A simple wreath I decorated with needle-felted holly leaves with beads as berries. Two pompom robins are resting merrily on a branch. For the pom-poms I used wonderful Jamieson’s DK from Shetland.
The birds I made during online speedcrafting with the lovely Helen Robertson from Shetland!
Happy Christmas to everyone 😊🎄💚
Last Christmas I joined two speedcrafting sessions with Helen Robertson.
On the one evening we knitted an owl:
The other we made a Christmas pudding, which started us chatting about Christmas traditions and food from around the world. We were a group of people from the US, Shetland, Iceland, Sweden, England, Scotland and Belgium, so it got very interesting, we all got hungry and we had some great laughs! This is the World Wide Web at its best!
I used Shetland’s Jamieson’s spindrift yarn.
I gave the Christmas pudding to my little bear, who was very pleased:
These charms are my contribution to the TextileArtist.org workshop hosted by Jodi Colella. They are made from scraps of lace, lots of beads, lots of thread, pieces of old clothes, wool and wire.
They have a really nice feel to them. Perhaps I created some nice Christmas decorations here, or brooches? Although they don't have a funcion (yet) I like them and one day, I'm sure, they will come in very handy!
I find myself collecting small crocheted and knitted Christmas ornaments, some of them gifts from friends. I decided to make them into a garland, lightweight and easy to transport to wherever I will be celebrating Christmas over the years, taking these friends with me! I hope I will be able to make the garland longer and longer and longer!
In a second online workshop led by Mandy Patullo I made this robin. It is a textile collage with scraps of fabric and stitching onto a background of printed fabric. I used a twig from our garden to make it a bit more playful. It has something of a Christmassy feel to it, but not too much, so it doesn’t clash at any other time.
I recently participated in a series of online speedcrafting sessions hosted by the Shetland- based artist Helen Robertson. What a great experience it was, especially in these times of social distancing, to make something in a group, in this international setting. And a lovely group it was too!
We got the materials sent to us in advance and on Wednesday evenings we crafted, via Zoom, some very nice original things for two hours or so.
Some of the crafts I never did before and were a very lovely surprise. Because of the time limit, you don't think too much and just get on with it. That in itself is liberating.
We ended up making some jewelry with seaglass and sea pottery, some broches from wool fabric and tweed, a fabric landscape, some little knitted houses (on these I'll write a seperate post soon) and a scallop shell decorated with decoupage.
Helen also hosts knitting workshops and retro and Christmas-themed speedcrafting sessions., which I highly recommend joining : you get to work on original pieces, with great materials and in a friendly atmosphere and you learn some great new skills!
the broches:
seaglass jewelry:
