Small Xmas project II: Felt ornament/Weihnachtsprojekt II: Filzhänger

What can you do with some scraps of white felt, bits of ribbons and lace? Well, a Christmas ornament, of course!

The felt I used for this was quite a sturdy one, actually a piece of a table placemat, and so it will hang nicely, no backing needed.

A little bit of ribbon and some handstitching, and it could turn out like this:



For the decoration of the second one I used different bits of lace and sewed them down with free motion machine stitches - but of course you could do it all by hand as well:



I guess there are endless ways of using tablemat felt in various colours for making ornaments - maybe also in combination with paper (what about photos?) or fabric ... could be adapted for a kids' project as well, I think!

(German summary: Ein Stück festen Filz - hier von Tischsets - und Reste von Borten, Bänder und Spitze - und Simsalabim! - hat man einen Christbaumschmuck!)

A lacey deer/Spitzenhirsch

Well, this is definitively a lacey deer - different bits and scraps of lace sewn onto the fabric print ( here is where the deer story began). This time I added a couple of transparent glass beads which I found in my stash as well.

I'm beginning to wonder how I can assemble these experiments to some kind of a unit - in one of the comments, Sara suggested that I'd make a quilt out of them - but as my wall space is very limited, I think I'd rather mount them vertically somehow, like for a long, narrow wall-hanging. But maybe still in a 'quilty' way ... Any ideas?

(German summary: Ja, ein Spitzenhirsch, aus kleinen Spitzenresten, die ich auf dem Stoffdruck (hier hat es angefangen) aufgenäht habe. Jetzt überlege ich hin und her, wie ich diese Serienexperimente zu einer Einheit zusammenfügen kann ... etwas schmales, langes ... irgendwelche Ideen?)

A lace collage needlebook/Ein Nadelbrief aus alten Spitzen

Finally, I've come to the conclusion that it is now time to use the treasures in my stash - not just collecting them ...

Maybe the situation is familiar to you as well: You keep collecting and piling beautiful material, spending quite some time organizing and stashing your treasures (and if you're not too organized ;-): searching for certain items you know should be there somewhere) - and of course this is a pleasure itself, sometimes ...

but just having reached the break-even point of my lifetime, I'm now convinced that I want to use and have fun with these things, rather than collecting a lot more of them ...

So I took a dive into my beloved stash and found a box of vintage lace - and decided to make a 'Victorian' needlebook especially for my embroidery needles ...

It's not finished yet - I still want to add some beads - but this is the back so far:



- and the front:



(German summary: Ich habe mich entschlossen, daß jetzt die Zeit gekommen ist, wo ich meine gehorteten Schätze auch verwenden möchte, nicht nur mehr sammeln und horten ... Hier ein geräumiger Nadelbrief aus alten Spitzen, extra für meine Sticknadeln - noch in Arbeit, da ich die Spitzen mit mehr Perlen befestigen möchte.)

A Country Lace Shawl/Ein Bauernspitzenschal

Have you experienced this too: You're learning a new technique, practising and working a lot on it, until you reach a certain level of skill - and then there is no forthcoming anymore. Frustrating!

So you put it aside, you do something else, maybe for quite some time - and when you finally return to this earlier project, all of a sudden you discover that your skills have improved all by themselves while you were busy doing other things! Funny, isn't it?



Last year, I tought myself to card and spin and spent a lot of time with it - still, my yarn always turned out worsted, no matter what I tried to change in order to get it soft and delicate instead.

Anyway, at the end of November I stopped spinning, as there were a lot of Christmas preparations to do - I had decided to knit a whole bunch of scarves for Christmas presents for example - so last week was the first time I felt the urge to get back to my spinning wheel again.

I had an idea in mind to spin a very soft and gentle wool for a lace triangle scarf, or wrap - a warming and comforting something out of natural white Norwegian sheep wool and light-brown baby camel wool which I had carded together - using a very basic and plain lace pattern. A kind of rustic country lace shawl, simple and yet delicate.

And it worked! It is just as soft as I wanted it to be, thin but not too thin, some soft bumps and irregularities here and there for the natural look - and lovely to knit with! I'm not an expert, but I think the main difference is that I now tread more slowly and allow the yarn to go faster into the orifice than before, the whorl set to a medium speed.

I found the simple pattern I'd been looking for in 'Victorian Lace Today' by Jane Sowerby - a wonderful lace pattern book covering it all from the very simplest to the quite complicated ones and illustrated with beautiful photos:



The charts make it easy to find your way through the pattern:



I haven't decided on the final size yet, but I think I would like this shawl to be quite big - and I'm planning to work a special border around it afterwards, probably out of one of Nicky Epstein's gorgeous edge-and border knitting books, which I've discovered lately ... but this will deserve a posting for its own!

(German summary:

Ich habe nicht geahnt, daß man auch beim Spinnen Lernstufen/Lernplateaus haben kann - aber nachdem ich eine mehrmonatige Spinnpause gemacht habe, geht's jetzt sogar viel besser als vorher: statt dem üblichen festen, dicht verzwirbeltem Garn bekomme ich jetzt endlich diese luftig-leichte Wolle, die ich mir für meinen Bauernspitzenschal gewünscht habe ...! Und das Buch ist wirklich Klasse, mit leicht verständlichen Charts zum Nacharbeiten!)

Sara's Whatiffing Project

As I've decided to participate in Sara's Whatiffing Project (whatiffingaround.blogspot.com/), I started with the first nine pieces of mine today.

In order to get the right size (2"x3") - which is a real challenge to me, as I usually work with larger pieces of work - I cut up some medium weight woolen cloth to the right size, and punched the top layers with white woolen batting in between.

For the top layers I used - counting from upper left to the right -

1. a stretchy, creme-coloured silvery net
2. a very light muslin fabric
3. some heavy vintage lace
4. a delicate vintage lace
5. brownish lace ribbon between strips of sackcloth
6. a very light (real) metal net
7. loose linen and cotton fibers
8. machine embroidered net lace
9. hand-dyed wool roving in green/greyish/brown

I mounted these pieces with some sticky tape on an aquarel paper pad, nine pieces will fill one page.

I would feel comfortable with embellishing this kind of album page, consisting of nine pieces, about three times a month, in one certain colour range or with another common theme.

Meanwhile, I'm also struggling with these wonders of virtual facilities: having my blog properly done, taking digital pictures and uploading them, organizing a flickr account ... anyone who has fought this battle alone, being a "virtual virgin" (like me), will know what it means ... Well, I won't give up on it! Someday, I'll succeed!