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YouTube – Knit animation – Chameleon florals
An amazing unique animation. Mesmerizing.
YouTube – The Last Knit
This is brilliant. Hilarious! A knitting obsession gone a bit wrong.
Bespoke Knitting – Felted Mushroom Bag with Matching Purse
So here are some pictures of my latest knitting commission. This bucket style felted bag has been hand-kintted with Twilleys Freedom wool, as has the cute 3D mushroom on the front. There is one inside pocket and one smaller pocket on the side. It has been finished with three purple buttons.
The mushroom felted purse has been made with Wash+Filz-it fine felting wool. There is a main section for notes, coins and receipts, lined with green and purple pocka dot cotton. On the opposite side there is a small pocket for cards, and underneath that there is a snap fastener to attach a mobile phone pouch.
I also threw in a crochet flower brooch. Which has been made with the gorgeous Debbie Bliss Luxury Aran Tweed.
Stripy Felted Autumnal Bag
Here is one of my recent felted bag creations. The bag’s colours are inspired by autumn, as are the buttons I’ve selected for the front. By the way if you’re as in to buttons as I am, check out The Button Company. They have a beautiful collection of buttons available.
This hand-knitted bag has been made with an Icelandic wool (purchased at an old wool mill in St Davids in Wales). Icelandic wools tend to be particularly good for felting. The bag has been hand sewn then wet felted in the washing machine lightly, so that some of the stitches are still slightly visible. The bag is finished with dark wooden square handles.
The finished bag is very textural and has a fluffy mohair effect, without actually using any mohair yarn.
This bag is now available on my Folksy shop.
This bag has been recommended by luulla on Twitter.
iPod and Headphones Pouches
Here’s a couple of my recent designs – solving that problem of loosing your headphones at the bottom of your bag. These little iPod pouches have a handy pocket on the front to keep your headphones tidy, untangled and easily accessible. I’ve hand-knitted them using a luscious Debbie Bliss wool and they are embellished with vintage buttons.
Now available on my Folksy shop.
Bespoke Knitting
Making to order, bespoke knitted and felted creations is fantastic.
I’ve recently had an order for a knitted and felted bag, matching purse and phone cosy for a friend’s Valentine present for his other half. I went straight into designing only hours later and couldn’t wait to get knitting. I haven’t done a purse before though and it needs to have lots of compartments so that will be a definite challenge, but the challenge is a big part of the joy of designing your own knitting patterns.
I love the process of liaising on colour, style and embellishments and it’s great when you have the option to be creative and still have some freedom on how the finished product will look.
My only worry is it happens to be something I’d really like myself and I’m sure I’ll want to keep it. That’s not going to happen though.
Right back to it. I’ll post a picture when I’m done.
Handmade gifts
How fantastic does it feel to get a handmade gift. One that stuck out for me is a handmade card that I received from a very dear friend when I passed my driving test. I’ll treasure it for ever.
I went all out this Christmas knitting unique gifts for most of my family and friends. Although it pretty much dominated most of November and December it was worth it. I’m going to endeavour to continue to make handmade gifts for all occasions this year. 2011 the year of handmade gifts! Who wants boring mass produced unoriginal presents anyway.
With Valentines Day coming up looks like I’ll have to come up with a romantic yarn fuelled creation.
If you’re looking for a handmade gift why not check out my Folksy shop here. New items coming very soon.
Photographing your work
From studying art from school through to degree level the importance of photographing your work has always been drilled into me. Photographing paintings, drawings and sculptures seems to be a lot easier than capturing my knitted creations.
This is an important challenge to master, as a big factor in whether you sell anything, is how good the photograph is. Obviously what you make has to be good, but then you have to present it in a professional, interesting and aesthetic way. I’m still new to Folksy, with only two items for sale at the moment and a number of items waiting to be photographed and listed.
I had been photographing a lot of work outside with nature as the backdrop. It has kind of worked, but I’m still not happy with the pictures and obviously with the winter here it is a lot harder to photograph work outside.
I plan to spend a lot of time trying to improve my photography, brushing up on my lighting skills and getting my very helpful Dad to make me a display box to use for photographing my creations in.
All aboard the Folksy train
I’ve entered the realms of opening a Folksy shop.
Folksy is an online platform and crafty community for those that want to buy and sell arts and crafty handmade delights.
Opening a shop is easy. All you need is a Premier Paypal account and stuff to sell obviously. Once you’ve got a shop adding items to sell is also an easy process. Although I’m sure I’ve got lots to learn about how best to present your wares. There’s some beautiful stuff on there so you need to stand out, offer something unique and tell the story behind what you’ve been making.
Folksy provides a brilliant facility for showcasing your work and a place to try and turn your crafty habits into a business.
I know it’s not going to be easy to sell stuff on there. I’m still developing my knitting craft. But you’ve got to start somewhere, so here I am.
Check out my Folsky store here. New items coming soon.