My friend Laura made these sweet needle-felted sheep for display in my Quilt Market booth. You can buy your very own sheep in her Etsy shop, Felt Jar!
You can see the sheep fabric colorways below. These are printed on cotton/linen blend fabric and the neutral colorway has gold accents. Again, this is from my Charms collection for Kokka which will be shipping to stores in December or January.
I’ve got a project featured in the upcoming book Heart Felt Holidays by Lark Crafts, and thought I’d share a link to the book as well as the free project that Lark is featuring on their blog. My contribution to the book is the little bowling elves featured on the bottom right of the cover, as you can see above. They are a softie version of the wooden elves I made a few years ago.
And just in time for St. Patrick’s day next week, you can make this adorable leprechaun finger puppet pictured below, designed by the talented Cathy Gaubert. You can get the free downloadable instructions on the Lark blog here. The book is available for pre-order now, and will be shipping in the next few weeks.
Since Valentine’s Day seems to be our next crafty holiday, I thought I’d share a photo of this heart bracelet I designed for the book Stash Happy Felt. (Shown here before I added the elastic strap). This was another project using the wonderful industrial wool felt from FilzFelt. For complete instructions and templates, you can check out the book, which has 30 quick and easy felt projects. In the book, there are two different templates — a larger size for adults and a smaller one for kids, as shown here.
Today kicks off the start of the 1, 2, 3 Sew blog tour with a free project over on CRAFT. I’m excited to start things off with CRAFT because they were one of the first crafty blogs I started reading and still one of the few that I read on a daily basis. I’ll never forget how giddy I was the first time they linked to one of my projects. Thanks to Michelle, Rachel, Natalie, Diane and all the others at CRAFT who have featured my projects over the past few years!
Anyway, today we are sharing a tutorial to make the Eyelet Headband from 1, 2, 3 Sew, perhaps the easiest project from the book — simply cut, punch, sew and you’re done. All of the projects in this accessories chapter are vintage inspired — the eyelet headband is the first project, then you’ll build your skills by making a tea towel apron with shell tuck hem, and then move on to a more challenging scarf, made with 42 tiny yo-yos.
Book photos above by Laura Malek.
My daughter is wearing the headband shown here, in her favorite color of course. The pattern is designed for an adult, but is very easy to adapt for smaller heads. For each project in the book, I suggest possible variations. Here you could make this into a bracelet or necklace, add embroidery or beading, back it with fabric, or try cutting a more intricate pattern in the felt using a craft knife. I think it’s important that you make every project your own. You’ll also find a list of resources in the back of the book. For this thick 2mm wool felt, I recommend FilzFelt.
Check out the post over on CRAFT for the template and complete instructions. As you can see, this headband goes with any mood!
I’ve been spending a lot of time in my sewing room, but not actually sewing much. Working on the computer and creating a few patterns for upcoming publications (though I can’t show you these yet). So I thought I’d show you a bit of today’s inspiration.
Here’s what I’m reading:
Vera: The Art and Life of an Icon by Susan Seid. Vera Neumann’s artful surface design is amazing and continues to inspire today.
Print & Pattern by Bowie Style. A compilation of great surface design from the blog of the same name. Here’s the work of Pata Pri, one of my first Etsy favorites.
Quilt Artistry: Inspired Designs from the East by Yoshiko Jinzenji. Breathtaking work here.
Quilting Line + Color: Techniques and Designs for Abstract Quilts, also by Yoshiko Jinzenji. More beautiful work. I love how she plays with transparent fabric as you can see in the image below. You have to see her hexagon quilt.
I’ve also been receiving some freebies (a great benefit of blogging). This cozy stack of wool came from Heavens to Betsy (one of my newest sponsors) and this wool felt ribbon came from Felt-0-Rama. So check out all of their amazing goods and make something warm.
