Smile like you mean it

So, I finally finished my lovely jellyfish. :D This creature has an polystyrene ball inside it's head, and a gray base. And now for the pics!

My flounder collection (made from the very beginning by me) // updated 7.3.2012

reflector

<-- keychain ^-- trivet

trivet

Doorstopper

As you can see, here are my latest craftings. The hen is missing the bottom -because the paint on it isn't dry just yet- but otherwise these are complete animals.

You need for this:
Lots of wool and some felt
Wooden stick
Wooden standing system, or you can make it yourself
(Paint for the standing system)
Felting needle
Foam
Time


If you have some felt, please use it for the start. Put it around the stick tightly, and take some wool and stick it onto the felt piece so it will stay at its position. Make some layers from any wool you have, because it doesn't matter at the beginning part.
After you have some layers, you should shut the head-side up by pulling the stick away. Make sure that the felt system is hard enough so it will remain its shape when you remove the stick. Then just stuff wool on the top of the felt piece so that it will become hard and it will look like the head of the animal or item you're about to do.
Make the last layer from the color you want, and make the smaller parts (ears, wings, noses and such) last.

Stuff you should know

1. Felting needle breaks easily if you use it wrongly. Try to poke the felt from up to down, in a straight movement, don't bend the needle.
2. Felting needles are very sharp. Beware your fingers and do NOT leave them around small children or animals
3. Make the base of the felt hard. Otherwise the air inside the felt will make it hard to keep the look of the animal to stay the same. And if you wash it, it won't look the same anymore
4. Needle felting is addictive hobby. Yes i'm myself also addicted to it.
5. Smaller parts like wings and ears for the animals should be made separetly on top of the foam, because its hard to make it hard and not to hurt your hands. Use a different felting needle with bigger notches than the usual needle. If you cant tell the difference by your eye, try to stick the needle on the bigger parts, if it won't stick well you got the right needle for smaller parts.
6. If you make ears, make sure you leave some extra wool un-felted so that it will be easier for you to stick it on to the bigger part of the work.
7. Felting with needle takes time and you need to poke the wool pretty hard, so make sure you rest your arm sometimes. 

The kiwi mosaic

At last, the kiwi mosaic picture gets to be here! I didn't get that mosaic home just jet, because the framing is still missing.. oh well here this is anyways.
It took about a week for me to do.. and it includes the drawing and thinking process as well. And i lost 3 days while i waited it to dry. This particular piece is a bit bigger than a regular A4 paper.

Felting part 2

Like I promised, here is my next blog-text about felted reflectors. This part of the project takes less time -obviously- than the first one.

• Items that you need for this project: Buttons or beads
• Cardboard or other quite thick paper
• Scissors, two pairs, one for the cardboard and others for felt (new or cloth-only used scissors)
• Woolyarn for stitches and thiner yarn for eyes
• Pencil for drawing the lines
• Glue
• Reflector-fabric (available from many stores)

You should make fond if you want to make many similar looking reflectors. And if you do, you should make it from thick paper or cardboard so that it will last and it won't tear as easy as normal paper would. Remember to push the pencil on the felt, but be gentle, felt easily starts to un-felt itself (= meaning that it starts to tear itself apart if you press too hard) don't use ink or such so if you don't cut the felt straight on the line, the lines can be hidden or removed later.

The stitching that i used is pretty easy, even for total beginners, like I.
First you just pull the yarn through the felt, and leave some of the yarn on the other side, you'll need it in ending. Then, you make a round -and leave some tail on the other side of the felt, and do another stitch, but this time remember to pull the yarn above the tail-yarn so that it will make a loop. Look at this photo link if you didn't understand this weird text (lol) The stitch

After you've gone all over the felt piece, take the needle of the yarn, and put it on the tail of the yarn and pull the yarn from the other side and make a loop. then stitch the end of the yarn inside of the felt and make a lock by stitching the yarn again into the felt, but make sure that it crosses the path you took earlier. Do the same to all the yarn tails.


The next part would be making the hanging-line which i usually make the next way: I take 2 pieces of yarn -about 30cm- and put them through one stitch to the felt and out from the one next to it. Then i pull the yarn and make it as long as the tail part. After you've put the both of the yarns, you start to roll them between your  fingers to the same direction and then lifting the first yarn over the other one, so that it will look a bit like a ponytail made from two sections only. When you finish that, make a 'ponytail' knot and cut some of the extra tail away.

