First off, I have to say that I don't like it. It's what I aimed to do and I learned a lot doing it. But I still don't like the outcome. I scaled it way down from the idea in my mind, to fit the space there was, and I don't think it works.
I was thinking along the lines of a floral fantasy or a mystery garden. I think I got more of a jumble.
Here's the base, on the candle stick. The candle stick and a wooden circle (inside the pincushion felt, supporting it at the bottom) were what we were given to start with. I am pleased with this part of it and learned a lot making this pincushion base. I wanted a nice round spherical pincushion, so I cut a circle of felt, gathered the edge and stuffed it and got a very wide flat circle. Not what I wanted. In the end I used some things I learned from
World Embroideries about making mari (the base "balls" for temari) and took my stuffing and wrapped it very tightly with wool yarn until I got a ball the size I wanted. I put that in the felt circle with a little extra stuffing to even out the bottom edge by the wood circle and, voila! a spherical pincushion.
I began the intricate cut felt design with a freezer paper stencil. The first attempt, I drew my design, cut out the stencil, ironed it onto felt and then cut around it. And the whole thing fell apart when I pulled off the stencil. As good as felt is, it just couldn't handle the narrow stems.
So, I took my stencil (freezer paper is great--it was reusable even after having been previously ironed onto fuzzy felt) and ironed it on to the fabric side of black iron-on interfacing (place the glue side on a Teflon sheet or parchment paper and it won't stick and it will peel off when cool and be fine---do not iron it without something protecting your ironing surface from the glue on the back of the interfacing!). Here I've outlined around it with a paint pen.
I peeled off the stencil and then ironed the interfacing onto the back of the felt and got cutting again.
Here's the cut out design, draped on the pincushion base.
It was still fragile in some places, so I embroidered each stem and leaf and around the "belt" to add some strength and a layer of complexity before adding any embellishments.
I went to town adding cut felt dots, flowers, leaves, fringes, and a few critters. It was an intense project because I only had a short period of time to do it. I did the vast majority of this in one weekend.
I was thinking along the lines of a floral fantasy or a mystery garden. I think I got more of a jumble.
Here's the base, on the candle stick. The candle stick and a wooden circle (inside the pincushion felt, supporting it at the bottom) were what we were given to start with. I am pleased with this part of it and learned a lot making this pincushion base. I wanted a nice round spherical pincushion, so I cut a circle of felt, gathered the edge and stuffed it and got a very wide flat circle. Not what I wanted. In the end I used some things I learned from World Embroideries about making mari (the base "balls" for temari) and took my stuffing and wrapped it very tightly with wool yarn until I got a ball the size I wanted. I put that in the felt circle with a little extra stuffing to even out the bottom edge by the wood circle and, voila! a spherical pincushion.
I began the intricate cut felt design with a freezer paper stencil. The first attempt, I drew my design, cut out the stencil, ironed it onto felt and then cut around it. And the whole thing fell apart when I pulled off the stencil. As good as felt is, it just couldn't handle the narrow stems.
So, I took my stencil (freezer paper is great--it was reusable even after having been previously ironed onto fuzzy felt) and ironed it on to the fabric side of black iron-on interfacing (place the glue side on a Teflon sheet or parchment paper and it won't stick and it will peel off when cool and be fine---do not iron it without something protecting your ironing surface from the glue on the back of the interfacing!). Here I've outlined around it with a paint pen.
I peeled off the stencil and then ironed the interfacing onto the back of the felt and got cutting again.
Here's the cut out design, draped on the pincushion base.
It was still fragile in some places, so I embroidered each stem and leaf and around the "belt" to add some strength and a layer of complexity before adding any embellishments.
I went to town adding cut felt dots, flowers, leaves, fringes, and a few critters. It was an intense project because I only had a short period of time to do it. I did the vast majority of this in one weekend.
2 comments:
You might like it more if you reduced the number of colours used, or changed the scale of some of the embellishments, perhaps?
Thanks, Rachel. I think what it needs is to be replaced with one, larger, more substantial dangle with larger embellishments. I didn't do that before because I couldn't figure out how to connect it to the pincushion and not have it look stuck on. But I think I have that figured out. I'm not sure I'll redo it or not.
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