Felting

I find that in life I make it my mission to not be taken in by gadgets and gizmo's that make everything seem 'easier'. However after buying the Spinning Mill I found it has real mileage as a useful item. A few months ago I saw the Clover Felting Needle Tool and thought it might be really useful too. I've never tried felting before except for putting the odd knitted item in the washing machine (sometimes I even meant to) and I have to admit that I was seduced by the packaging showing lovely appliques. I considered for a long time that it would make much more economic sense to buy a single felting needle for 50p than the Clover tool for £14 odd to learn a new skill. But no one wants a sharp object to feel cumbersome to use and felting needles look just so. The Clover tool looks user friendly and simple for beginners like myself. So against my better judgement I bought one. The tool explicitly says it has to be used with the Clover Felting Needle Mat and I automatically dismissed this at marketing. I wasn't going to pay and extra £7.50 for a glorified scrubbing brush.

Now that I've been playing with the Felting tool for an afternoon I can come to to following conclusions:
1. I like felting.
2. I don't like stabbing myself.
3. The Clover tool is overpriced, as are the needle replacements and the needle mats.
4. The mats are probably quite useful for long term use, however I found a stiff nail brush was just as good even if the bristles aren't long enough to protect the needles.
5. After I'd got the hang of felting a bit of wool to a bit of felt I found it a lot easier to do by taking a needle out of the tool and using it on it's own.
The single 50p needle would have been a better option. I'm glad I didn't buy the mat as well, although in hindsight it would have been more useful if I bought that instead of the Clover tool.
6. Theres a chart on the back of the packaging about what type of needle to use for what fabric base and applique. All very informative but there are three symbols which I have no idea what they mean. Maybe I'm just slow but they arnt explained anywhere in the extensive and repetitive instructions, and I have no idea what they mean.

So Little Brain Space

I've posted before about my weird habit of listing things and now that so much is going on college wise I need them more than ever to keep track of what I'm doing and more importantly expunge the stupid whimsical things that I seem to obsess over and stopping me from working. So here we go:

College work I HAVE to do:
1. Illustrations for the 10 or so for my main illustration project. I'll hope to have 5 really good ones.
2. Really nice photos of my Cactus Creatures.
3. Redo some Illustrations that I didn't do before for the 'Food Miles' Brief and 'Hot as Hell' brief
4. Do some self promotional business cards and postcards.
5. Finish off the two competition briefs .
6. I bought a roll of wallpaper liner and have been drawing on it getting every silly idea out of my head and it seems to entertain people who look at it. I'd like to have that as big as possible for a WOW factor in my degree show.
7. Organising some kick-ass features for my degree show.

College work I would like to do:
1. t-shirt designs
2. paintings
3. tongue-in-cheek leaflets about caring for creature cacti
4. pattern designs
5. more creature cacti
6. I dont actually want to do this but I will get earache if I don't submit some work to the college website. I just don't want to do a picture of myself.
7. I really should sort out a proper website for my work.

Personal projects I would like to start/finish:
1. I have an almost finished skirt sitting looking at me sadly
2. I have a lovely dress pattern just itching for me to make
3. knit my self a jumper
4. make fully plush creature cacti so sell (maybe I can flog some at my degree show)
5. make sheepy heads to sell
6. I need a wallet and I dont want to buy one...
7. I found a lovely fabric that would make the loveliest summer bag...
8. I want to try felting
9. I need a pincushion and I don't want to buy one...
10. I'm half way through making a little loom type thing to make A4
sized bits of fabric, except I need a bigger hammer...
11. Theres an almost finished hat sat next to me.
12. Learn to use painter.
13. Learn to use my camera properly
14. Theres a drawn out picture of an elephant with flowers coming out of its ears that I drew out on stretched paper waiting to be painted. It looks at me with longing...
15. So many little drawing I've done on my roll are just perfect candidates to be made into plushes.


And me degree show where all my work will be displayed is only in 4 weeks.

Proto-Sheep

A remake of the sheepy that was in my first ever blog post here. I wanted to know if it could be done using a sewing machine and I'm pleased with the results. The first sheepy was made without a pattern and was very much a one-off, I've been trying at various times since to recreate the first sheepy but without much success. But this one I'm happy with although noticeably different.

This sheepy is a little keyring with a small clip at the top. I shall use him as my very own prototype and see how he fairs with the real world.

Duckypus Cactus

So here at last is another Cactus Creature (their official name now). He's a platypus in lovely silk and wool yarn (a darker colour to the stuff used to make fiery chickens) with leatherette beak and tail (out of sight).

I've been so busy with college lately I can hardly think straight. But now the last hurdle of my degree is in sight, the one I've been waiting for. The final show...

More Cacti

I found an image of my old rabbit cactus! I thought it was on a CD somewhere but it was here on computer in an odd folder. It still makes me smile.

So far I'm half done on 3 more Cactus Creatures. A platypus, octopus and a kitty. The 5th and final one is being fickle about what it wants to be...