Textures

My felted-jumper (sweater) stash has been getting a little out of control lately.   I've been gathering them to play with a few bag/teaching-related ideas in mind, but haven't got as far as putting the ideas into action.

Last week, while trying to magically transform our busy, creative family home into a display house for inspection (no mean feat), I realised the old couch cushions needed a bit of a spruce-up.  Funny, how I hadn't noticed the shabbiness until I saw them through strangers' eyes.

One evening after work, I pulled out some heavy denim (from Rathdowne Remnants) and a few felted jumpers that matched our floor rug, with the intention of making one side of each cushion in wool and the other in denim. But when I cut the arms off the jumpers, I was inspired in a different direction altogether.

I fell in love with the juxtposition of the different textures and the contrast of the denim blue.  It broke up the matchy-matchiness of the wool cushions and the wool rug. The circles of felted-jumper-arm suddenly looked like the remnants of shells, clinging to a rocky shore. 
 
I especially liked that they were REALLY QUICK to make.
 

To date, they haven't impressed any prospective house buyers enough to buy the house, but I quite like them.

The hottest hotties in town!

On Friday night I went to the Hottie Cover Challenge Exhibition opening at Open Drawer. For those of you who have missed the background info on this challenge, it was a crafty challenge to make a hot water bottle cover (not necessarily functional) to raise funds for the Margaret Pratt Foundation. The hotties are for sale for $50 each, and there is a vote-by-coin for your favourite hottie.

Ms Curlypops was instrumental in making this challenge the overwhelming success that it is. The cause is one that is very close to home for Cam, and the massive response she received for the call-out for Hottie-challengers is testament to the love that she has spread about the blogosphere and real-life community. Along with the AMAZING display of hotties, I was enchanted by the fabulousness in Open Drawer. It's a little slice of heaven for textile geeks like me....

...So enchanted, in fact, that I snapped away and didn't notice my "battery" light flashing on the camera. So I didn't get any more photos of the hotties. Just lots of felty, woven and stitched textures and colors....

If you're able to pop in to see the exhibition, it's well worth the trip. Inspiring, entertaining, and heart warming.... and the range of materials, skills and techniques used is astounding. Also, make sure you spend some time in the shop downstairs, too. It's gorgeous.

Another end-of-story.

I gave the accidentally-mine top that I made last year a new lease of life. I was about to hand-wash it when inspiration struck - I gave it a bit of a turn in the front-loader.The thing that I love about knitting is the multi-faceted nature of the journey. I love the textures and colours of yarn and the explosion of ideas they inspire. I love seeing the yarn turn into something wearable, while I notice small improvements in my knitting skills. I love that I'm gaining a better understanding of yarn and gauge, but I'm still surprised at how things turn out. I love the fact that I can make fabric (I often just stop and look at the texture of it).

I love that I allow myself not to be a perfectionist with knitting, and simply take advantage of all the opportunities for design features that my rudimentary skills present. Sometimes the thing I started becomes something else altogether by the time it's finished, and that's ok.

And I love that my fall-back finishing technique (FELT IT!) was a huge success in this instance.

Winter woollies

Since I felted some of my early machine knitting experiments, I've been seeing little purses....And now, it's not just my mind's eye that's doing the seeing. I made this one using the 90mm purse frame kit. The rose is simply rough-cut circles of felted knitting, stacked on top of each other and stitched by machine, with the fancy-schmantzy "hand-stitching" stitch. (...I know. I'm lazy like that).
In other news, the lovely Karen alerted me to a yarn stash that was being given away in her neighbourhood - she even picked it up for me and delivered it!!!
I was so overcome with excitement when I saw a brim-full box of yarn, I immediately started bagging up my favourite colours and loading up the (potential-moth-egg exterminating) freezer. I only thought to take a photo when I ran out of space in the freezer.

