More flower than hat…

Nicola's ORANGE hat!

So, this is what happens when you order a hat in BRIGHT ORANGE, and then give me free reign to decorate it however I like. I blame Nicola, for agreeing that a massive “alien flower” would be a good thing to wander around wearing on her head.

Nicola's ORANGE hat!

I have to say that I have absolutely LOVED making this. The opportunity to use a nice bright base colour, and the freedom to make something that I thought Nicola would like, has been really enjoyable. As has the process of making the felt itself. I’m learning something new every time I work with wool in this way, and I’m so excited about the possibilities. It’s good for me too – it keeps away my perfectionist streak, as there’s no such thing as “perfect felt”, and it changes all the time as you’re working with it.

Nicola's ORANGE hat!

The centre of the flower is circled with bright orange bullion knots, to draw the colour back into the hat. The process of stitching through handmade felt is incredibly satisfying – almost therapeutic, somehow.

I had to take a bit of a break from felting today, as my shoulders and neck were complaining about all the rubbing and rolling, but I can’t wait to get back to it. My next day not-at-work is Tuesday, and that’s most definitely going to be another felting day!

At long last – another new hat!

Pale grey cloche hat with blue beaded felt flower

It wasn’t until I came to upload this hat to the Etsy shop that I realised it’s a whole month since I added the previous one. How on earth did that happen?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the hats (too much thinking and not enough doing, clearly!), and I think in April (when I formally register Eternal Magpie as a business again) I’m going to move these hats out of the Inexplicable Emporium and over to an Eternal Magpie branded Etsy store. I think that will allow me to have a bit more creativity without having to shoehorn them into the faux-Victorian theme… and if I make anything properly crazy or very obviously Steampunk-inspired, then it can go into the Emporium if that’s where it fits best.

Felted leaves and tendrils

I’ve been having a bit of a play with felt again, with a view to the hats having a lot more handmade embellishments, rather than only ribbons and buttons. I think that lends them a certain uniqueness – anyone can go to a shop and choose a pretty ribbon and a striking button, but only I can make these exact flowers. Sure, there are a million and one felted flower tutorials out there, so I can’t claim any uniqueness in that. But these flowers will have come out of my hands and my imagination, and that will hopefully make these hats stand out a little from the many other cloches out there. Typing “felt cloche hat” into Etsy currently returns 1,869 results, so I need to make mind stand out somehow! They’re currently on pages 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 (out of 47) of that search, so not bad, but anything I can do to make them that little bit more interesting will definitely help.

I also want to make a few smaller things, such as hair clips, to offset the fact that yes, these hats are going to be expensive when the prices go up in April, and yes, they’re going to be outside of many people’s budgets. I’m hoping that people might start by buying a hair clip with some pretty felted flowers on it, and like it so much that they save up to buy a hat. Well, a woman can dream!

 

Yep, it’s definitely spring!

Blackthorn (sloe) blossom

A couple of days ago we looked out of the kitchen window to be greeted by this – the blackthorn (sloe) tree suddenly in full blossom at the far end of the garden!

Blackthorn (sloe) blossom

I love the delicate little flowers – such a contrast to the vehement spikiness of the tree itself.

Pear bud

The pear tree’s waking up as well – as is the apple, although it was apparently too shy to be photographed this morning. The apple buds are tiny, but I’m hopeful for some nice braeburns. We didn’t see any pears at all last year, though they might have come and gone before we moved in.

Oxalis?

I’m not sure what this is, but we’ve got a border full of it, and it’s beautiful! My Mum thinks it’s the “weed” variety of Oxalis, and she’s very keen for us to dig a bit up and save it in a pot for her. It might be technically a weed, but it was flowering in November when my parents first came to visit the new house, which as far as we’re concerned makes it a very valuable plant!

Oxalis?

I just love the way it collects the water, in the centres and around the edges of the leaves. I really want to see whether I can create something that looks like this – maybe with felt and glass beads.

Rainbow

As I was walking home this afternoon, thinking about posting these photos, it started to rain, just the tiniest bit. I came around the corner by the church and was greeted by this absolutely glorious rainbow – I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one so strong!

I case you’re wondering, I have been making things, but I’ve been stuck in the busy corner of my work rota again, so I haven’t had much time to do both the making and the blogging. Hopefully this will result in quite a few making-things posts for you next week.

Signs of Spring

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We’ve had a few nice spring-like days lately (I even took my woolly gloves off this afternoon!) and tiny signs are starting to show in the garden. Because we have absolutely no idea what’s planted here, it’s fascinating to see what turns up. Like this miniature daffodil, all by itself! I’ve counted three altogether, all very separate from one another, along with a solitary snowdrop, and one purple crocus in the middle of the lawn.

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I have absolutely no idea what this pretty yellow flower is. Does anybody know? I must remember to go and have a look when it’s actually open, so I can try and get a better idea of what it might be. (Some kind of ranunculus, maybe? I need to go and have a proper look at the leaves.)

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This one, albeit another bad picture, I think is Speedwell. Not sure which variety, perhaps ivy-leaved? Again, more research needed.

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The ground below the pear tree is absolutely carpeted with violets!

