April 6, 2014

Fun with felt


I love working with felt!  It can be so colourful, so tolerant, so easy to manipulate, it doesn't fray, you don't even have to do anything on its raw edge. I thought today I would show you some of the ways I like to use this wonderful material.

Felt can be used as a background for embroidery then appliqued on a bag or made into a pocket. This one has blanketstitch around the edge with a running stitch frame:


A contrast thread highlights the blanket-stitch on the one below. Instead of lots of embroidery on this bag, I've used more felt for the appliques:


Felt is just fantastic for making pincushions - so easy to shape into a birdhouse:


or made into cupcakes:


or a beehive ... and so easy to embroider:


The Pixie Garden pincushion which I showed you recently uses felt in a way that is opposite to the bags above. In this design, the felt is the background rather than the fabric, and the fabric is then appliqued onto the felt. The edge of the fabric is included as part of the embroidery. This pincushion had no need to do anything on the raw edges of the felt:


The Garden Gate Pincushion has inset applique. The embroidered fabric centre is underneath the felt:


You can find the Garden Gate free pattern either here or here at Craftsy.

One of my favourite things to do with felt is to applique it as scallops onto fabric. The Daisy Jane workbox and needlecase have their felt scallops fused in place with fusible webbing and then prettied up with roses and guipure daisies. The reverse happens with the pincushion in that the fabric is fused to the felt and blanket-stitched in place. This pincushion needed to be blanket-stitched on the edge to hide the back of the embroidered roses:


Felt makes lovely French tags. Add a bit of lace, beads and ribbon ...:


Felt makes great keyrings or scissor keeps. I've been making lots for my charity box: 


On this wall-hanging, felt was used for the four heart pockets - so easy to use, again with nothing required around the edge. Fabric, lace and a heart charm give the finishing touch:


 I accomplished a lot more than I expected last week. My husband had cataract surgery and we are ever so thankful that it was successful as there was no guarantee that it was going to work with his problems. He can now read the bottom line on the chart without glasses! It was such a good result that the surgeon now wants to go ahead with his other 'good' eye. In between hospital and post-operative trips, I managed to make a bag for a friend (forgot to take a photo!), cut out and start piecing a quilt, and prepare for our daughter and children's school holiday visit.

I promised to take the grandchildren to the beach and the legendary grass slides in a few minutes, so I had better get off the computer and put on the sunscreen!

Happy stitching!
Val


7 comments:

Susan said...

Lovely inspiring projects as always. Thanks for sharing!

Jacqueline Morris said...

Your creations are wonderful... I never knew felt could be such fun! I especially love the bee hiveitsadoreable. Thank you very much for sharing, you have inspired me to do something with felt...thank you :)

Gina E. said...

Again, we have something else in common - I also love working with felt, and have accumulated a box of it from donated packs to our opshop over the past year! Love those cupcakes; I've made donuts as well as cupcakes ;-)
Congrats to your hubby on his successful cataract surgery. Ken had both his eyes done last year about 2 months apart, and was horrified to realise just how bad his eyes were beforehand!

Shari said...

Mmmhmmmm thank you for the inspiration. Lovely projects, and glad to here your husband doing well after his surgery!

Anonymous said...

Val I love coming to your site you always have such beautiful projects that you do and your work is just fantastic thank you for sharing everything with us.
Carol 0

Anonymous said...

I think I get to use the word plethora! You have a plethora of ideas for felt, and I loved this post. =)

Татьяна said...

Very beatiful!!!