It's just another cat, my deer!/Raubtierhirsch

Funny enough, it seems as if the scrappiest of scraps boost my imagination the most!

This is today's deer, where I had to assemble three outline patches (and even add a bit of additional drawing) to achieve one animal.



Here you can see the three fragments joined:



I found a piece of wildcat fabric in my stash and decided to use it for the body.



Then I took a clear plastic envelope for tracing the outlines - this way I could see where to position the eye best:



The beads on neck and back are not only embellishments, but also help holding the fabrics together.

And as I seem to be in a creative upswing right now, I made this ring for myself today as well - it's basically a piece of black rubber, some natural beads (coral and bone) and a platinum covered metal bar with a removable knob.



(German summary: Je anspruchsloser die Reste, umso mehr wird anscheinend meine Experimentierlust angestachelt! Drei Reststücke und etwas Raubtierstoff bilden heute das Gerüst meines neuen Hirsches - dann noch ein paar Perlen und Metallpailletten für's Geweih ... Ja, und der Ring kam heute auch noch zustande: Gummi, Naturperlen und ein Steg mit abschraubbaren Verschluß.)

Scandinavian wrist warmers with tin thread embroidery/Skandinavische Pulswärmer mit Zinnfadenstickerei

Another deep dive into my stash ... and what I found this time was some curly sheep fur, some tin thread, bone, metal and glass beads, and some small pieces of fulled cloth - very, very soft, probably with angora ...

I just couldn't resist sewing these small bits together to wear as wrist warmers!



I used another bit of sheep skin - also very soft and this time without curls - as an appliqué for the leaf, then couched the tin thread with a silver metal thread for the borders of the leaf.

Tin thread embroidery - which is a couching stitch - has a long tradition in Scandinavia, often used by the Sami people on reindeer skin. The 'naked' sheep skin I used here has the right 'look', I think.



The red borders, which I layered in between while sewing, are just waste cut-offs - but I found them being most decorative for this project!

The wrist warmers are not lined with the fur - I only had very narrow strips of it (waste material as well), which i sew under the edges to complete the Scandinavian touch!

(German summary: Noch ein paar Schätze aus meinem Fundus - diesmal entstanden ein paar Pulswärmer aus den Walkstoffresten, Pelzstreifen, Zinnfäden und Perlen!)

The voracious sea monster/Das gefräßige See-Ungeheuer

I'm back from my journey to the Northern hemisphere, still busy unpacking my treasures which I found there - among other things a funny little embroidery kit with a voracious sea monster.

The illustration is taken from one of the first books that was printed in Stockholm in 1483, and I found it at the shop of the Medieval museum. The kit itself is simple and very basic, more of an inspiration than an actual guideline - but it was the simpleness that charmed me!

I treated myself to a new, big storage box for my rocailles beads as well - just for the joy of having them displayed like a palette of colours - a feast for the eye.

And finally, I found a very useful little gadget again: it's a 'jewel picker', a tool with a fine, slightly sticky tip (probably silicone), for picking up small beads, sequins, paper cut-outs etc. I bought it at 'Panduro', a Swedish craft store, but the brand seems to be Japanese ('Marvy/Uchida').

(German summary: Ich bin von meiner Reise in den Hohen Norden wieder zurück, mit im Gepäck u.a. eine kleine Stickerei - das gefräßige See-Ungeheuer eben -, sowie eine große Plastikbox für meine Rocailles und ein praktisches kleines Helferlein, mit dem man winzige Perlen, Pailletten etc. gut erwischen kann.)

A small craft session for confused knitters/Ein Bastelprojekt für Strickerinnen

With the risk of being called a copycat, I want to show you one of the very useful gadgets I discovered at Sara's last week: it looks like a fancy bracelet (and you can of course wear it as such), but it's actually a stitch and row counter, based on the Abacus-system - a must-have for confused knitters like me.

Sara had bought hers on Etsy quite some time ago, and as she couldn't remember exactly where, I took a dive into my stash today and made one myself:



There are several sellers on Etsy, if you want one too - or you can just treat yourself to a little craft session :-).

(German summary: Das ist ein geniales kleines Ding, um Maschen und Reihen beim Stricken zu zählen - meines ist selbstgemacht, bei Etsy gibt's mehrere Anbieter.)

Back again - with the Sari Sisters!

Dear friends,

I'm finally back again. I haven't got the absolute full power yet, but I've been damn lucky and I'm OK. And thank you once more for your encouraging comments and mails - I've been missing you a lot!

Meanwhile, I've learned that 50% die of this kind of bleeding and 80% of the rest suffer of disablements ... that makes me shiver - and still, it's as if I just can't realize why my power is so low and everyday stuff suddenly requires 'slow-motion' ... the effort of raising a lot of input for a tiny little output.

Well, nevertheless, this was yesterday's output, when I was trying to play around with the making of 'crazy dolls' - let me present the 'Sari Sisters' (and brothers):



I named them so, because I used some of the Sari silk waste from the earlier posting, and combined it with some vintage buttons, beads and metal wire - actually recycling material.

(I only laid the dolls down on this pre-felt for taking the picture - they all have a hook on their backside and are ment to be hung on a wall, a branch, a parcel ...)

(German summary: Ich bin zurück - und ich bedanke mich ganz herzlich für eure lieben Kommentare und Mails! Ich habe verflixtes Glück gehabt - und trotzdem hadere ich ein bißchen damit, daß ich noch immer so wenig Puste habe ... Die Püppchen sind ein Recycling-Projekt aus Sari-Fasern, Draht, Knöpfe und Perlen!)

