Tag: felt

Crochet Felt Hat Beanie Winter Collection

Hello everyone, allow me to introduce  my new winter hat beanie collection… a combination of crochet, felted crochet & wet felting… all made from 100% wool, with assorted cotton & acrylic yarns, glass & wooden bead embellishments.

The collection came about while I was incapacitated some weeks back with a back injury & given strict instructions to take it easy… hmmm… Well, that’s always easier said than done….

So, what to do? I couldn’t just sit around feeling sorry for myself…. a poke around in my stash, I found a whole bag full of feltable yarns purchased some time ago &, as usually happens, completely forgotten about… so, with a collection of favourite DVD’s, I set to work crocheting the hat beanie crowns that I later felted in the washing machine (no strain, no pain)…& they came up a treat… from there I slowly added the crochet bands & embellishments… time well spent, time not wasted & Yes… I did take it easy…. Enjoy!

Over the coming days  these hat beanies will be available for sale on Etsy.

2012 Alice Springs Beanie Festival update…

Yesterday, the Postie delivered a rather large package from Alice Springs… Oh… I thought, both pieces have come back but, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the felted beanie had sold, Yay!!

& for my efforts I received this delightful trophy… my hat off to the creator/s of this unique trophy, a work of art in itself… & a gorgeous bundle of rovings & Certificate from Ashford Australia

Thank you to everyone involved……

My 2012 Alice Springs Beanie Festival Entries…

Life has been rather hectic these past few weeks so I’m a bit late posting about my entries for the 2012 Alice Springs Beanie Festival – This year I decided to do something different & made a felted beanie & a tea cosy, packaged & shipped to Alice Springs,  all in good time, with the intention of posting a little write up but somehow never getting around to it…

Well, this morning, when I checked out to see how the festival was going, to my utter surprise & delight I found that my Fossils & Limestone felted beanie entry has won the ‘Ashfords Prize for the Best Hand-felted Beanie’…. Wow.. I wasn’t expecting that…

Thank you to all the judges & festival organisers…

& congratulations to all the winners & special mentioned in each category – here’s a link to the results, hopefully there will be photos soon

Technique: felted crochet beanie, hand wet felted & needle felted embellishments, freeform crochet motifs

The Freeform Tea Cosy for Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Fun-filled Felting Day…

I had my camera ready to take photos throughout the day but I must have been over-excited, having far too much fun & completely forgot... Thankfully, the lovely Bev, had her wits about her & managed to take a few snaps... so, I've put together this little collage of the day.

This particular felting day had been planned last year, but one thing or another kept getting in the way… So, it’s been a long time coming but we finally settled on a date. On Monday morning, 5 enthusiastic ladies turned up at our usual crocheting corner (my back yarn) to find it transformed into a felting playground. The weather was perfect & we were all itching to get started…

The planned program was to be a busy one – make a small jewellery pouch, some flowers, beads & a felted rock – it’s quite an ask when you’ve never felted before but everyone lathered up, sloshed about & massaged their way to successfully produce their felted treasures. Of course, there were also some felting mishaps that needed some creative adjustments (a good sense of humour is always a requirement when undertaking these new adventures & we had that in spades), all in all,  it was a fabulous, fun day where we all learnt a lot… I certainly did…. Thank you, ladies…. It was a wonderful way to start the week…

Alice Springs Beanie Festival 2011

My goodness… the Alice Springs Beanie Festival came around quickly this year – with not enough hours in the day & other commitments I selected not to enter this time but once I saw the categories…. celebrating the Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire & Water… I thought, ‘What the heck…’ changed my mind & decided to have a go….

With very little time in hand I set to work – the crowns for both beanies were crocheted, machine felted &  then hand-dyed – next I crocheted the bands to the crowns.

They looked very plain & ordinary at this stage – what to do??

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Flame: off to the kitchen & Nuno felted some freeform patches using bright, fiery wool & silk rovings which I attached to the band & then set to beading the crown. Yes, you guessed it, this took ages but I’m super pleased with how it turned out….

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Landscape Exposed: I made a freeform crochet coronet which was attached to the band & I then needle felted the crown using only silk rovings – still not satisfied… I decided to attach some felted dread lock tassels… yep, that did the trick.

So, there you go… my 2 entries for the 2011 Alice Springs Beanie Festival – Good luck to all the entrants & my sincere thanks to the organisers, for all their hard work putting together this fabulous event – may 2011 be a huge success for all who participate.