Echoes of a Dream

felt dandelion

Thanks so much everyone for leaving lovely compliments about my felt dandelions. As promised I'll show you how to make one here:

You'll need some light yellow felt and some dark yellow felt; a pipe cleaner, some green wool or florist's tape and some green felt.

First off cut a piece of the dark yellow felt into a rectangle 8cm by 2.5cm and the light yellow into a piece measuring 16cm by 2.5cm at one end and 3.5cm at the other. Snip cuts into each piece but not right down to the bottom edge:

The finer the fringe the nicer the flower I reckon although you can't go too thin as the felt will just break.

Take the pipe cleaner and wrap wool around it - florist's tape would be better but I didn't have any:

Then take the dark yellow felt and wrap it around the top of the pipecleaner:

You may want to secure the beginning with a bit of glue.

Wrap the light yellow piece around the top of the dark yellow and sew it all together a bit to secure:

Now you have a problem - you have a fat flower and a too thin stem and you need to put on your calyx. I decided to wrap some green felt under the petals like so:

again you need to secure it all with a few stitches.

Measure around the flower and cut a piece of green felt the same width. At this point I cut out a piece like this:

and I wrapped it around my flower but I didn't like the effect compared with a real dandelion (sometimes I can be a bit of a perfectionist - but only sometimes):

So I cut out a fringey bit like so:

and sewed that on instead and it came out like this:

I think I prefer the first one but it's too late now! Who cares anyway - it's only the underneath of the flower for goodness sake.

Then using this pattern cut out a leaf or two and attach to the stem:

This flower is one I made the other day and I bodged the calyx on this one too. If someone finds a better way to make and attach the calyx please let me know.

Fluff out the petals and give it all a bit of a trim if you wish and that's it:

So there we are you can make a whole vase full of these to compliment all the ones outside on your lawn.

I thought I'd share a comment that Rowan left in my last post. She said: "If they were rarer people would pay a lot of money for those little plants which flower and flower non-stop all through the summer and have such pretty edible leaves". How true.

How to make a blossom fairy

It's a bit early I know but I need to usher in Spring. I need to come out of my hibernating mood and get back into the groove. I want sunny days that will lift the spirits and more than that I want to get out and do some more dyeing. So with that in my mind I've made a couple of blossom fairies to add to some made years ago and I've hung them over the nature table. They look lovely in their pastel colours bobbing about in the draft that comes through the (new) window. If you'd like to make some too here's how. You'll need some stockinette (or an old T shirt will do), felt, some raw fleece (washed ofcourse), pipecleaners, thread and small wooden beads.

 

Firstly you need to cut a square of stockinette about 3"x3" and then wind a small ball of fleece:

Then wrap the stockinette around the ball pulling tight and secure like so (sorry for the bad photo):

Cut out the body using the pattern I'll give at the end of the post and cut a small cross in the centre:

Put the head through this cross and fold over the body/dress. Take a peice of pipecleaner and insert it through the arms so that it protudes at each end. Then cut it leaving about 1/4" too long. Then sew under the arms down to the waist on each side. Sew aroudn the neck too going in and out through the neck to secure the head:

Now the easiest hands to make are just to glue a wooden bead to each end of the protruding pipecleaner but I ran out of small beads so in the above pic I've sewn together a tiny square of stockinette, turned it inside out and slipped it on the pipecleaner. Then I've tied it at the wrist to secure. Fiddly - although it looks nice. Next off find some nice hair and sew it on. I've used some of my plant dyed curls:

Then you may want to give it some sort of crown. I snipped tiny bits off a piece of pink muslin and then threaded it like beads:

Tie this around the fairy's head and secure at intervals and then take the thread and push it out through the crown and use this for hanging the fairy:

 

Here is the new pink one and a yellow one I made years ago. I didn't have nice curls back then so just used some yellow roving that I had left over from felting.

There we are. You can make as many as you want. Hang them from a branch or better still wait until the blossom is really out. Then bring some indoors and hang the fairies off those branches. Have fun.

Oops nearly forgot the pattern:

How to make a simple book or journal

I know I should have been making things for the fair but I am easily sidetracked it seems. I spent yesterday morning doing some more dyeing (walnut, madder, onion skins) and whilst it all dried I made another little book for a friend's birthday present. Meanwhile those angels sat on my sewing table, heads here, wings over there, bodies somewhere...........

As promised I'm going to show you how to make a simple little book. You will need some bondaweb, some cardboard or mountboard, fabric for the cover, nice thick paper for the inside cover, sugar paper or other for the pages, an awl and some embroidery thread. This book measures 25cm by 17cm.

First we will make the covers which hinge at about 4cms in from the left side. So cut two pieces of mountboard 25x17cm and with a craft knife cut off 4cms on the short side:

Then moving then about 2mm apart sellotape or better masking tape them back together. This provides the hinge. Try it. Repeat for the back. Then cut your fabric slightly larger than the board, iron it smooth and iron on the bondaweb. Remove the paper side of the bondawb and place the mountboard on it:

Now mitre your corners (I love that expression) and then iron the fabric over the sides of the board:

The left one has been done already. Then cut out some nice paper and glue it to the board side of the covers:

So the outside is fabric and the inside is as above. Now you need to cut the inside pages slightly smaller than the covers. Assemble the whole lot like a sandwich remembering to put the hinged side on the left. My friend had a great way of placing the holes on the cover. She took a piece of greaseproof paper and cut it out the same size as the hinged bit, so in my case 17x4cm. She folded it and marked where she wanted the holes and then she put this on the cover and made the holes using the paper as a template! Like so:

As you can see I don't have an awl and I'm a bad girl telling you you should have one. I used a screwdriver but I WANT AN AWL FOR CHRISTMAS if anyone from my family is reading (with a nice wooden handle, maybe antique) oh sorry I'm digressing. Anyway, press down hard and make those holes which should go down to the pages. Remove the cover and press down and make the holes in the pages:

If you've pressed hard enough you'll make marks on the back cover so remove the pages and press these down and make those holes. Define your holes from the back and front again and reassemble the book and then sew the whole lot together with strong thread, raffia or whatever. That's it.

A few more pics of my book - the inside cover:

the back cover:

I think these books would make great photo albums and how about making a Family Christmas Album with nice christmas fabric on the outside. I've been keeping one for about 6 years now and each year I put in a copy of the card I've made, a few photographs, who was present and what everyone received, what we ate, where we spent it, the odd recipe - you can add anything you want. I think it's a great sort of heirloom, a record of family time spent together. I guess you could do a birthday book for each child too and give it to them when they leave home - here is a record of all your birthdays dear. Now why didn't I think of that 13 years ago?

Do ask me if I haven't explained anything clearly enough and don't forget to show me your books. I'd love to see all the permutations this how-to will produce.

Before I go another big THANK YOU to all you imaginative types for all the names you've come up with. I'm mulling over them all but I think I need to get the fair out of the way first to give them my full atttention. Meanwhile my sales are going really well, I've nearly run out of curls - I've sold 41 bags so far and maybe 5 left on ebay!!  I have dyed more fibre but this cotswold isn't as curly as the one I had before so I'll be OK for bags of the carded stuff for a while - even though I've sold 40 of those too.

I'd really like to say a big thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has supported me by buying the wool, sending encouraging comments, wishing me well  - I really feel your love and support in the air ladies.

Basic instructions for a waldorf doll

 

" ......a handcrafted doll is one of a kind, an individual which carries the spirit of the maker in its stitches and absorbs the spirit of the child who loves it".

Isn't this a beautiful description of a handmade doll? I've been making waldorf dolls for about six years now and I was very lucky to be shown how by a German lady who was based at the waldorf school in Kings Langley. I started off making dolls for my own children and I in turn have taught other people to make dolls for their childen. In this way the waldorf doll making tradition continues as it has done for most of the last century. I have no idea why these dolls, which I believe were originally made by Kathe Krusse in Germany were adopted by the Steiner movement. I do know though that the dolls are made wherever there is a waldorf school and each country seems to have a slightly different way of forming the head, or tying the eye line or using different fabric for the skin. I make a few dolls each year to sell at our school's Christmas fair and as I was making a doll the other day I thought it would be interesting to document the process. So for those of you struggling with a book here are some basic instructions:

The dolls I make are 16'' tall and made from natural materials. First off I wind a ball from washed fleece to form the head. The ball on the left of the photo has a 12'' circumference and is probably a bit large to be honest. Then I take two pieces of carded fleece and place them in a cross and I put the head on top and I encase the ball and put it into a piece of tubigauze which I have stitched along the top. I push the head into the tube and tie it at the neck. There will be fleece sticking out but that's OK because it forms the shoulders/chest.

Next off you need to tie the eye, head and chin lines. I take a long needle and linen thread and I go into the side of the head at the ear (halfway down the head) and I go through the head to the other ear. Bring the thread back across the face and tie very tightly to the thread hanging out at the first ear. Then take the needle over the head and back through second ear to the first ear and pull tight, then take the thread under the chin and through the second ear to first, pull tight and finely round the back of the head and same process back to the first ear. Phew - your fingers will be aching by now but tie the two threads together and cut off the tail. Then take a piece of skin coloured stockinette and stretch it and pin it across this head and sew up the back and top and again tie at the neck.

Place pins where you think the eyes and mouth should be and embroider them.

Then sew up the arms and body on the sewing machine ( I can give you a pattern if you don't have one - just e-mail me). Turn right side out and stuff the hands and arms with fleece, firmly.

Sew the arms onto the back of the chest piece. I forgot to say to leave a few inches free at the top of the arms.

Stuff the feet and then the legs and then the tummy of the doll. Place the head and arms into the body and sew around the arms pushing in more fleece from the other side to firm up the chest. Finally sew around the neck and sew the head to the body with ladder stitch. You will need to bind off the hands and feet now but I forgot to take a picture of that.

Now the time consuming process of doing the hair. For boys I crochet a cap and then hook individual strands into the cap. For girls I either make a hair piece by winding wool around a book or I weave the hair over pins placed on the middle of the head and the ear which I then sew down. I would seriously recommend that you get a book for the pattern and for hair making instructions. A very good one is 'Kinder Dolls' by Maricristin Sealey. For doll supplies like the tubigauze, stockinette and hair you could try Weir Dolls, Waldorf Toys or Myriad.

Here are a few more pics of some of my dolls. Once you can make the head there are endless ways of making dolls with them. You can make a doll with a felted body or use and old cardigan.

You can even make little dolls for the seasonal table:

Well, I think that's enough navel gazing for one evening. Do let me know if it doesn't make sense or if you'd like the pattern and good luck - it isn't that difficult honestly and your child will cherish it forever.

.......................................

A couple of links to some beautiful waldorf dolls on flickr here, here, and here.

How to make a padded pinboard

I have fancied having a padded pinboard for ages now and I thought I would make one but didn't know how to. A google search a while ago only led me to some US sites that used homasote board (?) and batting. Then a couple of things happened. I saw a board on this blog and I went to IKEA last Friday and I found a cheap cork board. So I put two and two together and Tom and I made one for my room. Having made it now and knowing how EASY it is I'm wondering that I ever looked up how to make one!

If you would like to make one too here's how to: you will need a cork pinboard, a piece of blanket (I had no batting), some panel pins or a fancy stapler, some beading elastic or ribbon, glue and some drawing pins. (Please click on the pics for a bigger view).

You cut the piece of blanket to fit inside the frame of the board and you glue down the edges and middle to stop it slipping. I just used copydex. Next you cut out the fabric you'll be using to slightly larger than the board. Place the board upside down on the wrong side of the fabric.

Fold over the corners and mitre them (I love that word so I'll say it again!) you mitre the corners. Which means that you lop of the top corner and fold the fabric over the corner of the board as in the pic. Pin down and then fold over the sides and pin too.

A bit scruffy I know - but who's going to look at the back? So all the fabric is pinned into place with the panel pins. Make sure you have no creases on the front so keep turning over and smoothing out. Then you can do those fancy criss crosses with ribbons on the front but as I had very patterned fabric I pinched philacraft's idea of using beading elastic. So I just placed it over the front and secured it on the back with drawing pins (the yellow one). I wrapped the ends of the elastic around the pin and tapped it into the board.

I don't know if you can see the elastic in this pic? I needed to secure the crossovers of elastic on the front so I just used some rather naff pins that I had also bought from IKEA. Here is a bit of the finished board (I'm sorry it's blurred but I can't seem to rectify it):

A quick and very easy project and cheap too. Smaller ones of these were going for £15 on ebay recently!

I seem to have posted everyday this week - obviously nothing better to do with my time. But I'm off to the Knitting and Stitching Show tomorrow and then to my parents so I thought I should show you the board before I go seeing as we did it last wekend. Hope you all have a great weekend too mine's going to be full of inspiration and Indian food - what a great combination. Before I go here's the latest dishcloth I'm working on. I'm using Twilleys dishcloth cotton that I bought on ebay and the King Charles Brocade pattern:

Natural dyeing. A beginners guide..............

Gulp....A number of people have asked me questions about this dyeing lark and I thought maybe I ought to do a post (another one I hear you mutter) in a tutorial sort of way. I hesitate because I'm no expert but just a mad woman who got hooked over the summer. So what I would like to do is share some of the knowldge I've accumulated, the suppliers I've used (sorry no web link to Mother Nature yet) and to tell you about the colours I got.

First off, a WARNING. Natural dyeing is highly addictive. You will never look at a plant in the same way again and your friends and neighbours will start locking their garden gates.

The Raw Materials

I've been dyeing wool blanket, undyed knitting wool which came from Texere Yarns (search for Pure New Wool) and fleece. I was lucky to find two local supplies of a Blue Faced Leicester cross and - hold your breath - a prize winning Cotswold. It's so important to have good quality raw material and fleece that you can actually spin.

Mordants

A mordant is something that helps fix the dye to the fibre and most dyers use Alum and Cream of Tartar. There are other mordants like copper and chrome but Alum is the safest. The recipe I've been using is 8% Alum, 7% Cream of Tartar to 100g of fibre. So for 500g you would take a pan of water and place it on your stove. Measure 40g of Alum into a cup and add boiling water. Stir and add to the pan on the stove. Measure 35g of CoT, add boiling water, stir and add to the pan too. Wet your fibres in the sink and add them to the pan on the stove before the water gets too warm. Bring up to a simmer and simmer for about an hour. Because my pan is usually stuffed full I tend to tip the whole lot out into the sink afterwards and leave for a few hours or overnight. That way I can make sure every inch is mordanted. If you take it out leave it to cool somewhere or it put straight into a hot dyepot. NEVER put the hot wool in cold water as it will shrink.

The Dyes

I bought some dyes from the lovely people at P&M Woolcraft and I used a lot of things from the fields and garden. The bought stuff was indigo, madder, weld, fustic, cutch and logwood. At this point I should mention that I used a couple of books as my guides and I urge you to do the same. Mine were Wild Colour by Jenny Dean and A Dyer's Manual by Jill Goodwin. The books will tell you how to use each dye and show you the range of colours you can get. Of the dyes from the hedgerows I used goldenrod, carrot tops, cherry bark and apple bark, walnuts, dahlias, almost dead hollyhocks, french marigolds, comfrey, blackberries and silver birch, and onion skins.

Some things were a huge success, others a dissapointment, some surprises. I loved never knowing how something would turn out - after all you don't have a Dylon lid to show you. Sometimes you'd have the most lovely ruby red liquid from purple dahlias in the pot and you'd put in your wool and it would come out a bronzey gold colour. I gave up trying to get a green. You'd think that with all the green in nature that's the first colour you'd get but no Mother Earth doesn't give that to us so easily. A good green can only be achieved by overdyeing a yellow with blue such as woad or indigo.

The Process

In a nutshell, you basically extract the dye from the dyestuff by simmering it in water. Some things like bark need soaking for a few days, madder overnight but flowers are generally fine to use straight away. So you put your dye stuff in a pan and bring it up to a simmer. Then I usually cool the dyebath before I add the fibres. Unless ofcourse you have just mordanted and the fibres are hot too. You should really strain the dyebath before you add the fibres but I'm pretty slapdash and I seem to prefer to extract the pieces of bark or flower from the wool afterwards! I don't advise it. So you've put your wool in the dyebath and you simmer the whole lot for anything from 30 mins to an hour. I sometimes leave the whole lot in the pot to cool, sometimes take it out and leave it to cool on the table outside. Once cooled you'll need to rinse out the excess dye. Some people recommend a bit of white vinegar in the rinsing water. Whatever you chose rinse the wool well and hang out to dry.

The Results

I'll just list some of the results because the pics can be found in previous posts and in my 'Natural Dyeing' photo album in the sidebar. I must point out that all the fibres I used took up the dyes differently eg a blanket in apple or cherry bark produced a lovely deep fawn colour but the fleece was very light and not impressive at all.  By the way apologies for not stating quantities I hardly weigh anything.

Madder - I used 300g of madder to 400g of knitting wool. The books all said not to take the dyebath over 80C so I simmered the dye at that heat for an hour, strained the mixture, added the wool, simmered, took out the wool and added the dye again, simmered it again, added the wool again, simmered again. I repeated this about 4 times. I got a deep orangey colour but never the red I wanted. I've ordered some more dye to try again. After all this pallaver I added a tablespoon of citric acid granules (leftover from Elderflower Cordial making) and I dyed some fleece. It came out BRIGHT orange.

Indigo - my favourite colour but you need a book to tell you what to do. Don't be put off by the instructions it's not difficult and definately worth it.

Weld - produced a nice lemony yellow.

Fustic - nice yellow.

Safflower - a deeper yellow.

Cutch - a deep tan colour on blanket which went a gorgeous nutbrown after we added iron. However, the iron made the blanket quite rough to the touch - grrrr.

Logwood - gorgeous deep purple colour on blankets and wool.

Goldenrod - I used fresh flowers on fleece and blanket. Very nice yellow. Hoping to over dye with indigo to get green.

Apple and Cherry barks- soaked for about 5 days and then boiled up. Lovely fawn shade on blanket but dissapointing on fleece.

Silver Birch leaves- very light greeny yellow.

Comfrey- supposed to make a green according to the books but mine did nothing - just beige.

Blackberries - boiled up in a pan and added fleece. Produced various shades of purple but apparently it will all fade to grey eventually.

Carrot tops - very nice lemony yellow.

French Marigolds - I only had about eight. Produced a lovely fresh yellow.

Dahlias - used purple ones but they gave a bronzey gold colour.

Hollyhocks - found lots on the ground, slightly shrivelled but with some colour in them. I boiled them up (horrid smell) and put in my fleece and I got a light metallic green.*

Walnuts - don't need a mordant . I couldn't wait for them to drop so I picked about 8 off a tree. Chopped them up and soaked them for a few days. Boiled up last night and added some fleece. I put the pan in the Aga (slow oven) and forgot all about it. Four hours later when I did remember I rescued the poor fleece and it was fine. Infact it was fine AND a beautiful deep brown colour the sort I wish my hair was. Will I be able to repeat this experiment....

Onion skins - no mordant needed for these. Produced a bright, orangey yellow.

Turmeric needs no mordant and produces a golden yellow and lovely green when overdyed with indigo. However, the books suggest mixing the turmeric with pomegranate rind to make it colour fast.

Pomegranate. I just peeled it and boiled the rind. Turned the fleece a light yellow.

Cochineal needs a mordant and mine produced a deep pink. I dipped it briefly in logwood and it turned a lovely purpley colour.

Brazilwood needs a mordant and it dyed my fleece a lovely deep pink. As it's also ph sensitive I put some wasjing soda in the pot and the fleece went purple.

Must just share an experiment with you. I had a big dyeing mistake on some skeins of wool and I found a website telling me how to remove the colour from wool. So I followed the instructions using Thiox and washing soda - colour disappeared. Then I was supposed to neutralize the wool by soaking it in water and white vinegar. As the wool was hot and I was impatient I put the vinegar in hot, hot water and added my wool. It went a light greeny, aqua colour - eeek. Took it out quickly and hung it out. Then me gets thinking and I puts in my greeny fleece dyed with hollyhocks and it goes a nice sage green.  I'm sure the thiox must have been spent by now so was it the washing soda that did it? Any chemists out there who can tell me?

Apologies for such a lengthy post... I could have gone on longer. Please do ask if something doesn't make sense and I'd love to see your results if you try any natural dyeing. Maybe one day we'll have our own group on flickr...........

* It seems that Hollyhocks are ph sensitive and the washing soda is alkaline which means? I wish I'd paid more attention in Chemistry.

How to tie dye

You will need:

Plain white T-shirts (I usually get mine from H&M - nice and cheap)

Dylon cold water and hand dyes (I used Ultraviolet and Bermuda Blue of the first type and Fuschia Pink and Royal Blue of the latter)

Rubber bands, pegs, string, four buckets, salt, marbles or stones and a few pairs of Marigolds (washing up gloves)

I usually just use 4 or 5 different techniques; spirals, concertina folds, sunbursts and tieing up marbles. Spirals are my favourites though. I'll try and explain in words and pics how to do all of them!Firstly, wash the T-shirts. Work on them whilst they are still damp.

Spirals are made by pinching a point in the middle of the garment and twisting this point around and around. I have taken five photographs of this procedure - they are here, here, here and here.

Once you have made the whole T-shirt into a round secure it with rubber bands like thus;

 

This one is now ready to dip.

Sunbursts are created by tieing up a huge sort of nose like pinnochio - photo here.

Concertina folds are made by folding the T-shirt lengthways into concertina folds. You can then either secure with rubber bands at intervals or pegs like this.

Spots are made by tieing marbles or stones into the garment and securing with rubber bands like this.

Make up the dye according to the instructions on the packet and dip in your garments like so, and so and so. Agitate and leave for an hour. After that take out the T-shirts, undo them, gasp at how beautiful they are and rinse in cold water until no more dye comes out of them. I usually wash them on a short wash in the washing machine then (seperate colours or they'll bleed) to make sure that all the extra dye comes out. Put on the line to dry and collapse into your seat and watch them drying in the breeze.

This is how the different folds will look:

Spiral

Concertina fold secured with rubber bands at intervals (the white lines).

Sunburst.

Tied with marbles.

This one was an experiment. I rolled the T-shirt from the top down - over a piece of string so it was like a sausage. Join the two ends of thread together and pull tight like this. Knot securely. This ruches the fabric. I like the result but should have left it in the dye pot for longer for a better colour contrast.

One other thing to try is a two colour spiral. Dip the first spiral in your base colour and then take out after 15 mins or so. Rinse in cold water and then open up the T-shirt. Re-twist a spiral over the first one, secure with rubber bands and dip into another colour for an hour. Result will be:

This is great activity to do with the children, it's fairly cheap and lots of fun. Just make sure that they are wearing old clothes and that you put your dye pots in the garden. Finally, do contact me if it doesn't make sense or if you want to show me how yours turned out.