Felt, glorious felt!

Given that I titled my blog "Tweed Thoughts", it probably doesn't look like there's a lot of thinking going on at the moment! My posts will probably be a bit more sparse leading up to Christmas as there is a lot more 'doing' than 'thinking' going on! I am still being kept busy with the British website Not on the High Street, which is great as its my first Christmas with them and really encouraging. Meanwhile my Etsy shop sits quietly, but Rome wasn't built in a day and I know it needs a lot more attention than I'm able to give it at the moment.

I really enjoyed making my "Grrrrr!" monsters - I'm holding off showing a pic of the large version until my 'customer' sees it first. I was pretty pleased with it, and may use it as a new pattern. I haven't decided the fate of the smaller versions and may try it out locally first. I received this lovely felt in the post on Saturday from a website called Myriadonline which is a great site for toys and crafts in natural materials.

I wanted to use 100% wool felt on the "Grrrrr !" monsters as there's quite a lot of felt decoration and I want it to be of good quality and hard wearing. I ordered some sheets in the colours I need at the moment but will probably get some more colours later as the quality is superb and feels fantastic to use. I love to use felt in conjunction with Harris Tweed as they both have such a different tactile quality.

Sorry this is a bit of an 'uneventful' post but there's a lot going on behind the scenes (honest!!!). I'm off to get my hair cut now - well you've got to look your best while you're toiling away at home over a needle and thread!!

Cheerio an Drasda!

Christmas Doodles!

Last year was the first year in I can't remember how many years that I DIDN'T make my own handmade Christmas cards. I was deeply mortified when I went to purchase the very last, cheesiest, cheapest ones off the shelf in a local store! I was highly embarrassed to send them out. The reason I bought them was that I was so busy trying to get my creative business off the ground, I didn't have time to make my own!! I'll never live it down. My other half actually started the family tradition of making our own Christmas cards, with lino cuts, potato prints etc. - all very creative stuff.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't happen again this year, so I started doodling a couple of weeks ago - I hope to make some with my youngest son and get the sequins and glue stick out - or maybe get him into doing some doodles of his own. I like the idea of sending out one of HIS designs out this year. Are you doing your own cards this year?

P.S. My scribbly doodles say Merry Christmas in Gaelic, by the way!!

P.P.S. The sequins are some I ordered in error for my Christmas baubles - I'll be covering everything in sequins to use them up!! (I'll be using the correct ones for my baubles!!).

Grrrrrrrrr!

I made this little fellow earlier today, leading on from my custom dinosaur pattern earlier on in the week. After making the prototype, I really liked the size and shape of it so decided to go along with this simple profile. It feels great to hold, is firmly stuffed and being Harris Tweed is very tactile. So if you're feeling a bit "Grrrrrrr!" today, it could be just the job. It's my slant on the executive stress ball idea! It's also for kids who just like saying ..... "Grrrrrrrrr!"

It's a nice generous size at about 7 inches x 6 inches (18 cm x 16 cm). I think they would be fun in lots of different colours or even checks/patterns. I handstitched him which is my favourite method of crafting, so I hope he'll exude lots of loving, relaxed and calming vibes from the Hebrides! Fun for little hands (and big hands!) to grasp. He's also got that lovely, woolly smell of Harris Tweed!

Guess what I've called him ??!!!

On my floor today ...

I am working my way through a relatively small amount of orders today from a British website, NOTHS (Not on the High Street). It's enough to keep me busy for the moment and hopefully there will be more coming up as I don't think craft fairs are an option for me right now. Yesterday (Tuesday) is the day I'm supposed to set aside for my 'domestics' eg. housework, laundry, etc. but I always stray from the path and end up doing some sneaky crafting. Yesterday was no exception and I decide to launch myself into my custom order for a dinosaur with gusto! This was no small project as I redesigned a new dinosaur from scratch - but it turned out pretty well (at the expense of a messy house!!).

Anyway I passed this pile on my living floor this morning - I was too exhausted after my crafting exertions to put it back in place (I don't have a workroom as such, just the entire house!!). I love this emerald green tweed and use it quite a lot and was the choice of colour for the custom dinosaur. On the top lie my pattern templates for another dinosaur. I've accumulated a number of my own patterns now which is really satisfying. It would be nice to think that someone else might use them some day. After the festivities are over, I hope I'll be adding more items to my Etsy shop and have some ideas for some new products running around in my head as we speak!

(Are all crafters so obsessive as me about finishing projects?!!)

Dddddd .....dinosaur!

