed for now. I will let you know when they are back on again - it will hopefully be in line with the school holidays so that you can plan to do something fun with your young stitchers. 

We are planning two workshops, one for slightly younger children to make a felt flower garden like this example hoop here that I whipped up one afternoon. It has since come in handy for a Brownie workshop which is good. They are really simple hoops, just using buttons to stitch on felt circles, a couple of stitches in the felt leaves and down the stems to hold them in place. It's only two or three stitches in total and a great place to start learning how to hand stitch - and to sew on a button!

I found this fantastic jumbo felt ric rac with one of my suppliers which is absolutely ideal for this workshop! It's a little bit fun, easy to stitch down, and it only came in green so I bought three rolls of it. 

 

There's obviously a lot of blank space around the flowers and it's easily customisable. I've a blog post coming up at some point which is about the Brownie workshop that I've since held and they have some brilliant examples of how this design can totally change. Depending on their skill level you can add all sorts of things to the hoop, change up different stitches (I've used fly stitch and detached chain stitch in this example but the print outs everyone gets for the workshop only have running stitch and straight stitch to play with.) and adapt buttons into other creatures. 

You could have four buttons (two bigger, two smaller) to make butterflies, a row of wiggly little buttons to be a caterpillar, a red button could become a butterfly.... You could even use a button as a sun and stitch rays around it. My little extra button has become a bee by stitching over the holes rather than just through them, creating stripes. I tried to also put a french knot eye and a stinger on my bee but I don't think they've worked all that well. The Brownies were suitably impressed which is fine. 

I think it's really cute, what do you think? We can make this in two hours, it's fully customisable, teaches practical skills like sewing on a button and stitches you can use to repair to do simple stitching. It also promotes dexterity, patience, perseverance, design skills, colour play and just creativity in general. All packed into the one hoop! 

At this age we ideally need an adult with each child so that class is going to be pitched as a pairs workshop with an adult and child to do together. It works really well and we've had some brilliant feedback from parents - even those not particularly creative. It's never too late to learn to sew on a button either - I'm happy to teach grown ups and little stitchers how to do that, no embarrassment or questions asked. 

For the slightly older kids, who are likely to be able to thread needles by themselves, we've got some funky houses to make. Again it's using predominantly felt on a calico background, but there are more stitches involved and the design is a bit more up to them. I've got two house examples that I've made, and I'm creating templates to go with them if anyone wants to use them - I may also actually create a downloadable PDF for my Etsy shop to help anyone looking for things to do over the holidays. 

This is my first design, which I've called the Tulip house as the roof shape kind of reminds me of an upside down tulip flower. It's really simple with that lovely felt ric rac as a hedge behind the house, a couple of simple stitched felt leaves and a slightly more complicated felt tree. I've stitched back stitch to give texture to the tree and I did use long straight stitches to make the trunk but that could easily be felt as well. 

I've tried to show different ways of using the button holes to create different looks and have some fun with those, and I've given them little window boxes full of flowers made from french knots and detached chain stitches. 

For this hoop I have used fly stitch, back stitch, french knots, detached chain stitch, running stitch, straight stitch and blanket stitch. 

I've also made a Mushroom house! I don't know why - I was trying to make a house that looked a little less girly, but I'm not sure I've achieved less girliness with this one? I really love it though, especially with it's quirky front door. 

My intention is to perhaps have templates for these two house shapes, but to encourage those in the workshop to make their own and be creative with the type and style of house. 

The stitches I've used in this one are; back stitch, fly stitch, blanket stitch, seed stitch, french knots, straight stitch and running stitch. 

I've also tried to stitch on the buttons in different ways to show the different effects. 

So, if you think this is something that you and your young stitcher may be interested in, keep your eyes peeled for dates!

Starting Layers

I thought I'd quickly chat about how I start my ATC designs for anyone who might want a little advice on it. Personally I tend to start all of my cards in the same way. I have a little think about the theme, possibly a quick Google or Pinterest to make sure the ideas in my head would work and get some inspiration on composition or colouring, or confirm shapes, and then I pull out a large handful of fabrics from my stash that might fit with the theme. 

