The Turtle Moves

Crocheting the zeitgeist

Well, I did say I was going to crochet some little critturs to use up my stash of Stylecraft yarn left over from blanket-making, and where better to start than with the latest craze?

The craft community out there in internet-land are a wonderful bunch, and if you enter 'crochet pokemon' you're overwhelmed with generously free patterns for various weird and wonderful characters. The baby bulbasaur is from this excellent person, who also suggested using needle-felting to do the eyes. Brilliant idea! I wish I'd read that suggestion before doing Picachu - he'd look much better with the more detailed eyes (and flatter cheeks) that needle-felting would give.

My fabulous Grandson is inordinately fond of the films from Studio Ghibli and so My Neighbour Totoro had to be done too.

I do like his open and guile-less face.

And as for the Minions ......

So I'm having fun, as you can see.

Bottled needlefelt

Hello!

While browsing through the various catalogues that plop through the letter box at this season of over-spending on useless rubbish I noticed some interesting Christmas decorations - tiny little toadstools inside the sort of little glass bottles that bead shops sell. What a nice idea - and I bet they wouldn't take long to make, I thought. So ... Ebay for the bottles and into my stash of merino tops with felting needle in hand ...and VOILA!

What do you think?

The larger toadstool that's not in a bottle was the first one I made, just to get the idea of the shape, and of course it's too big for the weeny bottles, but maybe I should make a little elf to sit beside it and make it into another sort of decoration.

They really didn't take long to do and the materials used cost about a fiver to make these 10 decorations. I think the catalogue in question was asking £19.99 for four.

Owl Right Now

Hello everyone!

For the first time in more than a year (ie before Maisie) I got into my craft room and did some needle felting! Oh, it was so good.

It was helped by the fact that Number One Son and Daughter-in-Law gave me a DAB radio for my very own - for use in the craft room - because it is TURQUOISE in colour!!! - for my birthday. And then an I-pod (of very similar hue) for Christmas to use with it.

So - music, Maisie getting (ever so slightly) less demanding, a whole storage unit full of lovely coloured wool and Valentines Day coming up , conspired to make me get in there and STAB WOOL . Oh how lovely that was! (I am trying to avoid the word felt).

This Little Owl was my Valentine Card to M'Dear Husband. I made a box to put it in and the lid had a cheesy heart on the front saying 'Whooo-oo Loves You?'

I know, we are hopelessly soppy romantics at times, but it works, because we have been together for more than 40 years.

 

 

AddiQuick needlefelting

Remember I said I'd been given an electric hand-held felting tool for my birthday? Well, here it is - the AddiQuick.

It's made in Germany, and has only very recently been imported for sale in the UK. This little fact led to a slight hiccup with getting started.

Now, there are quite a few You-Tube clips of American ladies using the Addi-Quick, and the tool itself comes with a little DVD of someone using it. There is also a leaflet. However they both concentrate on the actual act of using the tool to felt wool into a shape - nowhere does it say that this gadget is designed for the Continental electricity supply and has not been altered to suit the UK's electricity. So when I saw the two-pin plug, I assumed it needed to be plugged into the same socket that my electric toothbrush uses. (A shaver socket) The pins certainly fitted the holes, so why wouldn't you think that? It didn't work, of course. Thus leading me to cause alarm and despondency to the giver of the gift by having to ask her where she'd got it, had she got the receipt, etc. Anyway, when I went to the website the tool was bought from (Rainbow Silks) it states very clearly in the description of the machine that it will require a continental -to - UK adaptor, like the one in the picture on the right. Hey chaps, just a thought, why not slip a little note to that effect in with the bit of kit, and then people who've been given it as a gift won't need to embarrass the donor like I had to? Anyway, a quick visit to Argos sorted that problem and we were away - or so I thought. I plugged it in, switched on - and still nothing. So, in the great tradition of helpdesks everywhere, I switched off and took it to bits - or at least unscrewed the cap that covers the needle. It's the only bit that does unscrew. When I looked inside, I could see that the white casing that actually holds the needle was wobbling about and quite far down inside the red handle. So I pulled it up and wiggled it a bit until it sat firmly, looking like it does in this picture. I then screwed the black cap back on, switched on and Bingo! we were up and running. I guess it must be sort of squished down for packing and needs to be released for use. Another thing not mentioned in the leaflet or DVD.

The machine also comes with a packet of 6 needles - 3 size 32 and 3 size 38. There is no indication on them which is which, and no clue in the instructions as to why you might want two sizes. However, if you look closely at the picture, you might be able to see that one lot of needles has a longer needle and shorter shaft than the other lot. I think the ones with the longer shaft have more barbs and are finer, so I'm assuming they are the 38, (if the addi needles follow the normal needle-felting tradition of the higher the number, the finer the needle with the more barbs). The more barbs the quicker it felts, and the finer the detail you can get. If you're familiar with needle-felting none of this will be a problem for you, but if you are using this tool as an introduction to the craft, then the minimal instruction leaflet could cause you some frustration.

Anyway, enough carping. How does it perform? Very nicely indeed, thank you. It turned this little hank of wool into a very firmly felted heart in less than five minutes. You of course have to use it on a foam pad, like any needle felting. You have to look what you're doing so you don't stab yourself, as always. However I bounced the needle off my finger-nail accidentally and it did just bounce away, whereas a single needle wielded by hand tends to slide down your nail and find your finger. So it doesn't seem to be quite as dangerous as it might first appear, although of course one should not be TOO insouciant when using it! Anyway, if you're familiar with needle-felting already, then you will find this a very handy tool for felting large areas quickly, or getting things firmer than you might otherwise do by hand. I think I will still use a single hand-held needle for detail and intricate bits though.

All in all I can recommend this piece of kit, but I will contact Rainbow Silks and suggest they add their own little instruction hints and tips - just to make it perfect.

Happy stabbing!

 

Mrs Claus and da boyz

So here we are, a couple of snowmen of the type featured in the film (although not quite fat enough) and a Santa who turned out to be a lady. Hi Saint Nicola!

I didn't attempt the snow dog - the snowmen took so long that giving them a dog to cuddle would have meant no other felty people got made, and I think variety is probably more important. Anyway, Santa probably doesn't like dogs - I expect he gets a hard time from them just like the postie does.

Talking of variety - this angel is definitely wearing her party frock, isn't she? The Lady GaGa of the woolly world. Her dress is a nice multicoloured wool from the lovely people at Colinette. They used to just do fabulously dyed spun yarns and ribbon yarns, but now you can get a hank of unspun stuff as well - all ready for you to stab or otherwise mistreat (for purposes of felting it you understand). Any of you yarn junkies out there - I urge you to look out for their wares.

Festive felting

Hello there.

I have finally knuckled down to the task of needle-felting some Christmas figures. How do you like these chaps? I made the emperor penguin chicks first (because those fluffy grey bundles with the clown faces are just so cute) and then thought they'd better have a daddy to look after them. I haven't attached a hanging loop because I think they might look better sitting around in a table decoration or something rather than dangling from the tree.

I got busy with the santas as well, so there is the beginnings of a troupe of them - well, two of the chaps, anyway. I will diligently stab wool all this week. Now that the Christmas Market on the 1st of December for our Christmas Lights switch-on is organised I should be able to concentrate on producing stock for my stall at it. That's the theory, anyway.

I'm going to try and make a snowman like the one in the animated film - I'll  let you know how it goes. Apparently this year there's another film coming out about the snowman and a snowdog - hmm, I wonder. I don't know if making woolly representations of cartoon figures is a wise move, since the woolly chaps are sort of cartoons themselves, but it's worth having a shot at it just as an experiment.

Flowery Bags

Hello!

