Rag rug flower

I’ve been playing with rag rugging flowers, something I first did when my craft group yarn bombed the centre of Peterborough in 2016 and they needed large fabric flowers quickly. I don’t have the pictures in situ but these are the flowers I made. 

 These are made by using the rag rug technique, basically pulling 1cm strips of fabric through hessian and building up the flower shape. You do not need to knot the strips in this case as the tightness of the strips next of them hold them in. It’s important therefore to keep your strips very close together. I did cheat later and use glue!

I stuck a Pom Pom in the centre and glued the back to strengthen.

Here the flower is almost done but needs a trim.

I use netting as the last two layers to give the flower some extra floof!

When finished take the flower out of the hoop and trim the hessian.

Glue the ends of the hessian at the back and cover with felt.

Turn over and your flower is finished. It could be used as a fascinator, brooch or framed

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Recycled tin shrines

I am playing with the idea of using recycled tins to make mini shrines. My first mini shrine is from a sardine tin. It’s the perfect shape.

Sardine tin shrine

You will need

Cleaned out sardine tin.

Gesso

Household emulsion

Glitter glue(optional)

Mini paper flowers with wired stems (I used 16)

Religious icon, puffy sticker, I got mine from Poundland a couple of years ago (you could used a printed image instead.)

Mini Pom Pom trim.

Glue gun

Method

Paint the inside of tin with two coats of gesso to help the paint stick.

Paint 3 coats of emulsion letting it dry thoroughly between layers.

Paint with a layer of glitter glue.

Stick image in bottom of tin.

Twist the flowers together in a small oval, with glue gun, stick flowers around inside edge.

Stick Pom Pom trim around edges.

You could glue craft felt on the back and sides but I like the kitchness of the tin.

I am now looking at my tins in a different way. My next shrine is in a lid from a pickle jar!

                          Flowers twisted into a wreath

 Pom Pom trim and braids.

Finished mini shrine, who would have thought this was from a lid off a jar of pickle!

Vegan needle felting 3

It’s been all about the vegan needle felted flowers recently, It started with making a sunflower 🌻 which took forever as there were so many individual petals. I then ironed them (tentively as I thought the acrylic fibre might melt) It didn’t ,it just turned into a flatter denser felt...result!! The middle was a massive pile of fibres which I felted down so it was smooth but still spongy. I then made another one with different tones of yellow in it.

The next flower was a poppy where I also ironed the petals this made them lovely and flat and dense, usually acrylic fibre is kind of fuzzy like stuffing Trouble is ironing the felt made it difficult to give it any shape so I made a cup of fibre underneath to give me something to push against whilst shaping the petals. I made the poppy with 5 petals underneath and 4 on top, few more than a real poppy but looks lusher. I used eyelash yarn to make the stamen’s which I hand sewed onto the centre of the flower.

The next flower was an experiment mixing colours on the petals to give an ombré effect

Today I finished making a multicoloured Zinnia, so many petals! Was worried it would be too flat if ironed the petals so this flower shows how “pouffy” the acrylic fibre is. Some of the colours I mixed myself using two dog slicker brushes to comb two colours together. Pretty pleased how the colours turned out.  

  

Vegan needle felting 2

Hi it's been a long time since I posted. And I've been busy needle felting. Not with bamboo fibres which make hard mean 3D items but with a new fibre called Aclaine from Japan. A company called Hamanaka is producing the 100% acrylics fibre for felting which means it is vegan!!!
http://hamanaka-jp-crafts.com/items/feltwool/aclaine.html

I get mine from an etsy shop called SweetPeaDolls, they are super helpful, they are what's called Embassadors for Aclaine fibre which basically means they sell it in England.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SweetPeaDolls?ref=l2-shop-header-avatar
It comes in a wide range of colours, mainly pretty pastels and fresh bright colours. It felts really well to itself and makes delightfully spongy soft items. It is not so good for thin detail such as stems as the fibres seem short and it retains a lot of air not unlike wadding. I am currently experimenting with it to see what it can do and have made a few flowers, a hamster and some bird brooches.

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The roses were made by creating a sheet of felt first by laying it over a sponge and needling it with the clover 5 needle tool, when doing this it is important to lift the felt frequently so it doesn't stick to the foam. This sheet was then cut into two base pieces per flower and a wavy long strip which I coiled and attached from the middle outwards. This technique came from a lovely new book called Felting fabulous flowers which I got from Amazon. The pansys were also from this book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1909397393/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1