I have been enjoying making little motifs with felt and, although several of the themes imply a large scene, I prefer to zoom in on one aspect and kind of focus on it. In this case, for Snowdrop Carpet, I wanted one or two big Snowdrops at the forefront and felt would be the perfect material to use for this as it doesn't fray, is easy to stitch, provides coverage from fabrics underneath and is another texture to add in. You can also use it to add little padded sections.

I don't tend to sketch ideas first, or do any planning, but because I make multiple cards in case something goes wrong with the swap and we need an extra couple to send out, I will sometimes need templates. For the Snowdrops I have drawn around the ATC backing card for the size, then drawn my main motif onto that so that I can create templates for the pieces to be cut out. Initially my drawing had two Snowdrops on each card but in practice, after cutting out, one flower was better. 

The design might change as I'm stitching and looking at the cards, thinking about what I might add next so you'll see that later on I've decided to add additional stems as the single stem was just too lonely and it needed something else at the front to balance the composition. 

I've just started the next set of cards for the Morning Chorus theme and I know that I want to include a Blackbird in it as I've been working really hard to create a balcony garden in our new home (which was completely barren and boring) with pots of primroses, ivy, daffodils, hyacinths, rosemary, lavender, mint, hydrangea....not everything is up and at 'em yet and some of them might be a slow burner as it's windy and cold on our balcony (actually a posh fire escape we use as our front door), but there is enough to look nice for this time of year. For Christmas I asked for bird feeders to add which I have securely cable tied to the railings and the first bird we got to visit was a Blackbird! Who now comes every day with his missus to see what Little F and I have put out as an offering. We do also get a lot of Jackdaws so can't put too much food out at a time, but we are trying to expand our bird range and have little seed feeders too. In the spring I'll try putting up a trellis with a climbing plant to provide more cover to help attract the little birds. 

But I digress, sorry - I'm very excited about getting birds in my 'garden'! 

At the Ardingly Quilt show I collected some fabrics that I thought would go beautifully with the Morning Chorus theme, a little bit like the colours you get in the Pride & Prejudice film with Keira Knightly, you know the scene I mean, purples and greys with a touch of glowing orange. 

These backing fabrics tend to just be roughly wiggle cut to fit four different ones over the space of the card. Unless I need a specific shape for mountains etc, they usually just provide a pretty backdrop, much like a colour wash at the back of a watercolour painting. Each one will be different due to the part of wiggle that they get, or the difference in the pattern. 

I've shown before that on the back of the hoop I draw around the card backing so I know the space I'm working with. Once I've chosen my fabrics and they are cut ready to go, I layer these up on the front and hold them in place with my fingers whilst I make large tacking stitches around this outline so that on the front I can see the size of the card due to the rectangular stitched shape. It's a bit of hoop flicking to check front and back at once but worth it afterwards.

I think for the rest of the card I will do an upright log out of felt in a dark colour and then try to make the Blackbird mostly out of fabric as I have a really pretty one with little speckles on it (that's probably more like a Starling but never mind!). 

I tried a couple of compositions for the bird as you'll have seen above but decided I preferred the right one as it is slightly larger pieces of fabric needed for the shape which is less fiddly and therefore likely to fray less. 

I just have to figure out how I'm going to do the feet! And actually get cracking on proper stitching. 

Rockscapes!

 

I thought I'd give a bit more background on the felted rock Stitchscapes I recently finished as they came about so quickly and they are such fun to make you might want to have a go yourself!

The first piece I made with the felt rocks was actually the larger Heather Valley Stitchscape and they worked really well in that piece because the hoop was a larger scale, at 22cm, so having chunky pieces of padded felt at the bottom really grounded it and brought it to life. I am increasingly loving Stitchscapes with a lot of texture coming out of the hoop and finding new ways to make them stand out loud and proud from the wall - to the point where if I stitch a 'flat' piece, it looks odd!

These pictures are mostly phone/Instagram snaps I'm afraid so they aren't the best but hopefully they'll give you a clear enough image. 