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Teeny little wild ones, and the colours are so vibrant!

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Less vibrant but just as beautiful are these holly leaves, hiding underneath the violets. They must have come from branches trimmed away in the front garden, as we haven’t got a holly tree in the back. I just love the texture of all the veins, and the delicate outer layer peeling away.

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Underneath the lilac tree is a little forest of grape hyacinths just waiting to pop!

All of these flowers are in a small area, about a metre and a half square, that I’d been thinking of digging over to plant soft fruits like blackcurrants and raspberries. Now I’m thinking that the flowers can stay, and the fruit can quite easily go somewhere else.

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And last but not least, on the other side of the garden in the vegetable patch – rhubarb! We’ve already divided this crown into three to share with friends, and I can’t believe how many shoots are still coming up! I love the alien brain-like qualities of the leaves as they start to unfurl.

The rest of the garden is still looking pretty bare, although all of the fruit trees (apple, pear, blackthorn and cherry) have buds on them, so I’m hoping for plenty of flowers soon, followed of course by plenty of fruit!

While stocks last…

I should probably mention my other special offer that’s up and running on Etsy, before it up and runs out!

All of the remaining scented candles in glass jars are being discontinued,  so there’s currently a voucher code to receive £5 off any candle in my shop. Simply enter the code “CANDLE5” at checkout, and it should do the maths for you. Unfortunately it only works once per order, not once per candle, so if you’d like to order more than one just contact me and I’ll make a custom listing for you.

When I made these candles they were greeted with great enthusiasm, but while the tea light packs sold out almost immediately, the large candles have mostly been sitting in a box. Realistically, I think they’re just too expensive for buyers to take a risk on without being able to smell them first. Hence the discount, which I hope will encourage a few people to go for it!

Airship Fresheners - tealight sample pack

Unfortunately four out of the five fragrances we chose for the Airship Fresheners have now been discontinued altogether, which means that they can’t now be repeated. Any large candles that are left over at the end of the month will be melted down and turned into tea lights, to try and prolong their availability just a little bit, but after that it’ll be all new smells!

I also want to try some new things as far as candles are concerned. Keeping in the theme of the pseudo-Victorian Emporium, I’m thinking along the lines of candles for banishing monsters, or lighting up a seance, or attracting (and repelling) all manner of fictional creatures of the night. A little bit more research will be required, but that will mean delving into my pile of of gothic horror novels, so I’m rather looking forward to it!

There’s also the long-standing project that’s been in the back of my mind for years, about making candles scented with essential oils. There are quite a lot of safety considerations involved with using essential oils at wax-melting temperatures, so again more research is needed before I can go ahead.

Whatever I make in future though, in the way of candles, will definitely be tea light sized! That way people can buy them individually if they want to, or I can offer small packs. Either way, they’ll be cheaper and easier to send through the post than big glass jars!

Another fuchsia pink hat!

Helen's Custom Cloche

This is the latest hat (almost) off the blocks – another fuchsia pink cloche with black guipure lace trim. I was asked to amend the shape of the back, so that it wouldn’t catch on the back of Helen’s coat collar.

Helen's Custom Cloche

As you can see, the cutaway flattened out a little bit once I’d added the brim wire, but I think it’s still a nice shape. Hopefully it will be shaped enough to accommodate Helen’s coat!

Helen's Custom Cloche

All I need now is a really nice button to finish it off, and to cover the join in the lace. (Where the pins are, although I was careful to make the join as discreet as possible.)

I’m looking forward to having a little more time on my hands when next month comes around, all this hand sewing is very slow. I lost the best part of a week to being ill, and I’m on a course with work this week, which is more sewing time gone, and I’ve got a backlog of hats waiting to be trimmed!

Don’t forget that all of the felt hats in the Etsy store will be going up in price at the end of the month, when the introductory offer comes to an end! I’ll try and get a few more finished before the deadline, so you’ve got plenty to choose from.

Experimental Afternoon

Failed felting experiment

I had one of those “brilliant ideas” just as I was falling asleep last night, so I rushed home after work this afternoon to try it out. It turned out not to be as brilliant as I’d thought, which is often the case! I’d been contemplating the possibility of felting loose wool fibres onto the pre-made felt hoods that I’ve been using to make the hats. I hadn’t seen that method of working in books or online anywhere, so I thought I’d give it a go.

I tried needle felting first, with a piece of leftover wool yarn. Coarse needles worked, with a little effort, but left unsightly holes in the front of the work. Fine needles resulted almost immediately in a break – the needle just wasn’t strong enough for the dense machine-made felt.

Failed felting experiment

Next I gave wet felting a go. Admittedly I’ve used a very small amount of wool here, but again it just didn’t really work. The fibres are starting to felt to themselves, but they’re not even thinking about meshing in with the darker felt underneath. I guess it’s finished too smoothly for the top layer to grab on to.

Failed felting experiment

The yarn and the merino fibres also started to hold on to one another very nicely, but you can see that they’re just not even slightly attached to the bottom layer.