Just a quick post, as along with everyone else in craft blogging land, I'm trying to juggle production, fulfilling orders, designing and generally keeping up with everything at this time of year. I was asked by a family friend last week if I could make a dinosaur for her little girl's Christmas present (from Santa!! - no pressure there then!). She had a particular dinosaur in mind from her favourite tv programme, so I had a look last night and decided to do a quick prototype of it. (It's the slightly scary one in the foreground!!)

I was really pleased how it turned out and although it was a supposed to be a smaller version of the final design, I really liked the size as it was. It seems to be a midway ground between my larger dinosaurs and my little dinosaur-tweedies, and has a lovely tactile shape for little hands to grasp. It's too small for a main present though so I may be adapting one of my larger designs for her - she might get a little one thrown in for good measure though!! It's not really a good time to be designing from scratch as it's so near Christmas but it did turn out to be a really good way of coming up with a new design, so Yay! for custom orders! - my first!!

P.S. The prototype was my own interpretation.

Pancakes, Pomegranates and Puppets ...

We made some pancakes/crepes this morning. I didn't get round to taking a photo the last time we made them, so here's one now! We used a recipe from Delia Smith's book and they always turn out pretty good - very yummy with some sugar, lemon and maple syrup - mmmm!

This pomegranate on the kitchen table was just begging to be photographed too. I thought the colours of the lemon beside it looked really nice too (inspiration for something or just plain pretty!):

We woke up to a beautiful, sunny, wintry morning too, with that lovely light you get at this time of year so I rushed out and took a few pics, but I'll just post one or you'll get bored of my landscape photography! This is the view of the moor a few yards up from our home - beautiful in the right light, but pretty bleak in the wind and the rain!

The colours actually reminded me of some swatches of tweed I've had on my desk for the last couple of months. I've been meaning to get more of these shades but haven't got round to it yet. I love the way that Harris Tweed reflects the colours of the landscape.

Ah, yes - puppets. I mentioned in my last post that I had been making hand puppets. I had been asked if I would be interested in showing some schoolchildren how to make puppets. Initially I guessed this would be with young children so set to designing something a child could make easily with some minimal adult supervision. I'm not going to set this out as a tutorial but just a simple project idea to do with a young child.

I started out by drawing a simple teddy-bear shape on an A4 piece of paper. After the first attempt, I realised that the arms had to be oustretched to accommodate the shape of an outstretched hand - the pinky finger and thumb will go into each arm (pretty obvious probably, but it took my seven year old boy to demonstrate this to me as he modeled the first attempt!!). I made the puppet out of felt for ease of use.

I think the photo is pretty much the shape of the A4 sheet to give you an idea of the dimensions of the shape. Once you have this basic shape of pattern you can adapt it to different variations:

Once you've decided on your pattern, simply cut out the shape (Im sorry I don't have a PDF version or pattern for this but I think you can see the basic dimensions on the A4 sheet) and draw around it on a double thickness of felt fabric. You can then simply handstitch about 0.75 cm in from the edge all around the shape. This doesn't take long and you could do it on a sewing machine for even more speed. I used simple running stitch which a child could attempt if patient enough! (You don't have to turn it inside out or anything, just use matching thread).

There's lots of scope for creativity with this and lots of yummy surface decoration ideas you could use - felt, sequins, buttons, ribbon, just about anything - so go to town with it! As long as you use the basic outstretched arms pattern shape, there are countless possibilities with head shape, design - and it only took half an hour to get going with it. Voila!! One for a rainy day, I think!

Later ..... S. decorated a white felt glove puppet we'd made, adapted to a human shape. He was a bit lazy and simply drew his design with pen (I think that's tight underpants he's wearing!!). I loved they way he draw the mouth from one ear to the other! You can see how we stitiched around the shape. I wish I could draw in this fashion - I'll have to start paying him soon!

Hee Hee!

At last ..... !

At last, the baubles are in my Etsy shop. I'm so exhausted now I'll have to go and lie down! I'm sure I took the long way round in the way I listed them but I did want to have them for individual sale and as a set of 3. I think it's nice to see the exact colours, so I hope I achieved this!

We made some fun glove puppets at home yesterday with my kids so I'll maybe post a pic of them later on today as I'm sure you've seen enough of the baubles by now! A chance e-mail forced me into designing some glove/hand puppets which I'd been meaning to do for a while. We made them out of felt, and were more of a fun project for kids really. Well I'd better go and lie down now - exhausted!!

P.S. I'll try and list them in my original website later on, when I've recovered!