After the Heather Valley piece I still had quite a bit of the wool felt from the-stitchery left over and I pondered over the colours and how different colour combinations with the fabrics beneath the rocks could create new colour palettes and landscapes. Sometimes all you have to do is to change one background colour and the entire hoop completely changes so could the same be said for the rocks?

It was one of those - I must do it IMMEDIATELY! - ideas and I disappeared up to my bedroom where the stash is kept intending really to only make one other hoop to see how I could make it different. Instead I ended up putting together three 12cm hoops because I found them all in a pile and it seemed rude not to use them all. The fabric choices were sort of based around the felt colours; the pink felt seemed like the rocks would be tinged that way during a sunset maybe and the grey felt represented more of a gloomy, dull and mysterious valley somewhere. There are a lot of batik fabrics used in this little collection and I'm not sure I can explain why that is exactly, it just seemed like the right way to go. 

The rocks are all created individually. A shape is roughly cut out of the felt (much bigger than the final intended size) and a running stitch stitched around the edge; a little bit of toy stuffing is added to the centre (as shown in the top picture) and then the running stitches drawn up. The tighter you draw these stitches the smaller the rock gets to you have to sort of feel for where you want to go - the stitches need to be tight enough to keep the wadding in and a nice rockish shape, but not too tight that it becomes super small with a hard bunched edge. 

Once my rocks were all made I tried to 'organically throw them' at the hoops so they didn't have a regimented appearance. It needed to feel like natural rock formations which is much harder than it looks! When happy with their positioning, I took photos to make sure I could remember how they sat and then you basically stitch the rocks on by coming up underneath the rocks, through the fabric, with your needle and grabbing the edges so that all of the edge is tucked under, sweeping in any tufty toy stuffing that may be making its escape. You can also use this to position odd little dips and shapes into the side. To further stitch them down and to add texture and definition, I worked random lines of back stitch completely through the rocks to add a sort of quilted texture and stop them being so smooth and pebble-ish. 

Of course, working on these in the garden, in the sunshine, in March, was a bit of a treat! It was one of those rare days when it was warm enough for your body to be fooled into thinking summer was on the way, and no wind to add a chill factor. I even got a little burnt sitting outside!

I've used lots of techniques in these hoops that I am dying to try again. I had originally said that I was sticking with three of these rockscapes and then moving on to something else, and if you follow my Instagram you'll have seen the crazy new pile of Stitchscapes I've just layered up with fabrics and have on my to do list, as well as a new hoop full of Stitchscape Pebbles that I started yesterday (and a partially designed kit I'm determinedly ignoring). But I've also just found myself ordering a sample pack of 60 different shades of wool felt pieces and a wool felt shade card from Billow Fabrics.....it would seem more felt rock Stitchscapes are on my horizon! Maybe I can combine some of them with the hoops I've layered fabrics into - every hoop can only be improved with a couple of rocks in, right?

The techniques I'd like to try and revisit include the combination of shiny beads and french knots dug into the rocks. The difference between the completely matte felt and shiny beads is a match made in heaven, and I love the way the beads dimple into the felt where I've pulled them a little tighter. I also like the addition of seed stitches to add texture to the rocks, and I'd definitely like to do the sticks of beads again - they are just so much fun to look at and feel under your fingers!

My least favourite rock technique is the cross-hatched stitches. I don't know whether it was the colours used or just the harsh crossed lines but the softness of the beads and seed stitches is much nicer I think. I'd like to use the smooth purl wire coils too but maybe with a slightly more restrained colour palette than the one I've used here. I also want to try using straight sticks of the smooth purl with a bead on the end, combining these two to make new types of bead stick!!

This is exactly what I love about Stitchscaping, sometimes you try one new idea and it just creates a massive flow of new ideas and combinations.... Who knows where this could go?

