kit and caboodle

Scrap ideas : Felt Beads

What to do with all those itty-bitty scraps of felt, fabric and yarn? I can never bring myself to throw them away, but I now have a mini mountain of fiber which needs to be put to good use. 

Good thing there's a ton of inspiration for teeny objects which only use up a wisp of material. We especially like these books and have made quite a few felty critters.  I thought I'd post a few more ideas as I work my way through my scrap box.  Here's idea #1 - making felt beads:

1. Begin by cutting out felt rectangles from your scraps - most of these are about 2.5cm x 6cm. Wrap the felt around a bamboo skewer, or something of a similar width.

 

2.  Wrap some embroidery thread or yarn around the wrapped felt to hold it secure. This wrapping also serves as decoration, so be creative!  We used feathery eyelash yarns and sparkly threads.  When you've finished this stage, don't remove the felt bead from the skewer because it's easy to lose the hole. Wait until you're ready to string the beads before removing. 

 

3.  You can now go wild and add on beads or embellish with embroidery.  We found that using a beading needle worked best for this because it's thin and a bit flexible, allowing for tight turns and teeny stitches.

Voila - here's a finished bracelet.

 

Inchies Part Deux

    I signed up to do my first inchie swap, which I carefully chose so that I wouldn't have to make a billion of the little things - I just ended up having to do 12 - a do-able number for a newbie. 

   The theme was 'For Love of Country', looking forward to upcoming Fourth of July celebrations.  

I used a 13 x 13 inch square of muslin - definitely enough to cut out just twelve inchies, with the 'fudge factor' included, a critical consideration since I'm not the most accurate of sewers (I find straight lines challenging). 

I then painted the muslin with red acrylic and blue stripes of 'lumiere' iridescent paint. I gave the whole lot a wash of pearly white paint, and then stamped some white stars all over the piece.  

I fused some 'steam-a-seam' onto the back of the fabric at this point so I'd be able to attach the backing after I'd some some crazy sewing with gold thread.  I wanted to lower the feed dogs on my sewing machine, but found this wasn't an option, so just kept going round in circles and wavy lines till it looked about right.

 

I then couched on a long wavy stand of eyelash yarn following the directions in this tutorial. It was MUCH easier to do it this way, then cut the inchies out, rather than trying to fiddle with bits of yarn on a miniscule canvas AFTER cutting.

Next, I fused my embellished bit of fabric (at this point it was feeling quite stiff what with all the paint, thread and yarn on it!) onto my piece of handmade white felt. Steam-a-seam worked perfectly - it fused almost instantly and bonded firmly. I sliced this felt/fabric sandwich into 1 inch by 1 inch squares using my trusty cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter.

Final touches - sewing on some sequins and beads, and running around the edges with gold thread blanket stitch. 

(Pause to admire; conclude that inchie production beats housework hands down!)