The menopausal woman

Here's a force to be reckoned with : the menopausal woman, full of plans, energy and wisdom! There, I said it and that's what this piece is all about!

I knit the background from Rowan wool and felted the fabric in the washing machine. This way it feels sturdy and slighlty carpet-like.

The powerful woman and the ladder are embroidered onto the background, and I added fairy lights (off course!). It is quite a big wall hanging which I installed in our hallway: very happy with it!

Christmas wreath with robins and holly

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 😊🎄💚

wet felted sample

Something I have wanted to try for a long time is wet felting,  a process of continually rubbing wool fibers together with soap and water to form a firmly felted object.

A workshop by Jeanette Appleton was the perfect opportunity : an exploration of contrasts in colour, texture and surface by using the felting technique on a sewed piece to which running stitch is added. 

I loved this technique and the surprising results, for instance how different the silk fabric and synthetic fabric reacted to the felting process. It calls for more exploration!  And using wool is always a big bonus!

I added some running stitch to silk and synthetic fabric, which then became the starting piece for the wet felting:

The back of the piece, the felted wool:

Retro clock

This project was part of the speedcrafting sessions with Helen Robertson from Shetland. I joined these crafting sessions during the pandemic and they were an amazing way to tackle feeling empty and isolated.

The patchwork clock is made from an old vinyl record, covered with fabric patches.

It’s all retro vibes here!

Kitchen Story

This collage piece is a stitched story about the kitchen in my childhood home. It took rather longer to plan than usual, because I first made a mind map to set free my thoughts and associations.

The technique of mind mapping is something I learned from Ali Ferguson. I found it to be very useful and insightful. 

Starting from this mind map, I selected meaningful materials, words and motifs. 

For the materials, I chose a piece of an actual cushion cover from that time, some jeans fabric (we wore jeans all the time back then), fabric scraps from a pair of slippers I had, some pieces of kitchen textiles and random fabrics that remind me of the atmosphere of this eighties kitchen.

As the motif I picked a whisk, which my mum often used, among many other things for making mayonnaise. This was a job that required a lot of attention and we often chatted as I watched her.

By stitching together the words and this image I’ve tried to capture a cherished memory of peaceful, secure and happy times.

In my kitchen, there is this friendly cloud.

He is made from wool, needle-felted into a fluffy and very friendly cloud shape. Though it still never rains in my kitchen!

Woollen handbag

In 2018 (you can read the blogpost here) I dyed some yarn with onion peel. 4 of the skeins, all of a different shade of yellow, I knit into a piece with wide stripes. 

This piece I washed on a high temperature and high spin cycle, to get it felted. It worked : the fabric is firmer, smaller and thicker now. 

And this week I decided to make it into a handbag of my own design.

I chose a nice fabric for the inner lining. It’s all hand-sewn, because I wanted to do some slow, meditative stitching. The wooden handles fit perfectly, in my opinion. 

This project is is a good example of slow crafting: hand-spun and naturally dyed yarn, hand-knit and hand-sewn into a bag. It reminds me that the journey is so much more important than the goal. That it turned out to be a nice handbag is a bonus 😊

the knitted fabric, before felting :

working on the bag, with the lining fabric and the handles:

the inside of the finished handbag:

Greta the very very good witch

Meet Greta the very very good witch, who has a predilection for flowery dresses. She is busy brewing a cure for every wrong in the world...wouldn't that be something? 

She is needle-felted and I sewed some clothes (flowery fabric, naturally) and a hat for her. She has her cauldron with steaming brew and her broom, of course.

Let's not disturb her further, do go on Greta!

and taking a little break: 

Betsy and Gertrude

Meet Betsy and Gertrude! Their bodies are needle-felted and their wool is real Wensleydale wool.
Wensleydale sheep are an endangered breed, named after the Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, UK. Wensleydale wool has beautiful long curls and is considered the finest lustre long wool in the world. In Leyburn, Yorkshire, the Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop specialises in the sale of the Wensleydale yarn. Going there has been on my bucket list for some time now!
I have already knitted a tea cosy with this yarn, you can find my blogpost on that project here.