Felt Flower Garden Workshops

Before the world was plunged into a virus tinted lockdown, I was out and about at a couple of Brownie meetings running a Mother's Day themed sewing workshop. These easy little hoops aren't Stitchscapes as such - I've been referring to them more as 'Flowerscapes' - but the Brownies wanted something that they could finish in an hour and a half to be able to give to their Mums.
I have previously done landscape themed Stitchscape workshops with Brownies (who are ages 7 -10) but we didn't ever finish their hoops in one meeting, they always had to take them home to complete so this time I needed something really pared back, cheerful and pretty.

My solution was this flower garden! (And please excuse the random text on some of these photos - I'll explain why that is later on in the post.) It comes together really quickly as the flowers only need stitching up the stems, the button and layers of felt circles for the flower heads are stitched on together and the leaves need only three stitches at the bottom to hold them on.
The design itself is also really easy to customise and the Brownies had great fun choosing their colours - each one ended up looking different and none of them were the same as my example piece.

This only uses up little scraps of felt so chances are everyone has oddments floating around at the back of their cupboards and can have a go. I've used calico fabric for the backing because that's what I have lots of but any stable backing fabric will do, similarly, with the trimming at the top of the grass felt piece, you could change yours to suit what you have at home. I've used a length of Ric-Rac but you could use string, ribbon, twists of multicoloured embroidery thread...whatever you have to hand really.

For the workshops these pieces were kept framed within their hoops so that they could be easily propped up on the mantle or hung with ribbon on the wall. I really must get round to writing a tutorial on how to properly frame within a hoop as it's so easy but neat and effective. All you have to do is make sure all of your fabrics are tucked and pulled through both of the embroidery hoops and made tight (with no bubbles on the fabric at the front), trim your backing fabric all of the way around about 5cm from the outer hoop and then secure a long length of strong sewing cotton (or doubled up sewing cotton to be safe) to the fabric about 1cm from the raw edge. Work even running stitch all of the way around the circle and once you are back at the initial knot, carefully pull the thread so that the fabric bunches up and pulls inwards. Tighten this as much as you can and tie off securely. I usually go around again, nearer to the hoop, to catch any fabrics I missed the first time around and add extra security.

I can't seem to find the photos I took of the Hailsham Brownies' hoops. They had the lovely idea of asking all of the Mums in to sew their hoops with the Brownies as a joint project which worked beautifully well. The Mums were just as pleased with the finished hoops as the girls were!!

These montage photos were from the Uckfield Brownie workshop where they approached things slightly differently, asking Grandmas or other relatives and helpers to come in to help the Brownies sew so that the final products would be a surprise gift for the Mums. We didn't have quite the same ratio of adults to Brownies as the Hailsham group so the girls didn't all finish (there's a lot of time spent threading needles and knotting or un-knotting that requires adult supervision!) and I ended up taking them home to tidy the backs for them - which worked out nicely because I had the opportunity to really look at everyone's and take photos. Aren't they great? I love the individuality of them all.

Overall this pattern received a lot of loving online in various places and I had several people asking for the pattern. It isn't worth my creating a physical kit for this but I have put together a 5 page PDF digital download which includes a printable template, stitch how-tos, instructions and inspirational images which can be purchased from my Etsy shop (or click here).
The Etsy listing shows several of the photos I have used in this blog post (which is why there is writing on them) and the download, once you have completed your transaction, will be sent to your inbox straight away by Etsy for you to print and use.
This is a perfect little project to teach young stitchers how to sew and start them off on a creative journey but older, more established stitchers will also enjoy this stress free project.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm afraid I have to do a rather major catch up as I have neglected to update my blog for over five weeks!!! Everything has concentrated so much on churning out little pieces to sell and add to the display at the Wealden Times Midwinter Fair just gone, that many other things got set aside. Hopefully it will settle down now and I can get back to blogging and other fun stuff.
I've turned to my phone for these images as it's so easy to snap an image with it whilst out and about, especially as my big camera is so bulky I don't carry it around with me. The quality of these images isn't fantastic and, since the clocks have changed during this time period (from about the 10th October), the lighting isn't always great either so I am very sorry about that! A lot of my sewing is done in the evenings by the glow of my daylight lamp which reminds me a little bit of a dentist's treatment room, bright and blue.
So, let the catch up commence!!

