A wooly giveaway

I've been spring cleaning lately, going through the studio and putting excess supplies in my "extras" shop, and through the closets and donating bags of unworn clothing. I found, tucked away in a closet, my wool dress coat. It is several sizes too small (sadly), and not really my style anymore but holding it in my hands it was clear that it wanted to be useful to me somehow. It was begging to be cut up and used for crafting, and that's just what I did.




Because the weave of the coat was so dense, there wasn't really any felting that needed to be done. I cut it up at the seams, pulled out the liner and cut off the buttons, and washed it on hot for two cycles to make sure it was clean. After it dried and I ironed it out, it was a beautiful pile of felt - 2 and a half pounds worth - that was remarkably similar to commercial 3mm wool felt. Making your own wool felt is remarkably easy and if you're a wool lover I encourage you to try it. I'm so pleased with how it turned out that I'm offering a small giveaway to celebrate and share the recycled wool love.



I'm offering a small stack of recycled wool pieces and a little blackbird brooch made from the wool to one random reader. All you have to do is comment here and make sure I have a way to contact you should you be the winner. I'll be randomly drawing a name on Monday and will post the winner here.

Good luck!

Fun with felt

It's been a felty day here. I photographed my latest set of felted stones which, by the way, are my favorite yet; and I finished preparing my new felt made out of my old coat. I'll have that story and pictures this weekend. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a photo of my new stones and a wish that everyone is doing well and finding time to create as well.

Just a little bit

This is my wee project for the week. These little bitty hearts take just a little bit of time using just a little bit of wool but I like them a lot.

I use felted sweater material a lot in my crafting and inevitably end up with lots of scrap pieces, of all shapes and sizes. The teeniest pieces of scrap that can't be easily used in another project are cut up and made into stuffing, but the smallish pieces are sometimes made into these little hearts. (and then stuffed with the teeniest pieces of scrap)

I imagine them being surreptitiously slipped into your loved ones' pockets as a surprise "I love you!".

Wordless Wednesday

Slowly

I've struggled with finding the time to craft since the new baby arrived, so I decided that convenience would be my friend. I've kept a bowl of stones and batts of roving near the sink so that when I have a minute, I'll make up a felted stone and I've also kept a bowl of cut-out hearts and all the neccessary supplies to make ornaments on my desk. By having these little (but satisfying) project pieces ready to go, I've been able to make enough in the past two weeks to actually add them to my Etsy shop. Hooray!

It seems funny considering that pre-baby I was able to whip out full sets of stones and multiple sets of hearts in any given day, but I'll take it. It's a slow road, but that's OK.