Necklaces and Bottle Hats

This weekend was the Cider Festival at work and I was running a 'crochet corner' to make mini bottle hats for charity- needless o say nobody ventured as far as the woollen mill while the music was on so I sat and made things by myself....

I am hoping to make a load more 'fairytale' themed hats before the deadline- they are really quick to do!

As well as finishing these hats off I managed to get 2 necklaces finished and start a third..

The magpie is my favourite- the problem with him is that I want to keep it for myself- I suppose I will have to get more made quickly!!!

The clasp at the back

And last but not least, I had to do a little toadstool as well, because it is the season for fungi and they are cute!

Magical Mushrooms and Fishies

Following on from my recent post about felt bangles, I taught a feltmaking course on Saturday October 5th and came up with the idea of making brooches as well (I added the idea as a last-minute part of the course and it went really well), this is one that I made while my two students were working on theirs.

This was taken before I added the brooch pin and blanket-stitched the edges to finish it.

I also used the nice weather this weekend to take more photographs of the tree covered in mushrooms (or toadstools?) As it was overcast the last time I tried, a lot of my images were too dark or blurred.  I'm hoping to use these as inspiration for some 3D felted mushrooms in the future (and possibly as part of the book I am working on)

I am getting quite excited about the book idea now and planning which projects I want to put it in.  I have come up with a rough title after searching to see if I could find anything similar (nothing as yet!),

" Woodland Escapades in Wool"

I can see that there is going to be a lot of work involved but I can take my own photographs and an looking at some of my favourite books to help me with the format and layout.  I have just started some new felt necklaces to go alongside the bangle sets and will have photographs ready once I have decided what fixtures and fittings to use etc. (I'm leaning towards silver/ silver plated as I personally am not a big fan of gold)

Apologies if my blogs become a little disjointed and not very interesting to read- they are more a place for me to log down my thoughts at the moment than an entertaining craft blog- I'm hoping to save that for the book!

Woolly Wonders on a Wet Day

Recently I have been 'playing' with felting dreadlocks for my Halloween costume, and started to try out making 'Bangles' as well after wanting to try it for ages.  I had this idea of making them in a woodland theme and then needle-felting toadstools onto them.  I'm really pleased with the outcome and I have loads of ideas for more, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to part with these first ones though as I like them so much!

While I was photographing my Bangles, I found a lovely tree covered in fungi, I hope to get some better pictures when the day is less overcast, but for now, here are a few nice ones...

Now, after having such a creative week, I have decided to write a book, I don't quite know the specifics of it all yet but I know it will be a craft book with projects made in wool.  I need to do a lot of background research first to make sure nobody has already done what I want to do...but it's an exciting project and I will update later on when I have thought the logistics of it through.  The bangles will be made available for sale at my place of work once I can get hold of a lockable glass jewellery cabinet.  I will also put some on folksy and etsy once I have enough stock.  Now back to felting.......TTFN x H