❤ I managed to make about 19 of these little 10cm Christmas hoops, all different and unique, with sparkles and metallic threads. It turns out that I have more fabrics in my Christmas stash than I realised so it was great to be able to really mix things up. They are relatively quick to make as they are little with only four fabric layers but so festive! I had photo shoots at the studio, trying to think of ways to display these little pieces at the Wealden Times show. My white Hobbycraft tree comes in super handy and I'm wondering whether or not to get another one so that I can spread the hoops out a bit more. Something to ponder on.

❤ We carved pumpkins for Halloween. Quite a few pumpkins in the end actually and we still have one left over because The Mother has a thing about pumpkin muffins so kept bringing pumpkins home as a subtle hint. I also made a few apple loaf cakes as she brought home two bags of the most enormous apples I have ever seen! We had so much crumble, stewed apple and apple cake!! (My diet is going super well!)

❤ I went into mass kit-making overdrive! Stocks of The Naked Stitchscape Kit, Stitchscape Pebble Kit, Summer Sweet Kit and the Christmas Decoration Kit were replenished, and sheep appeared in the packs of mixed fabrics as it was so requested at my last big event. I have yet to update my Etsy shop with these new fabric collections but it is on my list. Cutting the threads take the longest time and I was taking boxes of threads, a ruler and a pair of scissors on the bus with me to cut them to length during my commute to work and in my lunch breaks, then threading them onto the cards in the evenings and on Dotty Textiles work days.
I was very pleased to have a request come through from the-stitchery in Lewes, to say that they had completely sold out of both the Orange Sunset and Spring Ladybug kits and could they have some more?!! Unfortunately there isn't enough fabric for more of the sunset kits and I am working on getting some replacement fabrics sorted for that but, as of last week, there are five more ladybug kits now for sale in store. These are designs exclusive to the-stitchery (you will find them no where else in the entire world!) and they can only be purchased in the shop, but if you are out of town just give them a call for other solutions. Click on the link to their shop for their details.
To add to my own collection of kits, I am super thrilled to say that my Button Mountain Felt kit for young stitchers is now ready to go!! You can find it in my Etsy shop, here, if you would like to encourage your budding embroiderer to have a go. These kits are very colourful with lots of texture and only three simple stitches. I have suggested them for children aged 8 and up but do recommend adult supervision for the younger ages. These would make fantastic stocking fillers- all you need is a 15cm hoop and your own needles, and you are away!

❤ I also managed to update my sketchbooks with some new photos as they were quickly getting behind. It's very soothing to organise the pages and play with washi tape. These are a great teaching tool for me as it helps to inspire my students with composition and colours, and is something that I can refer back to when I'm trying to explain a technique used so it's worth my while keeping it as up-to-date as possible. They aren't sketchbooks as such as there are no sketches, it's more like a photo album of past work and work in progress- my Instagram account in print.

❤ Whilst printing my new sketchbook images, I also put together and printed some little books titled, The Little Book of Stitchscapes. These are based on a printed book that I put together for personal use last year but it got so much attention by those I was showing that I made up some slightly different, versions for sale. They are only tiny little things, full of images of my Stitchscapes but have been purchased for inspiration by parents of children working on their GCSE Textile exams and those who want it as a quick reference book once they start their own Stitchscaping journey so I am really chuffed with where these books have been going to. It is very humbling to be a source of inspiration to others and I hope that I can live up to it!

