WOYWW - more dumfing fun!

What does a person do when their little playmate is on holiday in the sun?
This week I have my sewing room to myself so I got down to some serious dumfing!!
Well, wet felting first of course to create a woolly background.
Here is the one I started last week - I think I will save this for Maxine to embellish.

AND here is the one I had fun in experimenting with.

This is it with some free machine embroidery added.

One of our greatest sources of inspiration is Marmaladerose.
She makes the most amazing felted pictures and I just wanted to have a go at something different to my usual thing. We usually embellish on top of the background piece whereas Marmaladerose puts most of the detail into her wet felting. It is totally stunning and I can only imagine how tricky it is. Pop over and see what she does.

I hope you have been able to enjoy the late September sunshine. It's been glorious here for the last week.
Well, I will get back to my dumfing.

Have a great week.
Thanks for calling by and joining in with the WOYWW fun!.

x Jo

WOYWW - dumfing!

Good morning fellow WOYWWers!
AND how are we all today? Well, I hope.

Today I am in the mood for dumfing.
I dipped into my bags of gorgeous wool rovings and set out the "fluff" for a piece of wet felting.
This will become the background to one of our needle felted (dumfed) pictures.
It's a wet job so I should really be doing it in the kitchen but the bright sunshine was beaming through my sewing room window so I thought I would tackle it here where all my bags of rovings are stored.

The two little poppy pictures are ones that Maxine made earlier using another of my dumfed background pieces. She is hoping to get a good stock of pictures finished ready for the Christmas rush!!

You will have to pop back next week and see what has become of the latest wet felted piece as I doubt I will have time to do it and take a photo for this post.

Just in case you have no idea what I am talking about - here are a few we made earlier....

Well that's it for this week.
No doubt Maxine will be blogging (Tilly Tea Dance) about our happy birthday party for Ben who is now one. It was a really lovely "sunny day in the garden" sort of party - we were so lucky with the weather.

Have a great week.
Thanks for calling by.

x Jo

WOYWW

Well here we are at the end of January already!!
Birthday celebrations for my hubby today - we will enjoy a meal out with our daughter and son in law. It is the third celebration meal we will have had. Maybe next time I should get everyone together and have one event but it has been nice to have a few little outings to share with friends and family.

Thanks for joining the WOYWW blog hop and for calling in here to see what I have been up to.

This week I have been "dumfing" - needle felting with my machine and hand "dumfer".
Maxine has been making some more lovely pictures ready for her exhibition and I was just twiddling with little pieces to go on cards.

I think I might make a few more ATCs too. They turned out really well last time and I sent them all over the world for our WOYWW 3rd anniversary. ( see them here)

I also think I might have a bit of sewing to do this week as I have had a request for a little Katie Morag dressing up outfit. I love a little challenge.

So....
What have you all been up to?
I love having a quick blog hop and checking a few desks out. I even saw a sewing machine on display on a shelf last week!!! So come on - show us your desk!!!
Have a good week.
Thanks for calling by.
x Jo

WOYWW - outdoors!

This week I have been making the most of any sunny weather, so my work table is outdoors on the patio. From here I can enjoy the fresh air and the view of the hills.

I am wet felting some larger background pieces and needed the space to use my bamboo roller blind to felt the wool rovings. Usually I use bubble wrap and a bamboo placemat.

Here are the little background pieces that I made for Annie last week.......

 

AND I know we have had lots of rain, but why do slugs like to crawl down the outside of my windows?!!

 

Maybe it's to keep out of reach of this monster which I found by our compost bin.......

 

AND this ferocious sparrow hawk flew into Annie's glass door - luckily, although stunned, he managed to fly away soon after.

My latest makes are for dressing up boxes...
Katie Morag kilts....

They are only made in polycotton but they look quite realistic I think - even down to the pretend kilt pin ( I didn't think real ones would be safe in a classroom sitiation!!)

Well, that's it for today.
I have a dragonfly picture to "dumf" today but will be round to check out a few WOYWW desks when I need a breather.
Join in the fun over at Julia's Stamping Ground - there are lots of fab desks to visit and so many clever crafty folk out there!!
x Jo

WOYWW - Decisions!!

Lots of lovely threads to play with on my table today!!

I have been busy working on my big garden picture which I felted a few weeks ago.
It has been sitting in my sewing room just waiting for me to feel in the mood to attack it with some free maching and hand stitching.

Here it is before I made a start with the machine...

This is what the back looked like after a few hours of machining........

And - this is what it looks like now........

