Wednesday 14 November 2012

Catch Up 2

I feel terrible for neglecting this blog so much lately. It seems like the past couple of months have been filled with endless phone calls to people in government agencies trying to get on a scheme to become self employed. It's like trying to do a jigsaw when you don't know what the picture is meant to be, it seems that  everyone I speak to knows just a very small part and doesn't really know who else I should speak to, but the bits are starting to fit together, finally! Hopefully all the hard work I've been putting into my fabrics and fibres project will amount to something worthwhile.

I haven't really had time for much felting, but I did get a sewing machine off my mum and have played around on that a few times. I started just by practising straight lines on a spare piece of nuno felt, then attached a few shapes with zig-zag stitch. I then folded the piece and stitched along the sides to make a small bag/pouch.


I also did some zig-zag borders on some felt offcuts to make bookmarks. I added a few felt offcuts to some of these too.


Recently I decided I needed to sort out all my felt scraps. I had two huge boxes of them, roughly sorted, but hadn't really kept up with keeping them separated or neat. I tried to organise them into lots of different piles, depending on length and width, and got some old margerine tubs and labelled them to encourage me to keep them neat!


Once they were all sorted, I went through and chose some nice pieces to make myself a collage notebook cover. I cut a piece of craft felt a bit bigger than the size I needed, then added strips and pieces of felt offcuts to it and zig-zag stitched them in place. I really like the way it came out :)



 What do you do with all your felt or fabric offcuts?



7 comments:

  1. Glad you're moving forward with your project. It seems government workers are the same the world over. Not known for expedience or efficiency. Looks like you're enjoying your sewing machine.

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  2. Love the patchwork notebook!

    Keep on keeping on Zed - it's well known that in government agencies the left hand doesn't know what the right hand does.

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  3. Fantastic outcome with the book cover! Really effective and totally unique.
    I get fed up with my scraps if they are too small. They just get untidy or take up space. Can't bear to part with them though so I left my 7 yo daughter play with them :)

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  4. Wonderful way to use your scraps Zed! I love the book cover! Your bookmarks are lovely too. Been meaning to do something similar, cutting and stitching, as a hat.. it been lurking in the back of my brain for a couple of years now, you might of just given me the nudge to get it out of there :)

    My felt compost is something I dip into to add to new projects usually, I'm planning a rug with slipper off cuts, a hat. And I use the circle from cutting the opening in berets to make flowers for brooches.

    xx

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  5. Thanks, Ruth, Lyn, Aileen and Deborah :)
    Yep government agencies seem to be the same the world over!
    I was hoping to try this with the tiny scraps, Aileen,
    http://feltingandfiberstudio.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/felt-scrap-bowl-tutorial.pdf
    I just need the time :)
    That's a great idea for the beret circles, Deb. I'd probably make coasters, for some reason, I really like making those :)

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  6. Love that book cover! Eclectically delicious.

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