Well, actually, I thought of the camera BEFORE I ate the ice-cream to make space for more yarn in there. (Then I ate the ice cream and forgot about the camera again).
I'm just a little bit jumping-up-and-down excited at the prospect of knitting my way through this lot. I'm planning on expanding the knitting machine repertoire to include Shapes Other Than Rectangles.
I daresay there'll be more felted wool purses made along the way.

How to spend a stinking hot New Year's Eve... or not.

It was forty degrees* with a hot north-westerly wind.... the kind of weather that turns me into a cranky madwoman who draws blinds and fears the great outdoors (which is like a fan-forced oven).

It's the kind of weather that makes me cancel errands and appointments that were planned for the day, opting for water-based activities with the smallest person in the house.

*104 degrees farenheit, for my American friends.

We started with an overhaul of the hair-tie drawer in the bathroom (yes, she really DOES have a drawer full!).

Nothing like free rein with a pump pack of soft soap to engage the girls enthusiasm..... she washed them all. We brightened up buttons, washed and re-shaped yo-yo's, then quick-dried them in the outdoor oven (read: outside on the cement footpath).

We snipped off broken old elastics and then couldn't find a needle and thread to stitch on the new.... thus, inventing a job for another day...
On to felting...... and the wee one remembered that she'd seen slippers in a felting book, and was DETERMINED. TO. MAKE. SLIPPERS.

I insisted that my felting skills were not good enough for that, and that we'd need support materials and all sorts of things and skills that I don't have... blah, blah.

She insisted that she knew how to needle-felt slippers and set to it, determinedly..... I just watched ...like a hawke (the kind that reminds kids to keep their fingers out of the way of sharp, jabbing needles).
She refused all guidance as she snipped sole-shapes from felted wool fabric and started to shape fleece around one of them. It was at the point where it was actually wearable, that she accepted a bit of help to fine-tune the shaping.

There was lots of trying on, with me holding bits together and saying, "Ok... get that bit now..."
...and only one unfortunate collision of finger and needle (mine, thankfully, and only one needle instead of all 5).
(BTW.... that picture of Hoot in the background is a whole other story.... a blutack-and-paper collage... blutacked to the kitchen wall. I smile every time I pass it).

Eventually we had some (somewhat rustic) needle-felted slippers!

Ahem.... perfect for a forty-degree day.

We made nori rolls for dinner (the girl and I). Now I sit, listening to the distant thump of city fireworks, the loud crackles and pops of (illegal) local fireworks and the soft snores from the couch (man of the house started snoozing around an hour ago). I've watched the end of Braveheart, drunk wine, eaten ice-cream and done some knitting.

I've thought about how lucky I am to have mis-spent my youth on all sorts of wild-child New Year's Eve parties, adventures and misadventures....and to know that - without a doubt - if I had my choice of ways to spend this day, I wouldn't have it any other way than the way it was today.

I believe it's 2011. Happy New Year to you all!

New toys... for girls and boys.

More zipper pulls for the boys in the shop NOW.

Magnetic seam guides (in lieu of Post-it notes for keeping seam allowances straight and even) are also in the shop.

EDITED TO ADD: Can anyone tell me anything about using these on computerised machines? My computerised machine has its own sliding plastic seam guide, but I use the magnetic seam guide on the mechanical (industrial) machine.

And a new Clover needle-felting tool is in the hands of a gung-ho four-year old.... (!!!)

Safety guards, retractable needles and neurotic helicopter-parenting will hopefully make the difference between creative prodigy and (heaven forbid) perforated child.

My memories of the weekend are a bit fuzzy....

After a home-based felting session on Saturday, the wee one and I went on tour today... all the way to the other side of our suburb.

Lara's girls and mine had a lovely time designing felt creations... and making balls.
...and leaving the hard work (all that rolling-in-sushi-mats business) to Lara and me. My girl had managed quite a bit of the rolling bit on Saturday, but I think she smelled a rat when I praised and encouraged her perhaps a little TOO enthusiastically.... Sometimes it's a pain having a smart kid.

Lara and I discussed felting as a children's activity probably best for kids of at least three or four years of age ....although 2-year-old Stella enthusiastically soaped, rolled and created that little colourful squiggly ball thing. She beamed with pride. (The sqiggly ball thing started off as string - an easy thing to start kids on).

Thanks Lara for a lovely afternoon - and for letting my child eat all your camembert. (Smart ...with expensive taste, that kid. Sorry!).

The redhead in the blue oufit is me... in case you hadn't seen the resemblance.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing what felt like 65 loads of laundry (the one good thing about a weekend in the sweltering high-30's - washing dries before you finish pegging out the load!!) and other banal domestic chores. More things didn't get done than did. I think it was too hot to think.

OH! Somewhere in the middle of the too-hot-to-sleep Saturday night I put the TULIP DRESS pattern on the website!!! The patterns will be packed and sent out on Tuesday - which means that we'll be finishing our pre-order deal on Tuesday and drawing the giveaway TOMORROW. Last call.

Warm and fuzzy

...and slightly out of focus... ...as indeed I was when I planned to do some felting over the summer holidays. I completely forgot to get my supplies in before every felting supplier in Melbourne ALSO went on holidays!

The lovely Wendy at Lara Downs was also on holidays, but opened up her shop "by appointment" for me (and I was happy to see that it quickly filled with other customers who saw the OPEN sign!).

(The Lara Downs shop"Precious Purl" is above Calico House in Brunswick St Fitzroy, for you local gals). The wee girl and I oohed and ahhed over colours and textures, and wondered at the possibilities of all we could make. Wendy was extremely helpful, knowledgable and passionate about felting. It was an absolute pleasure to shop with her assistance.

We settled on a bag of mixed bright coloured wool tops (wee girl's choice), a bag of lovely earthy coloured wool tops (my choice) and a mixture of coloured pre-felts.... some olive oil soap and a felting needle.... we felt very kitted-up and ready for action!

Armed with my book, that night I worked my way through a few basic processes - wet felting, dry felting, making balls and making string.... and the next day I introduced the wee girl to it all.

She LOVES felting!!

...or - more precisely - she loves making felt BALLS and STRING.

The dear girl has plans for me to make the rest of the bear for her "to sew up on the sewing machine" (she can dream).

I had planned to eventually make wonderfully arty textile fashion accessories for myself - envisaging a bit of scarf action... a touch of nuno-felting... perhaps a purse? But at this rate anything I'll make will consist mostly of pre-made (by a pre-schooler) felt string and balls...

I'll wear it proudly.

I digress....

Apologies to those awaiting the completion of the bag pattern I started earlier this year.... or for the 200mm version of the Poppet. Samples have been lurking around the studio - teasing visitors and workshop participants.... but alas, no instructions have been forthcoming.

I'm afraid I don't have a team of elves who can write about the finer points of bag and hat-making. Shame about that.... I could use them at times like this.

I've been obsessed with an idea - a kind of diversion. I need to get it out of my head before I can go back - refreshed - to finish the tedious end of developing bag patterns. I love a good puzzle (I think that's why I love patternmaking) and a challenge is necessary from time to time.

There's lots of tapping back into old skills, and learning new and geeky things I can do with patternmaking software. Developing a design and my skills base is like a good dose of Berocca at this end of a long, tiring year.

...And so...

I was inspired to venture further, and stop just saying "I've always wanted to learn felting". A gift voucher for Amazon was spent on this book, and plans are being made for a messy Christmas holidays... (we're talking the fibre, soap and water variety here, not the too-many-champagne-cocktails kind of messy).

I know NOTHING about felting and would love to hear of any good leads on supplies and resources. What am I looking for and where...?

...And I'll see you next year with that bag pattern... graded in CAD to seventeen different sizes with instructions full of cute little CAD-drawn diagrams and samples covered in felt embellishments.... and perhaps even a champagne cocktail recipe.