Where the Sky meets the edge of the Moon

I'm back from Wales and this is the beautiful sky that greeted me. While away I did a very small amount of stitching...

 Some edges,

 where the sky meets the moon.

I have signed up for Jude's Sun Moon Stars online workshop which is not in 'real time' anymore but will still be useful to me I think. I am looking forward to finding my way round the interactive site and hopefully meeting some new blog friends along the way. Of course I will continue to post here too and show my progress. Today is a very autumnal day; blustery, wet and slightly chilly; a good day to stitch perhaps?

Harvest Moon Patches and a New Cloth

Had a really productive day in the studio, taking photos of previous small cloths for the shop, and making some new felt meets cloth patches; some autumn harvest moons:

merino wool & tea stained muslin 

merino wool & linen cotton

merino wool & tea stained muslin 

These will be going up in the shop on Monday.

an array of harvest moons

a WIP; harvest moon bookmark

 This will be too when its finished. 

I have also been playing with a new cloth. Its a work in progress, might be a slow one. May even see me to winter? Lets see how it goes. Its still small, but on the larger side of small, and could grow of course...

Stitching Felt

adding stitches to felt patches

 Inbetween work on my fake archive I have been stitching into scraps and patches of tester felt. This one was a tester for the piece I made last year; Checkered Openings. I like to use up the tester bits and also want to start making small cloths that incorporate more of my handmade felt so this is the first go at it. We shall see how it develops...

adding stitches to felt patches

And thank you to Heike from Gerdiary for sending my purchased fabric pack so quickly. I love her work and her natural dyed fabrics and scraps that she sells in her online shop; this apricot pack will be so useful to me. Keep your eyes out for bits of them in my upcoming works! And get your own before they sell out...

pick up your own pack here

pick up your own pack here

Felted Wedding Teacosies

If you follow my other blog; darning the divide you will know it's my sister's wedding in a month and I am busy making lots of things for it; several being wedding teacosies:

 Above are photos of the first teacosy of the day; a reversible wedding teacosy with nuno felted chiffon and muslin decoration.

These are of the second teacosy, which used a doily and chiffon, but this time the chiffon didn't felt and attach itself very well, not like the first; I think I know why so next time I will be more careful.
I will have better photos when they are dry.

Felt Meets Cloth again

needle felting into heavy calico in the studio

I was in the studio all Sunday. Taking a break from the BAO project. Needle felting into calico. Needle therapy!


needle felting into heavy calico - mid way




needle felted circles into calico



scarf experiments

Tried out some nuno felt scarves with muslin. Cant seem to get this second image to flip round the right way - blogger image upload seems to have a mind of its own these days.

Felt, Cloth, Stitch

Troubling Squares

Green squares?

Or no green squares?

growing into a long cloth

So the cloth seems to be growing into something - I like where it is taking me and I feel I owe my inspiration to all the blogs I visit these days as well as the cloth itself speaking to me.

Is this a turning into my first long cloth?

"Checkered Openings"

Right, so its felted, but I'm not sure its finished.

Perhaps it needs some stitching, perhaps it needs a textile bundle in the loops; not sure yet.

Ode to Jude - checkerboards

This is a work in progress - a prefelt checkerboard falling off the right hand corner - been thinking about weaving checkerboards for weeks now thanks to Jude's fantastic vlogs on her work in progress 'Magic'.

I'll let you know how it progresses.

Recent Felting Activity

So those two above are of a very large piece of felt I made this week; dry and in mid rolling - I used some lovely 'Spring Green' plant dyed wool from Wingham Wool Works that I have been hanging on to for a while. The piece has now been posted to my talented sister who is currently making a surprise something for Mothers Day... collaboration of the creative daughters - will post a few pics when its done!

This is a detail of a small piece of merino felt with some skrim added to the surface.

This is an experiment with some white merino and some muslin.

And this is an experiment with contrasting colours and cutting shapes out at the prefelt stage.

Its been a busy felting week!

Surprise Presents and Japanese Craft Books

Hello everyone.

Its been a manic week ending in the Hackney Wicked Festival and my Open Studios. See my other blog for more on that:

http://abithomas.blogspot.com/

Stitchworks Jackie came to say hi while I had my Open Studios and she gave me this lovely piece of her handmade felt with paper as a little surprise present. I love it! I think I am going to have to get it framed...

These pictures below are from the two Japanese craft books I ordered from YesAsia.com, they arrived on my doorstep the other day and I LOVE them! Gorgeous pictures, just gorgeous.