Quick and Dirty Felt iPad Case

I took advantage of the storm sirens going off today to head down to the basement and cobble together a quick case for my shiny new iPad, before I take it out of the house for the first time. I bought the Smart Cover with it, and while that is great around the house I don't fancy sticking the whole thing in my bag with just that for protection. I made it so that it also doubles as a handy mat to stand the iPad on in the house.

It's made from a felted wool sweater and the button is a beautiful old mother-of-pearl one from my Granny's button bag, which makes me happy. I made it so that the flap tucks inside, which means that the button is not on the main body and that means a flat surface to lie the iPad on.

I have great plans to come up with a fantastic case in time, but for now this works just fine. It's a bit baggy and a bit quick and dirty, but it should keep my new toy a little bit safer in my bag.

"Cute Little Turtle"

 

Freja's a bit sad at the moment because her Dad is away on a work trip. Today on the way back from the Nature Centre she asked me if I could make her a "cute little turtle" because she loves the things I make her the best.

So I had a go while she's at pre-school, I hope she likes it!

Needle-felted candy corn hairclips

I still haven't managed to get back into the swing of making things much but last night after the kids were in bed I decided it was time to have a go at something I've been thinking about for a while. Candy corn isn't something I really knew about before we moved to the US, but over here it appears everywhere as soon as the summer is over. It brings backs good memories for me of our first Halloween over here even though it's horribly intensely sweet and can give me a shocker of a sugar rush. I've spoken to a few people who say they can't eat it anymore after overdosing on it as a kid and I do try and keep the kids away from it if I can, but inevitably at this time of year a few pieces sneak in here and there.


I've been thinking about making candy corn hairclips for Freja for a while because the shape fits really well with those snappy clips. I was going to just cut the shapes from coloured felt but last night I decided to try needle-felting instead.


I formed the basic shape from white roving and then added the orange and yellow stripes, then stitched them to the clips. The first one I made is larger and more shaped but does look rather huge. I tried to make the second one smaller but in doing so lost some of the shape. I think they'd probably look cuter on smaller clips but I didn't have any, maybe I'll try and pick some up when we go shopping next. Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and if Freja doesn't like them I might steal them for myself.

Felt Danish Heart Purse Tutorial

I've always loved the look of woven paper Danish Christmas hearts and when I saw these felt ones on the Felt Cafe blog the other day I was inspired to have a go at making one in felt myself. I decided to turn it into a small purse and here's how I did it...

You will need:

Two colours of felt, I used some felted sweaters. Approximately 4" x 12" each.
Some fabric for the lining. Approximately 4" x 12".
Needle and thread.
Button.
I used a sewing machine for the lining but it could be done by hand.

An internet search for Danish Christmas heart will bring up lots of directions on how to assemble these hearts so I'm not going to go into huge detail here. This is the link from the Felt Cafe blog. There are some very fancy designs out there but I decided to start with the simplest possible one.

You could cut out a template to use as a pattern, or wing it like I did. The shape you need is a square (mine was 3.5" wide) with a semi-circle added to the top edge.

Fold your felt in half and lay the pattern on the the felt so that the bottom edge of the square is on the fold. Cut one piece (on the fold) from each colour. Make two equally spaced cuts from the folded edge, through both layers of felt, just slightly longer than the square.

Weave the two pieces together thinking about weaving through the loops rather than up and over them.

To make the lining cut out a piece of fabric the same size as one of your pieces of felt. Iron one of the long edges over by about 0.75" and then fold in half longways with the right side in. Stitch along the remaining sides about 0.5" from the edge. It's probably best to try and make sure the fit is right before you sew it as I think different thickness felt would need a slightly different sized lining. Trim with pinking shears close to the stitching.

Decide which side you would like to leave open and fit the lining into the heart so that the open edge is across the rounded part of the heart on that side. Stitch the lining to the felt around the whole opening by hand. Now stitch the other rounded side of the heart closed along the edge, and continue stitching all the way around the heart shape to give it some stability. You could use blanket stitch and contrasting thread but I decided to try and match my thread so you couldn't really see the stitching.

Cut a button hole in the top flap of the open side and stitch a button to the inside of the back flap.

Give to your three-year old daughter so she can fill it with small rubber princess clothes.

If you do make one I'd love to see pictures.

Some crafty pictures from Christmas 2009...

Clockwise from top left:
A snowman cheeseball made with herby cream cheese and decorated by Freja.
Some presents with more Felt and Stitch poinsettias, ready to be sent to my Gran and Peder's parents.
A peg bag for my Mum made from one of Freja's baby dresses.
The felt balls for the kids.
Bookmarks drawn on upcycled linen napkins by Freja, for her Dad and Grandpas.
Crumbly semolina mince pies made with Auntie Pams's recipe and my mincemeat.
Peder's Swedish knack.
A wrap around apron for my Secret Santa.
A little purse for my Secret Santa.
A Warm Fuzzies felt cupcake pincushion for Mum and a felt tissue pouch for me, for inside the Jack Horner Pie.
A present for me! A lacy Baktus scarf knitted by my Mum.
My Mum knitting me another Baktus scarf.

A hat for the princess-obsessed one

There's not been much crafty stuff going on here the last week because we've all been flaked out with the flu, but I've finally managed to get an action shot of a felt hat that I made for Freja. A crown for the princess-obsessed one:



I also made another needle-felted pouch. Needle-felting is so much fun, I've just ordered a load more roving so will hopefully have some more projects to share soon.



I need to get cracking on a few things for Christmas presents which I won't be able to post until after Santa's been (sorry Mum, no use trying to get a sneak preview here!) and of course, I need to come up with some little pressies for our Jack Horner Pie.

Felt and Stitch Projects - part 2

And some more things from the workshop:

A needle-felted pouch.


A "Jack Horner Pie". The idea with this is that you serve it up on Christmas Eve and inside is one little present for everyone. I thought this would be a nice family tradition to start, particularly for the years when we're doing Christmas British style, not Swedish.

Felt and Stitch Projects - part 1

The 4-week Betz White online workshop I've been doing is over today so at last I can share some pictures of the things I've been making.

Some Christmas trees, the big one still needs to be decorated.

An angel, although I'm thinking about making it into a fairy by making it a little crown and wand.

A poinsettia brooch.

A poinsettia brooch made from felted sweaters.

Another poinsettia (these are fun to make, can you tell?).

Going batty.

I've volunteered to host a Halloween party for one of our playgroups but at the moment, apart from our 5 little pumpkins collected out and about, we have hardly any decorations. I could go out and buy a whole load of plastic rubbish that we stick up once and throw away, but I thought it would a lot nicer to try and make some decorations that we could use year after year. The kids coming will be mostly aged 3 and under so I don't want anything too scary, I think I'll mainly stick to cut-out shapes like pumpkins, ghosts, owls, cats.

These bats are the result of my first attempt. I just cut out the shape from felt and used my new glue gun to stick them onto a clothes peg. The peg works well to hold the body part rigid and makes it easy to attach the bats around the house. It was pure fluke that the felt I had was just bigger than the clothespegs so none of the peg shows when they're up (I considered painting them but decided they didn't need it). The felt is cheap non-wool craft felt with purple sparkly bits running through it. I'm quite pleased with them, might have to go and find some more cheap felt in Halloween colours, I'm saving my nice wool stuff for the Betz White workshop which starts next week.