It’s possible that with a lot more fibre and a lot more effort, this technique might work. But to be honest, if I’m going to have to go to a lot of effort, I’d much rather be making my own felt completely from scratch. That was always the plan anyway, I just wanted to see whether there was an interim method between machine-made hood and handmade felt. Apparently not!

Salt dough experiment

This is how the experimental salt dough looks now that it’s dry. I haven’t baked it – I left it at work while I was off sick for three days, and it’s dried itself out nicely in the meantime! It’s lovely and white, but the salt does make it look a little grainy. The backs of the pieces are rather rough, and I’m not completely convinced it will survive being sanded. I also want to test a few pieces to see how brittle they are. There’s no point making a pendant or a pair of earrings that are going to snap the first time you bump them – or that might dissolve the minute they get damp! So I need to experiment with painting and sealing them too. Oh, and drilling holes in them. I should really have poked holes with a cocktail stick while the dough was still wet, but I’m hoping they won’t snap under the pressure of a hand drill. Another fun experiment to try!

Modern technology and a call to action.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

I’m still getting to grips with all my modern technology. I seem to have settled into the iPad quite easily, although it’s useless for writing a blog post – the keyboard takes up so much of the screen that I can’t see what I’m doing. Otherwise though, it’s been amazingly easy to use, and I’m losing every waking minute to adding things to Pinterest. (Follow me! It’s dangerously addictive.)

Paul’s also upgraded his phone, which means I’ve inherited his old one. I’ve spent a chunk of this afternoon switching over to the iPhone 4, which is lovely, but it looks different from my old one (thanks to a software update), which is discombobulating me more than it ought to. Anyway, while I was setting the photo above for my lock screen, I was reminded that I haven’t actually shown you my new bracelet!

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

I ordered it from Honey and Ollie at the beginning of the year, and it arrived (all the way from California) on the 12th of February – much sooner than I was expecting it to travel all that way.  It arrived accompanied by a little crow holding a star (perfect!), who is now pasted into my journal.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

This is the back – and the lovely box it arrived in. The back is so pretty that sometimes I flip the bracelet over and wear this side as the front. The silk ribbon just ties around my wrist.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

Like this!

It’s a One Word bracelet (pendants also available), and this was my chosen word for the year.  I figured that putting it on my phone as well as on my wrist would give me a little kick every time I start procrastinating instead of working. Perfectionism and procrastination are my two biggest enemies (alongside getting distracted far too easily), and I have a tendency not to even start doing something unless I think I can do it right first time. This is my handy reminder to JUST DO SOMETHING, even if it’s something very small, and not very perfect.

Speaking of Not Very Perfect… today I was attempting to make a very simple cowl to go into the Etsy shop – just two rectangles sewn together. What I have actually made is a fully lined moebius strip, and I haven’t got the faintest idea how I managed it! Couldn’t have done it if I’d tried. I’ve unpicked the cowl three times, and I still can’t get it to turn right-sides-out. Definitely a sign that I wasn’t really well enough to approach the sewing machine today!

Socks and salt dough

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I’m so bored of saying this, but I’m ill, AGAIN! Just a cough and a cold, no doubt brought home from one of the hundreds of children who came to take part in activities at the museum over half term. But as a result, there has been a great deal of languishing on the sofa, and a need for some extremely simple knitting. So, I used up some leftovers of sock yarn and made these teen-tiny newborn sized baby socks!

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When they were done I still had a little bit of yarn left over, so I improvised a pattern for some matching mittens. They’re so cute, I might have to start knitting baby socks with all of my leftover sock yarn! And even though I was looking for easy knitting, I still managed to learn something – these little socks have my first ever short-row heels. I don’t think I managed to close up all the holes very neatly, and I didn’t wrap the stitches, but I know that once these socks have been through the wash a few times, any little irregularities will disappear.

Salt dough experiments

This afternoon I had a little bit of a play with some salt dough, which is currently waiting to go in the oven. I tried two recipes, both of which I’d found on Pinterest, but one was significantly better than the other. These are made from my usual combination of 2 parts flour to one part salt, but with the addition of a small amount of cornflour. This made the dough feel extremely smooth, and it certainly picked up the detail from the leaf cutters (designed for fondant icing) very well.

Salt dough experiments

The second recipe… well, that just made a great big mess. It called for cornflour and bicarbonate of soda, but while the proportions of the recipe were provided, there were no instructions. I knew the split second I’d added too much water because I didn’t have dough so much as this…

I’ve made cornflour gloop with the toddlers enough times to know that I was never going to make anything useful out of it, and I don’t know why I didn’t realise sooner that this is what would happen! Perhaps the state to be aiming for with this recipe is something more like damp sand rather than actual dough. Although I don’t know whether that would hold together enough to cut shapes out of it. (It does work for bath bombs though, so perhaps it would be okay.)

The reason I’m mucking about with salt dough is that I’m looking for an alternative to polymer clay. I did an experiment several years ago using essential oils to scent Fimo, but now I think I want to use something a bit more natural as my base material. I’ve had limited success with papier mache, so I’m thinking that air drying clay might be my next best option. We’ll see. If these little leaves and flowers survive their baking and a little bit of paint, perhaps salt dough will be fine!