1940's FELT HATS

Just thought you would like to see the 1940's felt hats I rescued at the Antique fairs. Aren't they wonderful?
At the Newark fair I had a green walking jacket on and I wore the green hat for a while. A couple of hours later one of the exhibitor dealers came to me and after talking for a while it turned out that she was learning to felt, and so the chatting about felt making went on and on as it does.

These hats will be for sale in my
Oddities Antiques website
tomorrow (Wednesday 11th february 2009)

Third attempt at making felt slippers

My sons felted slippers. I finally completed them.
I've had a lot of problems making slippers mainly because I used merino wool rather than the Norwegian C3 wool I used here. However these turned out well, very thick and hopefully the correct size this time.
I have learnt a great deal during this process and in a few weeks time I shall put all of my findings down here with some very useful tips for anyone else wanting to make durable felt slippers. Tips that I didn't find on any other tutorial and blog sites which I hope will stop others being as frustrated as I was.
I'm away for a week but will post the tips on my return.

Floating in front of the sun.

My second cushion centre.

I thought I'd use two previously worked pieces to make another cushion centre. The white felt was made on the embellisher and has come out rather domed in shape so I'll put some stuffing behind it before I add it to the base cushion. The rust coloured felt was made by wet felting. It looks like balloons floating in front of the sun. Should go well aside my first felted cushion when I have time to make the cushion.

Success and disaster - Disaster

I forgot to take photographs not intentionally and I wish that I had remembered to as it might have made me feel a little better. Daniel my son had asked for a pair of slippers for Christmas. He has large feet so I asked him to draw around them. Having got the templates I set out to make the slippers adding 1" around the final slipper shape for shrinkage. I made what looked like a nice pair of slippers and even made turn over tops. I finshed them off like Molly's slippers with some soles cut around the original template.
Daniel was working during Christmas as he is a Theatre Recovery nurse, so as we were going to visit him after New Year I knew I could see if they would fit. I must admit I was rather worried as the slippers took ages to felt together but shrank a great deal. However the soles fit OK.
Daniel was delighted with them and immediately put them on. I could immediately see a problem. My worst fears had been realised. His toes stuck over the soles by about 2 inches. His feet had no problem getting into the slipper but his big toe was using the top of the slipper. Within two days a hole appeared.

Guess what I've got to make another pair. I think he must have moved his foot around when marking the pattern, so whilst at his house I drew around one of his trainers and I shall leave a good 2" around that template.
We laughed and joked about it and I even suggested that he cut the top end off, but of course they were supposed to keep his feet warm.

Still 2 out of 3 successes isn't too bad I suppose.

Poor Daniel.

I'd love to know if anyone else has had this problem.

Success and disaster - Success No.2

Slippers for Molly's birthday.

My first pair of slippers. I struggled but got there in the end.

Success I think.

Success and disaster - Success No. 1

The cushion I made for my granddaughter Molly.
I was very pleased with the way it turned out.

More felted Christmas cards

I've been playing around with my embellisher again, trying new techniques. These two lovely Kings were the final result. I've copied them onto card and although they are not as good as the originals, I think they are different to the ones you buy in the shops.

My creations on holiday.

Click on the photo's to see more detail.

I wanted to relax away from it all when we went to Scotland, two weeks ago, so I took along my new embellisher machine. I spent many wonderful hours, while it rained outside, exploring the machine's possibilities. These are a couple of my creations. They will be stuck on to card for Christmas cards for dear friends and family.

PUBLISHED AT LAST

I had better get on with the waistcoat now as my husbands book has finally been published. It can be purchased on line at Amazon. The title is

CELTS V ROMANS by Conor


It is great for matching the History curriculum. My husband went into school teaching drama from the book and the children loved it.

My new toy

I've finally managed to buy an embellisher and am so excited. I had to wait in all day for it to arrive, but it really was worth the wait. This is my first piece on the embellisher punch machine.

My husband is having his book published as we speak. It is a children's book about the Celts and Romans. He will be going into schools to do drama workshops based on the book and wanted a waistcoat that had a Celtic feel to it. So I'm going to embellish typical Celtic art works on some of the panels. I've wet felted the panels first.

Celtic shield.

Sarah's blog was very useful and I got lots of little tips for embellishing. Of course the best way to learn anything is to carry on trying different techniques yourself. I'll have plenty of opportunity to do that with this waistcoat.
The third panel of a little Celtic being still needs some embroidery on his face and I might add a few machine stitches too, as I got a new sewing machine for half price.