❤ I went slightly overboard with purchasing these little miniature hoops. I think it's because they take so long to arrive, most of them coming from China, that I get bored of waiting for them and start looking at others so the parcels just kept coming and I ended up with all sorts of shapes and sizes, trying different eBay and Amazon sellers. I haven't managed to fill all of the hoops yet but gave it a jolly good go, and am really pleased with these floral lovelies. Several of them have already sold and now live in America, and others went to their new homes at the WT show. It's interesting hearing people's plans for them- some were going to keep them on the ribbon I'd threaded through the ring at the top, others were going to change to a chain and wear it, some securing a safety pin and wearing it as a brooch, and one was going to frame it in a box frame!
It is easier to embroider multiples of these at a time so the hoop was also coming with me on the bus to work (my poor colleagues have had to put up with all sorts of strange stitchy activities during the lunch break) and anywhere else I went. I draw around the inner wooden shapes onto the back of the fabric, making sure to leave a couple of centimetres between the shapes so that I have a seam allowance to draw up the fabric to enclose the wooden shape. They really are super sweet little things- the smallest being only 2.5cm in diametre! I've now started having a go at some Christmas holly themed ones, but have realised that there is no space for a ring to attached to the screw so they are just little random hoops. They will probably end up as magnets I think.

❤ The cat has been doing his regular cat-like things. His mood is linked to the weather so we are noticing a distinct change in his demeanour, lots of moaning and winging and turning his nose up at the food we offer him because it's less sunny and warm these days. He leaps at every change to bask in the sunshine, getting comfy in all sorts of sheltered sun traps to improve his mood. We barely see him during the summer, then in Autumn he starts hovering around a bit more demanding evening cuddles, and then in Winter he's constantly underfoot wanting snuggles all day long. It's very sweet but can get frustrating when you have plans!

❤ I have been hugely inspired by recent visits to National Trust properties. In one day, a friend and I visited Sheffield Park & Garden (above), Wakehurst Place (below) and Nymans Garden (bottom). The colours in these lovely places were amazing! Sheffield in particular was stuffed with artists and photographers all trying to capture the essence and colours of the autumnal trees and scenery. As it has been so mild recently there were also still quite a few late summer flowers in bloom, like Cosmos, Dog Roses and Dahlias which only added to the colour and beauty of the gardens. We are very lucky to live near these big open breathing spaces.

❤ These colours appear a lot in my little framed pieces that have been worked on since our National Trust visits. Lots of oranges, reds, yellows, maroon, ochre, gold.... I really enjoy making these little frames, and because I tend to use such deep concentrations of colour, they form a colour burst collection, and the three black framed pieces look particularly powerful together in a row! I've been experimenting with some new stitches in these as I have recently followed a new account on Instagram called @moony.crafts who collect really interesting images and videos posted by other embroiderers on Instagram, and re-posts them so you can see all of these amazing images in one place or trace them back to the original poster. In particular, the cacti in the bottom right image above are a new stitch to me and I have no idea what it is called. You wrap thread multiple times around the needle whilst it is tucked into the fabric and then pull through, securing both the top and the bottom of the loops. It uses a lot of thread in one go but looks really cool! And the really puffy firework-esque flowers in the middle left image are also from this account where you trap wrapped threads, over sew at the bottom then cut the loops. It's so effective!

❤ In the studio I have been experimenting with a new way of framing the #inthehoop stitchscapes to try and make them more accessible to punters. They make such an impact framed this way I think, although they are devilishly fiddly to attach to the mountboard as I have been stitching them on rather than gluing in the hopes that it will make them more secure. I have bought special circular mounts to help bed the hoops in and I really love them! Only a few have been framed so far but I have more mounts and frames to be able to work my way through them and do some more. What do you think?

❤ We have recently had our Remembrance Day parade and I had to take time out of sewing to attach together all of these bottle poppies, which had been made by my Guides, into a wreath to display in the church. It's a very clever idea (thank you Pinterest) where you take big plastic bottles, cut the bottom part off and cut petal shapes at the edge, make a hole in the bottom and paint the inside red, then use the rest of the bottle to cut big leaf shapes to be painted green and a circle to be painted black. You thread them all together onto wire and then melt them with a heat gun so that they look more natural. Somehow I volunteered to then wire them onto a big wreath ring and our girls paraded with it up the highstreet with the rest of the Remembrance Day parade, and laid it right a the front of the church. Well worth taking the time to do.

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I have more to catch you up on with the Wealden Times show but I think this post is long enough and you will all be dying to put the kettle on for a cup of tea by now! I hope you enjoyed the trip down my memory lane, and see you soon!