My next job is to add a few more hand stitches .

I did have a thought that it might look better as two pictures - so it might get cut down the middle - argh!!!! Decisions, decisions - and I am a Libran too.

Oh well - once I have finished it - all will be clear, I am sure.

What do you think?

To chop or not to chop???

I always love to hear what you think, so please leave a comment.

Thanks to all who popped over to see what Tilly Tea Dance had been up to on her first WOYWW last week. She loved hearing from you all. I know she has been busy dumfing over the weekend so hopefully she will find time to post too.

Join in our blog hop over at Julia's Stamping Ground - and see what we have all been up to this week.

Have fun

x Jo

WOYWW - goodies in the post and flower felt update

Happy Wednesday everyone!!
The postie brought two more little parcels to my door this weeek.
Firstly, this beautiful little bird winged it's way here from Liverpool Lou  in Wakefield.
We have missed her on WOYWW and Annie and I often mention the other Anne!
So what a surprise when, in exchange for a little dumfling, Anne sent me the gorgeous little fabric bird.
Thanks lots Anne - it sits happily on my hall cupboard now - although I took this pic with a backdrop of the misty hills and fields behind my house.

Next came this cute little owly ATC and matching woodstamped envelope.
I remembered seeing  Fiona - Staring @ the Sea  making them on her blog and thinking how nice to make an envelope too.
I love all things birdy and owly so they are two special swaps - thank you both.

Now just a few update pics of my progress on my felted flower garden.
Lots of you left such lovely comments and I know you want to see how we work our dumfing magic, so thank you for willing us on and here goes.....

Remember the pre-felted stage from last week....

Well, this was it once it had been wet felted......

 Then on fun day Monday, Annie and I dumfed all afternoon.....
I added more wool rovings and yarns.....

Then a few more bits and bobs to deepen the colours and emphasise the shapes....

Here are a few sneaky peeks......

  I will reveal all once I have added the finishing touches.

AND lastly - my effort at a Christening card this week....

Have a great week everyone.
Pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and join in our Wednesday blog hop!!

x Jo

WOYWW - felting or dumfing

Good morning all!!

Before you is a nice neat room and tidy table - I just had to clear out some of my untidy mess after my weekend of crafty activity (See gorgeousness on post below!)

On my table this morning are three pieces of handmade felt. I spent yesterday morning wet felting these.

This one is for Annie. She finds wet felting difficult because it hurts her wrists and shoulders so, I offered to make a piece for her to use as a dumfing background.

This is what it looked like when all the wool rovings were laid out ready to wet felt.







And below is my experiment.
I fancied making a flower garden so I wet felted a background piece and then I will work on it with my embellisher (dumfer) and see what happens.

The little pictures below were needle felted onto a piece of wet felted background  and then machine embroidered and beaded.

I think we will pop them in the shop once they are finished off.

I have started the "mini felted picture" shelf already.

I put a few of my little dumflings in there so click here to have a look, if you are interested.

And lastly....

the latest little ATCs to arrive through my letterbox.

They are all so beautiful and will just about fit on my A3 collage board, so I will be finishing that off later. Thanks lots everyone - it's been a fun going global!

Now to see what Julia has been up to in her Stamping Ground this week.

Have a great day.

See you later

x Jo

WOYWW

Good morning all!!

For the WOYWW blog hop today I have bared all and I have snapped my room as it is.

It was tidy until Monday, then I came back from Funday Monday and dumped all my bags and boxes.

So, feel free to have a good snoop!!

A few things to spot..........

• In the centre - felted flowers that I made on  a felting course I went to with daughter M on Saturday. We had a great time at the workshop at Eddies in Shrewsbury. Its a lovely little shop where Mel sells revamped furniture and lovely crafty bits and bobs.

Here they are in close up!

A few other things to snoop.....

• Button jars
• Little frocks -
  This week I am determined to finish off the last few frocks.
  I will post a few pics of the latest designs later in the week. I got fed up with the basic design so I got a bit creative and made a few different ones. I tried to make them fairly simple but pretty and I used up lots of small pieces.
• Bags of fabric left overs from the little frocks
• Annie's box of dresses cut out ready for me to finish - she has lots of work on at the mo so I brought her box home with me. Funny how there are lots of green frocks left to make!! (She hates green)
• Piles of fabric pieces that will be made into cushions and bags

If you want to join in with our blog hop then follow me over to Julia's Stamping Ground and see what the rest of the crafters, card makers and generally clever folk have been up to.

Thanks for popping in and enjoying a snoop!

Jo