Watching the birds - playing around

When I saw what my hands had played with while exercising free motion machine embroidery, I had to laugh: somehow it made me think of the early morning arguments with my teenage son ;-)!



Using very simple outlines, a bit like childrens' drawings, makes it possible to transfer the forms into almost every material.

I liked the look of these birds and pondered upon how to make a brooch with the motif - while experimenting, I came up with this:



The bodies are cut out of discarded plastic cards (same stiffness as credit or club cards), covered with patterned washi tape. In good old malfatto manner, I just attached the broche needle and other metal wire components with duct tape.

Bits of wire - sometimes combined with scoubidou strings - and some beads for embellishments made the rest.

(German summary: Zwei Variationen von Vögel, einmal genäht/maschinengestickt, einmal als Broschen mit Recylingmaterial.)

Spinning for leisure, felting for pleasure

This orange flower just had to be made, celebrating the first warm and sunny spring days!

I added a couple of beads and French knots for embellishment and a safety pin on the back - a brooch for a spring jacket or as a closure for a shawl or a wrap. It's a small present for a friend of mine.



I've been spinning a little too - just for the fun of it, no special project in mind. 'Spinning is good for the soul' - Anke at WolleNaturFarben often reminds me of that in her blog postings - and yes, spinning is like meditating, it soothens your mind and calms your thoughts - and at the same time, your hands produce a lovely yarn out of the soft wool on your lap.

I still had a roving left of the New Zealand wool I dyed myself two summers ago - not a very spectacular one, but I did like the red dots in between:



It's funny, how serendipity often decides how a yarn will turn out - sometimes a most beautiful roving turns out to become a quite regular yarn, sometimes it's just the other way round ...

You make your decisions about the wool, the blending, to card or not to card, about the thickness and the whorl when spinning, how and with which material to ply - and still there is a randomness which keeps surprising you until the end.

Even if I have been spinning enthusiastically for a couple of years and know that I can control the handling a lot more now than in the beginning, I still feel there's a lot left to be learned. I remain a seeker and beginner in my experiments.

It seems every new yarn teaches me something I didn't observe before - in this case, it was the colour of the plying. When plying with a thin thread, I usually try 'hiding' it by choosing the dominant colour of the roving - this time, I took a shiny blue silk thread instead and a dark red woolen one, referring to the red spots on the wool -



and in my opinion, this was exactly what made this yarn arise. (Meeting the colours with the camera would need improved skills though, I'm afraid - the first photo above, with the felt flower in the front, shows the 'glow' better ...)

(German summary: Eine gefilzte Blumenbrosche zum Einläuten des Frühlings - und einige Gedanken darüber, wie jedes handgesponnene Garn mir neue Erkenntnisse und Aha-Erlebnisse bringt - diesmal war es die farbliche Akzentuierung beim Verzwirnen.)

A brooch with a face/Eine Brosche mit Gesicht

Now I've used one of my free motion machine stitched faces for a brooch - and as I was listening to a historical audiobook novel while working, I guess it was something of that feeling that influenced my hands here.

The hair is stitched with a thin organza ribbon, the background consists of fabric and wool punched with the embellisher and then embroidered on with my hand-dyed threads.

I sew on a big, coloured safety pin on the backside, as I'm going to use it for holding a shawl in place.

(German summary: Ich habe jetzt eines meiner Gesichter für eine Brosche - oder vielleicht eher Schultertuchspange - verwendet.
Beim Arbeiten habe ich gleichzeitig ein historisches Hörbuch gehört - ich glaube, daß man es auch an dem Gesicht erkennen kann ...)

Matrioshka brooch/Matrioschka-Brosche

Did you see the little Matrioshka in the middle of the Noro yarn in my previous posting?

It's a small brooch I made, just for fun.



Some time ago I bought a cotton fabric which had printed Matrioshkas on it - I cut out one of them and worked some satin stitches on it in the corresponding colours, added a couple of beads and sew it to a piece of wool felt done with the embellisher - and ready was my Matrioshka brooch!

I'm still knitting on my sleeveless Noro-sweaters - one is almost done! - and I'm a little excited: next week I'm going to Alicante in Spain to visit Sara! She has invited me to stay with her for a week and I'm sure we will have a great time together!

(German summary: Die kleine Brosche, die im vorigen Posting mitten in der Noro-Wolle zu sehen war, ist eigentlich ein Stoffdruck, den ich mit Perlen und Garn bestickt habe. Ich stricke noch fleißig an meinen Pullundern - und nächste Woche fliege ich nach Alicante, um Sara zu besuchen!)

Metamorphosis/Verwandlung

While searching for some tools, I found some forgotten nuts and O-rings in my toolbox ...



... and combined with a little of those self-dyed cotton threads and a single seed bead, they were suddenly transformed into a brooch - isn't that magic?



Where is your toolbox?

(German summary: Im Werkzeugkasten fand ich ein paar vergessene Muttern und Dichtungsringe - und Simsalabim: mit ein paar Fäden umwickelt, wurden sie plötzlich zu einer Brosche! Wo ist Dein Werkzeugkasten?)

Fibre sisters fabric brooch/Die Stoffschwesternbrosche

Yesterday I finished the small fabric brooch which I began to stitch at Sara's just before returning home.

It shows us two fibre sisters - and makes me smile and remember this nice week we spent together!



I found a piece of white cloth with one of Sara's b/w pencil drawings in her waste fabric scrap basket, showing two caterpillars, and I asked her if I could use it.

Eager to try out the handdyed threads, I started stitching and embellishing on it - and voilá! The fibre sisters turned up!

Proudly wearing my new brooch, I'm now working on two other fabric recycling and punching projects, of course including a lot of free embroidery, so I can use the threads :-)!



(German summary: Ich habe die Stoffbrosche fertiggemacht, die ich bei Sara begonnen habe: Grundlage war eine s/w Federzeichung von ihr, mit zwei Raupen, die ich aus der Schnipselbox gefischt habe - jetzt ist sie mit Stickereien recht verändert, und zeigt stattdessen passenderweise zwei Stoffschwestern! Und zuletzt noch eine kleine Vorschau auf das, was ich jetzt gerade mache ... auch Stoffrecyclingprojekte!)