Some travelling experiments - Reiseexperimente

It's funny with travelling: some people cannot get enough of it and get so much inspiration out of it - it's a challenge that makes them really feel alive and vibrant.

I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person, really. It's not that I hate it: I can very well adjust to new situations and surroundings and feel comfortable with it - but at the same time, I can't wait to return home and get working on those new ideas and impressions! And the problem is that when I'm finally back home, there's so much piled-up everyday stuff to take care of ...!

I guess I just need quite some time to "get back" mentally, to find concentration.

Anyway, this is not really a 'concentrated piece', but just an experiment on weaving with recycling material, like newspapers and waste plastic. I saw something like that in Stockholm, I thought the recycling paper looked quite stylish with the black cotton warp inbetween. The original paper weave was more professionally done, though, more tense, probably on a 'real' loom.

The little thing above it are some folded paper scraps crocheted together with the same black cotton thread I used for the warp. Well, just an experiment.



Last weekend in Vienna, I saw a crocheted flower necklace which I thought to be a nice idea, but far too expensive - so I made an own version on that, one with a green and one with a red wire. I used a variegated stocking knitting wool to get different colours out of the same material and some beads from my stash (hey, it's nice to find everything you ever need in your own stash!).



And feeling the need just to sit down in the sun and play around - I made these two beaded butterflies to send along with the mail I was preparing for Sara and for Paula ...

(Metal wire and beads from my stash :-))



(German summary: Nur ein paar Gedanken über's Reisen ... Ein Experiment mit Weben von Recyclingmaterialien wie Papier und Plastik, auch zusammengehäkelt, mit schwarzem Baumwollgarn ... Zwei aus Sockenwolle gehäkelte Ketten und dann ein paar Schmetterlinge aus Draht und Perlen, die ich meinen Freundinnen schicken möchte.)

A beaded landscape

I've done this landscape, mostly using thin cotton fabrics with flower prints, which I got in the swap from Paula. I embellished them on to a piece of grey, woolen cloth.

The landscape lines are made out of seams from an organza skirt.

Then I added hand-dyed woolen curls and glass beads, even some corals and turquoise are to be found here and there.

Mammoth and elf ...

This is a mammoth (I think). He just popped out of the white wool roving I was punching with a patterned organza. The only thing I had to do, was to cut him out and emphasize his eye a little more with some black wool fibers. I wonder if he would like to move on to a woolen cave painting ...

Then I saw a tiny green house taking form while I was trying out a thin green-printed silk scarf on the roving. I took a closer look and suddenly discovered a little elf standing in the open door.

She asked me to fix the roof - somewhere on my working table, she had seen a small green, glittery scrap which she thought would be just fine. Of course I fixed it for her. And as I wanted her to stay, I even added some white and green beads to make it look nicer.

Winter tree - dreaming of spring

Inspired by some of the whatiffing experiments of yesterday, I continued with this picture of a white tree, sized about 23x28 cm (9x11").

I punched mostly thin cotton and silk fabrics (thank you, Paula!) and net lace on white pre-felt for the background -the tree itself is embellished with wool yarn, embroidered and finally beaded with different kinds of small glass beads.

At the moment, I'm so full of ideas and inspiration that I almost feel like exploding ...!

Two necklaces

When my Mum visited me this summer, she brought a carneol necklace with her and asked me to change it - she wanted it longer and mixed up with some other beads.

As her birthday is coming up soon, I spent today re-making the necklace by mixing the carneols with apple corals, which irregular surface I find to be of an interesting contrast to the the polished carneols.

I also added a magnetic closure for comfortable opening and closing. As there were still carneols left after the re-make, I used them for a bracelet and some ear-drops to make the set complete.


It's been quite a time since I made some necklaces, so I felt inspired to do one for myself as well. And it was all there, in my stash, just waiting for me to put it together!

(Consisting of clear and frosted vintage glass beads, some Indian strass beads, some exotic organic beads, a couple of silver metal plates and a Sterling silver closure.)

Whatiffing 11-19, this time it's glittering stuff!

I've made some more pieces for the Whatiffing Project: this time I've been punching different kinds of lurex and other sparkling fabrics, some black/white ones, to a neutral woolen cloth, but with white, red or black wool punched inbetween.

And afterwards, I searched my stash for metal beads and small metal embellishments. To challenge myself, I decided to vary the beaded pattern, but to keep the number of beads (or groups of beads) equal within each piece of work.

Spiral felt beads - from the leftovers

Meanwhile, I played around with some narrow leftover straps of the chopped-up sweaters; curled them up, pinned them together, made some stitches - and voilá! I had some funny spiral felt beads in my hand!

Beaded ring

I'm working on a bigger recycling and felting project which cannot be finished in a day - the only thing I managed to complete today was a small beaded ring, no big deal, simply cute.

I was asked to mend a broken (quite ugly) beaded ring somebody had bought in Madeira/Portugal on vacation, and as I did, I got inspired to try it out with other beads, more colours, covering a vintage button instead. Would it pass as a very small "recycling project"?

Playing with beads and wire

Last week Sara came to visit me. We had a great time together and I think she is absolutely right when saying that "it's so important to have fun while creating, being able to put your heart into your work". Yes, I believe that's what creating is all about ...

Today I played with my stash, this gorgeous fortune of exciting things to become. I made some stars out of vintage pearls (glass, wood, bone) and a bit of wire - and had a wonderful time.

Recycling and reassembling sets my heart on fire and sparks my imagination.