Swan Wool Appliques

Found a nice free pattern for the swan cut from cream felted wool and hand appliqued to festive plaid wool background. Holly is cut from overdyed green wool and berries from red wool. The stitching is done with perle cotton. I used a variegated perle cotton for the detail on the wing.

This one is stitched to a background of charcoal gray wool. These have not been finished yet-- I am thinking throw pillows.

All the wool came from thrift store garments washed and felted by me.

Wool Snowmen Ornaments

I made these using wool fabric from a felted cream colored skirt, some Warm and Wonderful batting scraps, scraps of felted wool, raffia and perle cotton floss. The circles are cut with my Sizzix machine in four sizes which I have paired up to make the bodies of the snowmen.

I emboidered the faces and the buttons through one layer of wool and one layer of batting. The batting was added to make the snowmen more plump. The eyes and the buttons are french knots. The mouth is backstitched.

Then using cream colored perle cotton I used the blanket stitch to sew an additional layer of wool to the other layers. I added a wool scarf to each one, tacking them into place.

Using the largest darning needle I have, I threaded the raffia through the layers to create the arms. I finished the arms off with a knot for each hand and then trimmed the raffia. This was the most challenging part because I had to get the raffia through the layers without snagging on the cotton batting.

These tiny snowmen are made into lapel pins. The heads are about one inch.

Here you can see the difference in sizes. I used a couple of strands of perle cotton to fashion a hanger for the ornaments.

Wool Christmas Trees, Stockings and Mittens

These are made with hand dyed green wool. I cut the shapes using my Sizzix machine and embellished them with buttons before stitching 2 layers together. The buttons make them very heavy and the wool is not quite stiff enough to lie flat under the weight of the buttons. I had planned on making ornaments to hang from the Christmas tree, but will probably use them to embellish some other project like a stocking or a handbag maybe.

These are made with hand dyed felted wool from 2 different sweaters. They are composed of 2 layers of wool blanket stitched together with perle cotton and finished off with more of the perle cotton so they can hang from the tree. I also made some smaller versions into lapel pins.

Pumpkin Pins

These are made with hand dyed felted wool about 3 inches wide, 2 inches tall. Stitched with some cool varigated perle cotton threads. There are 2 layers of wool blanket stitched together and finished with a pin back. The "stems" are made from green wool fleece.

This one has a cute jack o lantern face!

My favorite is the plaid one on the bottom left!

These colors came from two attempts at dying a pile of wool. In the first attempt there was too much wool in the pot for the amount of orange pigment, so some of the colors came out spotty or too light. So I took out the wool that needed more color and mixed up a second batch of dye using black cherry koolaid and lemonaid drink mix. I had run out of orange koolaid drink mix and still had a pile of wet wool that was not done dyeing. So the second batch came out much more red-orange than the first-- and I love it. In this picture, the top two on the left were in the second batch.

Once all the dye was absorbed, I rinsed the pile of wet wool in cold water and then dryed it in my dryer. Then it was ready to cut up and transform into fall colored goodies.

Crow Perched on Pumpkin Wool Applique

This is made with all felted wool fabric. The orange was hand dyed in the kitchen. The shapes are all hand cut using designs traced on wax paper and ironed on. It makes it so easy to cut once the wax paper cools off.

Here is a detail of the stitching. I did this with the sewing machine and the free motion quilting foot. I used contrasting thread for the pumpkin to suggest the texture of real pumpkins. The fabric was not fused down before quilting, which makes it more difficult to make totally smooth, but for this I preferred a more rustic, primitive look.

This is the same bird as the pins, without a contrasting wing color. When I sewed him on and added the legs with more free motion quilting, he appears to be looking up at the sky. Totally un-intentional, but I love how it turned out.

The leaves around the base of the pumpkin are stitched to show the texture. Not perfect, but rustic and primitive.

I finished this off by making it into a pillow. I used the same color wool as the leaves and sewed on a two inch border on all sides. I backed it with a green wool fabric from my wool stash and stuffed it with a pillow form. It is 16 inches square. Love it!

Halloween Crow Pins

Detail of the largest bird, about three inches. I used 2 layers of wool, cotton quilting fabric and perle cotton in 2 colors. The eyes are glass seed beads in orange. They have pin backs for wearing on a jacket or bag. I made some similar for someone that I added floss for hanging the ornament on a tree or cupboard pull.

I had a small assortment of halloween fabric squares that came from a swap on swapbot. It is just enough to make the wings with cool halloween prints.

Little Hall'ween Birdie!