Yule decorations already??

Well, sad to say, Yes! In all the shops already....I am one of these people who, although enjoying the notion of celebration, is totally fed up with the increasing over production/saturation and ongoing ruthlessness of retail xmas. The exploitation of staff at xmas, and the bullying of customers to buy more, for ever longer periods of time really makes me mad. Yes, you guessed it- I worked for a big retail store, one of the many who care only about year on profits... but enough of that... xmas should be about friendship, love, sharing and remembering. So on with the sharing....

So, Yule decorations already? Sadly, if you're actually making them then they need to be finished in good time, so I have started super early this year, and as Palma has started the 2012 Wichtel Swap already I've begun my countdown for crafting.

The swap calls for a hanging decoration and this years theme is "Reindeer". I had a good mooch online to see what was about, but wanted to do something original. I know a cutout isn't particularly original in itself, but I hoped that collaging the paper might go some way to help. 

So I spent yesterday gluing, pressing, cutting and sewing... not so difficult, but sometimes it's simple ideas that work out best... see what you think.

The sewing was pretty hard on the fingers so I actually resorted to digging out my rarely used thimble- unheard of! 

I really like how they've turned out so I'm going to spend tomorrow joining fabrics to make quilted versions... I'll let you know how they go...

COTTON AND COLLAGE

I have carried on creating my flower embellishments this week, but changed medium... to cotton. A while back I was crocheting wool flowers and butterflies, but as I had just bought some white pearl cotton thread I thought I'd see if it would work small scale.

The lustred cotton is about the same thickness as embroidery skeined thread, and after a few trials with different sized needles I settled on a 2mm. I ended up spending 3 days playing and making a selection of flowers and butterflies... I've just started on hearts. It seems that a wool crochet pattern will translate nicely into a dinky cotton equivalent- great for journals, hats, jewellery, blankets... so many uses!

I chose white because I want to start colouring as required, rather than have to buy a supply of every colour I like  in a wide variety of material... I've done the same for satin ribbon, bulk white in several widths- it's so easy to colour as you need it.

Here are a few of the flowers and butterflies...

A few variations in stitch and pattern will give you a huge range of petals and designs. I'll put a pattern over in the pattern tutorials section

The basic pattern is several rounds worked from a circle of 4 or 5 chains. Any stitch can be used in any combination...that's the fun of it! 

The next thing is to find a use for all your wonderful mini creations.... as it happens I had a project that could use a handful of flowers... see the following post for the finished project. A hearty project...

This white thread is pearlised, mercerised, which means it has been chemically treated and takes dye really well! You can dye with Procion dyes or similar, but I also use something much quicker and just as effective for crafting- alcohol markers such as Sharpies or Promarkers. The colour will naturally run along the fibres so a small amount is recommended to begin with, and you can always spray with neat alcohol or surgical spirit to dilute and blend the colours... have fun experimenting!