The last part is the eyes. Well, you start by making the lock inside the felt again, and then you just make the normal button stitching. The ending will go with the lock-system again. Not that hard if you understood the lock system. Make sure you use thinner yarn this time though, so the button or bead will stay better on the reflector.

The last part is the glue and the reflector. Cut a piece that covers most of the felt piece from the reflector fabric and put glue on the bottom side of the reflector fabric. Remember also to put it to the felt so that it will stay better. After that, wait a bit (about minute or so) and then put it on to the felt. Do the same to both sides of the felt and leave the reflector to dry.

And tadaa! There you have it, a nice reflector for the darkest nights and a lovely gift idea for your friends, parents or neighbors. Ok that was a bit clishéeish, if you could spell it that way. English is not my native language sorry about that.

I'll put some pictures here and later i'll put picture of the finished ones (:

Fish and the bird.

 

Here is a finished stitching for my spotty bird.
It takes only minutes to make the line.

Felting for (other) beginners

So, i got interested in making felt-reflectors for the dark winter at my work and i decided to take this project to my home as well. Here is a picture of my felt-plate as i call it after the first two stages.

Stuff you need:

• wool, lots of it in various colors you like,
  needle for felting
  plastic bag or something like that
  long tube covered with (empty) garbage bag
  bubble wrap
  1-3 hours
  1-2 nights
  something soft under the felt while using felting needle
  old cloth
  bucket or such for water

In felting you must do various layers from wool (you have to make sure that each layer is pointed to other direction than the previous one, so that it will get nice and even after the felting process)
This one in the picture is made from eight (8) layers and i used some "Novita huopanen" products. to be precise, i used 2 different colors and made some lame colored spots. So a pate sized of this requires about 2 rolls of novita-huopanen packages.
When you have the required layers, you just either 1) put it to the washing machine (for clothes of course) with a towel for example, and choose the program for wool (60C or less) or you can take the longer version
2) put hot water and soap (not regular, use for example soap for floor mats) and a old cloth that doesn't drain water into it on top of the wool.  Then take bubble wrap and put the wool on top of it. Take some old paperroll or such, and layer it with plastic so that i wont drain the water, but it will keep the wool from not felting as a ball. And then you can roll it to very tight package. Tie the package up and start rolling it.
Open the felt-package in every 10minutes and put new hot water and soap portion on top of it and change the direction which you roll your plate into.
So, If you choose the longer way, after few rolling times you must have 1) extremely hot and 2) very cold water in boxes or so on. You dip your felt-plate in hot -please please use something else than your hands- for a while and then change it to the cold one. You have to continue this until the plate doesn't color the water anymore and when you squeeze it, it won't burst any soap.

And tadaa! after a night or two the plate has dryed up and you can use it for example to make reflectors, like i will. About that later, in the next week probably since i'm soooo busy this weekend.

Ok she ain't that pretty just yet, but with a little care and lots of pulling it will be ok. :D

The pearls, again

So.. during my utterly long week, i've not had any time for my blogging and so on. So instead of new stuff, once for more i show something old. here is a picture of me with the pearls i made and with a 5 euro finding (fake pearls ofc) from flee market. enjoy, or don't

Flee market findings

So, these are three of my finest findings that i personally like the most. (: I don't usually find clothes from flee markets, but i got lucky

15euros. she was in great condition, a small production mistake with the button
but nothing major. Lovely material I must say

ST Michael Made in W germany. quite old?

2euros, very cheap! and in perfect condition..
Except this one smelled a bit like old ladys parfume.

Visage new basic

Oh i love this one, though the zipper jams a bit 10euros

trf made in Morocco

Pearls

As i feared, they are quite heavy. heh.

I finished my pearl necklace (: heh and i counted correctly the length on my previous post! :D hehe i'm sooo good in mathematics *coughs* anyway, here is a picture of my pearls:

Close picture

Necklace project

So. I'm about to make myself a necklace out of fake-pearls. Because it's way easier to make it yourself than hunt days in shops. (:
First of all, measure the length you want for your necklace to be. Second, check how big pearls or beads you want. Then you have to divide the total length by the diameter of one pearl. That tells you about how many pearls you need to get. :)
For example in my case: 150cm / 1.4cm(=14mm) = 107.14..~107

Next, you have to divide the total pearl number by the amount of the pearls in one pack.
In my case: 107 /9 = 11.90..~ 12

And last but not least, multiply the cost of one pearl package by the number of packages you need and you get your price (:

Obviously you also need some string, and you should probably buy it a bit more than you need, just in case and for the deadlock.
All the materials are available to be purchased from internet, but there are also some shops around cities, depending on the size of your city as well. 