Tintin

Needle felting is something I really like. It may be time consuming and every time during the starting phase of the felting process, there is this moment when I think that this time, the magic is not going to happen. And then it works out fine.
A couple of years ago I made Tintin, the famous reporter from the comics. Originally, his hands were stuck fast to his body, but the person I gave Tintin to (and whom I asked to take a photo so I could write this blogpost), detached them, so the hands look a bit unfinished.
Nowadays I pay more attention to photographing my work, it has become part of the crafting as it were.

This old sweater is a pair of wrist warmers

This is my favourite kind of upcycling: something has become unusable (seriously shrunken sweater), another thing is actually needed (wristwarmers for my son) and it all results in an easy project with great result (imho)!
I cut the sleeves from the sweater and made holes for the thumbs, sewing round the holes so that there wouldn't be any unravelling. The sweater had already felted a bit, but I wanted the wristwarmers firmer, so I put them  into the washing machine on a high temperature. They came out super warm and nice. And quite cool too, if I may say so :-)

Here you can see how much more the wristwarmers have shrunk:

 cool!

The Keeper of Keys

Here is the Keeper of Keys. He'll guard the keys that are entrusted to him. I crocheted the bowl with selfmade t-shirt yarn. Then I washed it by hand and let it dry, stretched over a plastic bowl. This way it kept its form much better. The bear is needle-felted. I gave him a small knitted scarf. Being on a key bowl, he could end up in a drafty place, you see...

Felted painting, somewhere in Yorkshire

On a family holiday in 2012, I spent a few weeks in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe: Yorkshire. With the help of a photograph I took there for inspiration, I decided to try to recreate this sense of beauty in a felted landscape (yes, it's all wool).
I worked on it in different stages until reasonably satisfied. And this is the result. I nailed it onto a piece of wood and now it can be hung on the wall.

Blackbird collecting the mail

This rather large flat dish I crocheted from self-made t-shirt yarn. The leaf and the branch are knitted, the blackbird is needle-felted. Bird, branch and leaf are sewn onto the dish. It's perfect for collecting the mail!

Another booklover

Here is someone who totally agrees with Jane Austen, who declared that 'There is no such enjoyment like reading'.

You wouldn't want to disturb wool-felted bear Humphrey, lost in a book!

A French market bag

This is a free pattern from knitty.com, you can download it here.
It's a market bag with a square base and it's knitted in the round.
I used Debbie Bliss Aran tweed, in a beautiful soft purple colour with speckles. Running out of yarn, I dived into my leftover stash and found just enough Debbie Bliss Donegal aran tweed (dark grey) to finish the bag. I think the colour combination works well.
This is a felted bag, which means that the finished work is put into the washing mashine on a high temperature. The fabric felts, shrinks and strengthens. Here, the purple yarn has felted less than the dark grey and you can still see the stitch definition in the purple knitted fabric. I don't mind, I like it this way. Perhaps I'll try to felt it tighter later on, but for now, it will do.

starting on double pointed needles:

finished, not felted:

before felting : clear stitch definition

after felting in the washing machine:

done and ready for shopping!

Penguin fun

Meet Mr. Antarctica, the Emperor penguin, all needle felted and ready to go!

Snore and peace...

My needle-felted fox : he is sound asleep on my dad’s desk. So far no complaints about snoring....

Felted slippers

There is this old newspaper cutting I always kept : a pattern to make slippers from knitted squares. It reminds me of the slippers my grandmother once made me. And so it's my turn to make these. I used wash+filz-it by Schachenmayr. After the knitting and the sewing, I put the slippers in the washing machine and they felted nicely into these cosy friends for my feet : another happy thing!
I found a similar pattern in 'Knitted & crocheted slippers', by Alison Howard, p.14.

Razja, my wizard of the tundra

Needle-felting is something I really love. It's sculpting with wool. And wool is so nice to work with, pure, forgiving, soft. Don't always like the needles that much though... When you get into this hobby, you're bound to yell once in a while...
This wizard originated without me knowing what he would become. His image, looks and personality became clearer and clearer : powerful, vain, righteous, though slightly arrogant, constantly in a bit of a bad mood, but a good soul on the whole.
In his hands he holds a magic crystal, how about that?
He wears majestic bright colours (Oh yes, he is vain!), his clothes are warm, his cape is ornamental and lacy, with little pearls (I painstakingly sewed on). And let's not forget to mention the moustache...!
I do feel protected now!