- By Annie - Hello! We hope you are enjoying a New Year of creativity. Me and mum are finding that the year is absolutely flying by, but squeezing in any opportunity for crafty things that we can! Back in November I showed the finished dry layout stage of one of my wide composition woodland pictures and I finally felted and photographed it so thought I would share it. Here are some photos of it full length and also some cropped close ups for detail. I also tried hanging it in the trees in the garden to have a play with photography and the light. Our fibre friend, Helene, pointed out that ..read more

By Annie: I've made 3 of these long tree pictures now, the first two were shown in the previous post in their dry layout stage so I wanted to share how they turned out after wet felting, and also share the dry layout of the third one in progress, but haven't got photos of it finished yet. The first two are more blocky and abstract than the third one which I made more detailed.  I'm just trying out various ideas, got lots more to try too!   So the first one - I liked it but it didn't felt really well as I think I accidentally used superwash fibre for the first layer that maybe ..read more

Wet Felted Tree Canopy Experimental Piece Annie Following on from our last blog post here is the first tree canopy experiment, made from layers of scraps of open weave fabrics, snips of prefelts, nepps, yarns, wool fibres …  it was fun to make, with no pressure for it to become something….just playing, adding layers, seeing what happened!  I think it turned out pretty well although it’s hard to know when to stop when you’re enjoying the process!  Also I keep thinking “what if I did this…”, “what if I tried that…” It’s currently set aside to dry then I’ll need to decide whether t ..read more

Annie While I’ve been out walking recently I’ve spent a lot of time looking up at the beautiful tree canopies, and it has made me want to make some felted pieces on the subject. I’ve made many felt samples over the years and I like to dig through them to pick out ones that might feed into new work. I’ve chosen a few pieces as a starter to use as inspiration to make something new, and printed out a few photos. The blue felted piece is evocative of the tree canopy as it is very sparse in places, but then has the heavy dark yarns laid into it, which could be branches - it does lend itself ..read more

Annie Not a felt making related thing, but just wanted to hop on to wish a Happy Christmas to everyone from me and mum. We haven't done Christmas crafting this year but a couple of days ago I decided to bring in branches from the garden again, and fashion a 'tree' from them....  I stuck them into an old chimney pot, added strings of twinkly lights and decorated with our ever growing collection of lovely decorations. Am rather pleased with the result! Our latest decorations are these gorgeous penguins by https://www.instagram.com/jessicahogarthshop/ and this adorable rudolph knitted ..read more

The Pasty Pirate with his stolen treasure! Lyn Back in 2012 I made a wet felt & mixed media picture of The Pasty Pirate inspired by various trips to the seaside - Seagulls are notorious for stealing food from tourists in UK seaside towns. The cheeky birds behave like pirates – swooping in and stealing the treasure – pasties are a favourite! There are lots of signs in seaside towns asking visitors to be careful when eating their takeaway food so it does not get pinched from above! We are asked not to actively feed the birds as it's bad for them for the same reasons it's bad for us to eat l ..read more

Wet Felted Vase Of Flowers Annie I recently made this picture to take part in the 'first quarter challenge' over on the Fibre and Felting Forum.  I'm a little late posting this as it's nearly the end of the second quarter, but who's counting?! :) The subject was 1900-1910. It turns out there was so much interesting stuff happening around that time that after a session of internet searching, I felt slightly overwhelmed by choice, so I returned to my old favourite of big bunches of colourful flowers after discovering the paintings of Odilon Redon. I printed out some pics of his paintings f ..read more

Annie Errrmmm....is it too late for Happy New Year?!  Some of my friends say this year has dragged by but for me it has whizzed past for some reason and I realised we hadn't posted anything since Christmas!  I think that is a common theme for me though because today I'm writing about a great big piece of felt that I have finally felted, but started, it seems, back in June 2019.  I mentioned it here in this post from February last year where I also appear to have lost January somewhere! Anyway, this piece of felt is the largest piece of flat felt I've made, at 120cm x 120cm ..read more

Annie We made a hearth surround for our decorations. Our little spruce tree is still too tiny and it's little branches can't take the weight! We used some twisted hazel branches from the garden, and tied them together with garden string.  Our hazel tree trunk split in two this summer and we had to cut it right back to try to save it. I kept the branches because they looked like they would be handy for something!  It looks lovely with the stove lit and the fairy lights twinkling. It's not felt or textiles related but thought I'd show it off anyway! :) Mum and I wish everyone a very h ..read more

Annie Recently I have had some fun making a selection of Christmas decorations, prompted by the Felting & Fibre Forum 4th Quarter Challenge. I got a bit carried away and during the process my desk was a big colourful mess! My previous 2 posts have shown a couple of the things I made and here are some photos of the rest of it.  Most of the explanatory text is over on the forum so that it's not duplicated both here and there.   It's mostly very simply made from pieces of handmade felt, backed with fabric for stiffness, and then all stitched together.  All in rather unusu ..read more