Mosaic

My next project is a smaller one, (no more about that yet) and since i got interested in craftworks during my working experience, I desided to share you my latest works. I don't at the moment have anything ready, but in next few days I'll bring my Kiwi-mosaic to my home, and show you what it is like.

Though making a mosaic picture sounds hard and time taking, it sure is easy to learn. At least it was easy to me. All you need is some equipment, that you can find on internet or on some local shops. For example, here is one page for those who need mosaic tiles Mosaictile.com I got my supplies from my working place, so i didn't have to figure out where to buy equipment and so on.
Also there are some books available in many languages, which help you to begin. They also have great pictures, so I suggest to anyone who gets interested in stuff fast -like myself- to go to library first.
And of course, safety is the number one, so you should get some protecting glasses to yourself, and at least work in a place where others aren't around. Remember to clean up your mosaic parts, throw only the tiny pieces to trash, other small pieces might come handy on later works.

Though mosaics do look beautiful when they're ready, it takes a lot of time. Since i'm a rookie, it took me a bit over one week to finish my work. I could have got it done earlier, but there was an hole in my joint sealing, i had to re-do the sealing part.. and it took another day.

Here for my own finishing touch for my utterly weird blogtext, two pictures i found of mosaic clippers. There are way too many others as well, but i prefer to use these ones and the "parrot"-clippers (nickname that comes from the look of the metal head) which are used for finishing touches.

These are the basic clippers. They are used on bigger tiles.

Here are small clippers for small mosaic tiles, usually used for finishing touches as well

GREEN

 lol

 oh london

 some junk i got from Kinder-egg last easter

 my keys with Ö

Marimekko product. Sorry for advertising.

Pyykkiä = Laundry

This is part of my collection of green stuff which i love. Enjoy. Or don't.

The Dress number 2

Hi! Finally the dress that i wanted, is FINISHED. I'm so happy that i could run around the city- okay no. I'm just glad that it's finally ready.

This dress is my -and my moms- handmade copy of one dress in modcloth and this version is not for sale.
We used once again  Burda sewing pattern and we modified it to fit better. There is a long zipper (about 60cm) on the back and a small cleavage.

The front has 8 buttons which i bought from a small shop in Hämeenlinna, since i didn't find any better buttons. The ribbon is made of satin and fake silk. The rest of the dress is made of stretchviscose.
It took about 5 hours for us to make -due some mistakes- and less than 100 euros. 

Drawings

As not to be told before this, I also draw a bit. Because I rather not bore myself to death and trying to lure people to notice me, I show you guys two of my works here, before the next post which is ABOUT THE DRESS THAT I FINALLY FINISHED

WELCOME BACK

I have returned! Since I started working, i've been very busy. *Sobs* Oh well hopefully I can make it up to my future readers, If such ever appear.
Some random child is blocking my thinking with his adorable screaming and bashing stuff upstairs. Maybe he didn't get the lollypop he wanted after all... I hate modern kids because they often get everything they want.. Anyway. Back to the business

I'm having a working experience in a local craftshop, which is good for my clothing projects. I've now finished a wallpicture made of mosaic, and a bag made of sheeps wool. It's just a shame that this small business isn't known around the city, since handmade stuff is adorable and unique in my opinion. I'll put a picture of my mosaic picture here when i get the frames to it. (: Now I want to share you and for my own delight this photo of my cat Molli --->(She is not fat, she just loves to lay comfortable)
I hope i'll get my work soon back (:

Long time ago

.

 So. yes i've been away and my blog has been sleeping. But now i've some time to wake it up and send some rather weird findings i've got around the UK. This is trash and junk (mostly) from Brighton and Devon (Torquay)  The reason why i took these weird pictures was that i found it rather funny to write "please" on the side of a trashcan

 Personally, I would have not played in that litterbin anyway

 FEED MEE