Remember a wee while ago I was crocheting flowers in May and then wondering what to do with them? Well, I thought of something! Little wet-felted bucket bags embellished with some needle-felted leaves and stems and then a profusion of crochet blooms stitched on. I like it!

It was a really, really sunny day today, so the photo is a little bleached out, sorry. I hope you can get the whole joie de vivre of the little bags anyway. And one of these days I'll learn to do photography.

The needle-felting was done with the aid of a fancy brush sort of felting mat and a four-needle tool from Clover which made it very quick and easy. I made up the shapes as I went along, being quite familiar with needle-felting already, but I can see that it would be a splendid way of attaching pre-cut felt shapes to a background, and an absolute doddle to do. I must experiment further - perhaps I should try making a picture of some sort, or little applique pieces to make into greetings cards maybe.

Anyway, I hope you all had a lovely sunny day too and were able to get outside and enjoy it.

Stars in the house

Hello everyone,

I've been crocheting stars in every spare moment over the last month (the Craft Fair on the evening of our town's  Christmas Lights switch-on is upon us this week).

I've been crocheting stars while travelling to and from Cheshire and Wales (mentioned a couple of blogs ago). The drive from Llandudno to Westmoreland Services is an 8 - star journey. (My Dear Husband was driving on that leg of the trip, and then I took over, so no stars between the Lake District and Fife.) I've crocheted on trains and buses, in the living-room and in the kitchen. I've got lots of stars now!

I do hope the Fair goes well. I think I have the absolute Acme of sales gimmicks this year - my lovely grandchildren are going to man my table for me. I will be free to run around making sure everything else is okay, and two gorgeous moppets are going to sell all of my Christmas crochet and needlefelt. How can this possibly fail?

Oh, I've been needlefelting Santas and snowmen and punk angels as well.

Chaps like this all sold well last year, so I must stab wool assiduously all day tomorrow and Build Up Stock.  Maybe.

Or maybe I'll go out into the garden if the sun is shining like it did today. We have to grab all the daylight we can up here in the Dark North you know. Otherwise we retire to the back of the cave and hunker down until Spring.

 

 

Little Easter Chickies

Hello!

I was getting totally carried away knitting ruffly scarves with the lovely CanCan tape yarn we got at the SECC "Creative Stitches" show, and messing about with the heat gun and friendly plastic we got at the same show, and trawling through various multi-media books and magazines getting all dizzy with lovely gorgeous pictures and possibilities - when I remembered! Eek! I've got a table at a Craft Fair this Sunday and Easter's just around the corner! So drop all that experimental fiddle faddle and create some characterful wee birds to decorate the Easter breakfast tables of the nation (oh, okay, Fife - I'm not really a megalomaniac).

It's seems like ages since I've done any needle-felting and it was great fun to get the wool tops out again. I made these five little fellas yesterday - it's hard to believe they all start out as a ball of wool approximately the same size and shape as each other and end up such different characters. But that's what I like about needle-felting, you never know exactly who is going to emerge! I was busy today, but I'll get a few more little chicks done tomorrow I'm sure.

Little Flower Boys and Girls

As a change from wrestling with yarn, I thought I'd get stitching and sticking with some felt. These little people are the first of this year's Easter Decorations. Well, the shops have got some Easter Eggs in already, so it can't be too soon to start amassing a stash for the Spring Craft Fair. These little chaps are very easy and quick to make. The body is a pipe cleaner, the hands, feet and head are different sizes of wooden beads and the felt coat is just folded over and blanket-stitched up the sides. The flower decorations on the coat and hat are "Fuzzy-Felt" shapes stitched on.

I like the sweetie colours, and I think they'll look quite good as decorations interspersed with felted Easter Bunnies and the like. Got to get that old needle and balls of unspun wool out and start stabbing again soon, although my sewing machine is also shooting dirty looks at me, so maybe I should get crafty with fabric and thread as well. Oh, choices, choices.