It was such a sunny afternoon that I decided to take my latest car boot bargain outside and set it all out on my patio table.
We found a wooden wine box with about 28 reels of  thread inside - along with a tape measure, a tinful of buttons, and some useful needles. DH decided he would use the wooden box for storage so he paid most of the £3 that it cost. Bargain!!!!
I also picked up another bag with more threads for next to nothing so I am a happy bunny!!!
I will be adding them to my thread store - they will all be useful I am sure.

The best thing about living on the edge of the open countryside is the wonderful birdlife that I can watch from my kitchen window.
Below is the best picture that I could take of the pair of Bullfinches in my garden this morning.
The male is on the fence and the female is below in the bottom left hand corner - a drab little bird by comparison.

 

 

If you are interested in my resident pheasant then scroll down for the news and photos!!!

I spotted her in the field today with at least 5 of her chicks so they are surviving.

 

I have been busy this week packing my ATCs into envelopes ready for our WOYWW 4th anniversary swap.

If you wonder what this is all about, then follow this link to find out more.

If you think you would like to swap ATCs with me then email:
twiglet517@hotmail.co.uk with your details.



OK folks, that's it for now.
Thanks for calling in. Have a great week.
x Jo

Bird dumfing - how do you do WOYWW!!

Good morning everyone. Thanks for dropping in. I am working backwards today because I wanted to show you my promised tutorial before I show you the state of my room.

For all those interested in my dumfy birds - a few pics to show you how I do it.

On fun day Monday with Wipso, I set out my Clover pad ( little brush) my Clover needlepunch ( 5 felting, barbed needles that bounce up and down on a springy thing inside the holder), single barbed felting needle, wool rovings, green dyed pre-felt and a piece of white felt.

I decided that a little bullfinch would be an ideal bird to dumf on a small scale as it is a compact little bird with lots of colour.

I found a couple of pictures to help me get the shape and colour right.

I cut the main pieces from felt and set them on the Clover pad ( using white felt to protect the brush so that it doesn't get clogged with fluff).

Then, using my needle punch, I started dumfing pieces of white wool roving onto the main pink body part. The 5 barbed needles move up and down as I push the punch, forcing white wool fibres down into the pink felt.

Slowly the little bird took shape as I added more coloured wool rovings.

Sometimes I use a single needle to push the wool into the right shape.

I have to keep easing up from the white felt piece so that it doesn't get dumfed onto it.

The main colours are on and I can I lift it off the white felt, ready to dumf it onto the background piece of green randomly dyed pre-felt.

The bird is now dumfed onto the background and I have added a piece of chunky brown yarn for a branch and twisted some grey wool for the legs.

All that is left to do is to create the leaves and blossom, beak and bead eye.
The leaves are just small pieces of gorgeous wool roving that we bought from Sara on our Wonderwool day out.

The blossom is made from scraps of pink silk and rovings.

The picture is about 12cm square.

To finish it off, I mounted it on some pale linen and stretched it over a square board to make the 20cm square picture.

This is the 8th dumfy bird so far.

This one can go in our blog shop, I think.

Now for all you WOYWWers who just want to peek at the state of my room........
OK - its a mess - but it will be tidy soon and then I can pop all those new brooches in the blog shop! (You can see them in the middle of the table)

Now, I am going to check out Julia's blog and a few of the 120 other WOYWWers - apologies if I don't get to leave comments for all of you but I do enjoy popping in and having a sneaky peek at what you are all up to. Thanks to Julia for making it all possible!