Music for Monday - The Poozies

I have just discovered this band, thanks to my sister for playing this track at me the other night! So have a listen and see if you think they are as wonderful as I do... I think I shall be making big hints for my birthday!

Felting tips - playing with colour

So how did Christine get from a pile of white fleece to this finished piece? This picture was made using one of our felting kits with just 6 colours in it as well as the white.

First she added tiny wisps and pinches of the two shades of green

Gently patting the laid fibres helps to hold everything where you want it.

This example is being made with the "Peacock" colour way from our web shop. More tips coming next week as I have to get on with preparing art for an exhibition!

Felting Tips - using white

I thought perhaps some folks might be interested in tips from Mum and I about how to make felt. So here is the first "Felting Tip" from Diva Designs. Photos from me, hands in action from Christine - Mum!

We always use white merino as a background to our felt pictures for two reasons:

First, it makes the more expensive colours go further.

Second, it softens all the colours slightly and makes for a subtler overall effect.

hold the wool tops gently in one hand and pull off small tufts with the other hand

lay the tufts side by side in a row

add rows of tufts, overlapping by about a third, till you reach the size you want

lay a second layer of rows of tufts at right angles to the first layer

Once you have two layers of white laying at right-angles to each other you are ready to play with colour!

Work in progress....

I am working through a knotty stage of creating the Aphonomantes' Box just now. It feels as if it will NEVER be done, and as for the sketchbook that has to go with it? Yes, well....

So, as a perfectly legitimate distraction from the box, I have been working on CD sized art pieces for an annual exhibition at a fairly local gallery: Inchmore Gallery

Top "Flotsam" | bottom "Lost on the Tide

"Flotsam" is a felted and beaded piece with a lovely tangle of genuine flotsam that includes feathers and skeleton leaves.

"Lost on the Tide" is made from a gathering of found objects with felting and embroidery.


This has been a fun distraction from all the other things I "should" be doing - however it's time to get my nose to the grindstone and really work on the sketchbook for The Aphonomantes' Box. After much stomping round and round my extremely chaotic work table yesterday (accompanied by much grumbling and scowling) I began to see some progress in making sense of my back of the envelope sketches and jotted down ideas. I have this bad habit of trying ideas out in my head rather than actually making a mock-up of the possible techniques. So now I have to go back and show my different stages and discarded design elements in order to fill out my sketchbook.

Remind me next time that I want to start at the beginning and do the design brief first? It would make life SO much easier! I am already thinking about the next project - I really want the accessory to be a pair of boots. Perhaps I really have gone mad?
And the one after that? Oh, just a 6 ft span pair of wings. That's all. Or perhaps a tree house...

Or perhaps I shall just go and sit in a dark and padded room for a while?

As a light relief from all the intensity of mad creativity, I have been enjoying tending the hens every morning, letting them out for a run before we feed them and move their run to a new patch of the lawn.

They are officially my sister's hens, and this is her with them, but I seem to be enjoying the care of them at least as much as she is!
It is a very lovely and calm time, early each morning, pottering round the garden with the hens in tow, raking up their mess from the day before, fetching the food with them flocking round your ankles, watching them peck and scratch among the leaves and grass. they are surprisingly individual with Sol, the black one on the bench being the bravest and tamest; Goblin, (don't ask, I don't know why that's her name!) the grey disappearing round the bench, being very bossy of the others but very shy of us; Luna, white,( not in this photo due to being busy laying an egg) being very sweet and gentle with us and distinctly hen-pecked by the other hens; Ginger, hiding behind the bench, is not very distinctive yet, she is perhaps the most generic 'Hen' of the lot; and last but not least is the lovely speckled grey who somehow hasn't got a name yet!

Music for Monday

First, one of my favourite Loreena McKennitt tracks. This is such dreamy and wonderful music to work to, perfect for boosting my creativity! Sadly, I have lost my CD of her music, no idea how or when, but it's gone! Tragic but true.

I also give you a glimpse of the Aphonomantes' box. It's coming along slowly, and I am getting madder slowly, or perhaps not so slowly? This is a close up of the clasp mechanism that I eventually came up with. This I am pleased with!  The inside is not progressing so fast, I am feeling stuck - what, how, where do I place handles/knobs/drawer pulls??? How do I make it all look worn in and deep?
Who knows. I shall find out!

Meantime here is some more of Loreena's music for you to enjoy: