Easter Bunny Lapel Pins

A co-worker suggested I make some pins for Easter with bunnies. She purchased several of the Valentine pins I made and reported that many of her church friends thought they were great.

These little bunny pins are two layers of felted wool blanket-stitched together and accented with embroidered eyes. The fronts of all the bunnies are hand dyed. I liked the look of the tweed patterns overdyed with pastel colors of spring.

I just realized that the advantage of photographing items on my cutting board is that it is easy to see the size. These bunnies are 3.5 x 3 inches.

They are finished with a pin back so they can be fastened to jackets, sweaters, purses, hats, etc.

The Flowers Are In Bloom

I am making flowers like crazy. I am using flower pieces cut from

hand-dyed wool in a variety of colors. The wool has been felted or

fulled before cutting to ensure that it does not fray.

Then I stack the pieces to create colorful wool blossoms. The parts

are stitched together using the penny rug style. Blanket stitching

is the most common way to join the layers securely.

As you can see from some of my other posts I can use the blossoms to create wall art. I am also planning to take some of the flowers and turn them into pins to decorate hats, purses, jackets, etc. These are kind of like potato chips-- I cannot make just one. The colors are so vibrant and the combinations are seemingly endless. I have even figured out how to make some blooms that look like they belong on a lily pad.

Hare Leaps Toward Spring!!

Here are 2 pictures of the rabbit project I completed last night. I created the flowers using hand dyed felted wool. I cut out the shapes and stacked them to form flowers in shades of green and yellow. These colors really pop off the black wool background.

Originally I cut the rabbit out of a felted fuzzy pale gray sweater. I just did not like the look of it, so I cut it out again using gray flannel wool from a pair of slacks. That rabbit (in the second picture) looks so much better than the first. I also added a sun made of circles stacked on each other in the penny rug style.

All the elements of the picture are blanket stitched using either persian wool floss or perle cotton floss.

Daffodils Wool Applique Art

Here is a project that I recently completed. It is a wool applique wall hanging made from felted wool and felt balls. The background is felted wool from an old winter coat in a soft cream color. The stems, leaves and grass are made with felted wool from a pair of slacks obtained at a local thrift store. The wool in the daffodil blossoms is hand dyed by me. I used Wilton cake dyes to create several complementary shades of orange and yellow. I cut the pieces and hand-stitched them to look very like real daffodil blooms.

All the elements of the picture are embroidered with the blanket stitch using either persian wool floss or perle cotton floss.

This project was alot of fun to make and has inspired me to do some more similar flower pictures.