Felting, first attempt

Back in June I brought off Etsy a cute kitty felting kit from seller 1127handcrafter titled 'cute sweet cats.' I'd never done any felting before and figured a starter kit was a good idea. I also brought a couple of needles and a felting mat (glorified name for a rectangle of foam stuff). Everything I needed to get started.

It sat and gathered dust until the other day when in grabbed the Magazine  'Made in Felt' on a whim at a local newsagent. Felting is so cute and versatile. All the interesting creations reminded me that the kit was just sitting around waiting to be started.

Now it's no secret if you check out 1127handcrafter's shop that the instructions for the kit did not originally start out in English (I wouldn’t be surprised if google translate played it's part in the English version). I knew this when I brought it but for a beginner I probably should have began with something just a little less intricate and with very dumbed down instructions. In saying that I still think my finished kitty is cute...just not really as much so as the one shown on the kit front.

Details of the kit:
The description on the site "Needle Felting Use Wool Felt to make Sweet Cute Cat : English Material Kit can make 2 (English / For Beginner)"

And in the kit: wool sufficient for two cats and two individual paws in grey, orange/yellow, chestnut, light pink, white and black.  6mm black eyes x2 sets and a pink&white woollen thread to make a ball.

I decided to make the grey tiger cat (possibly subconsciously as my cat's grey?) the kit says my finished product should be 8.5cm.

First I did his body, I knew almost from the get-go that it was too big but with a lot of stabbing the wool (fairly aggressive yet therapeutic) made it firm enough that it was close enough to the right size to be acceptable. Then the head. After I finished (kind sorta good enough finished) the head I went to grab a glass of wine, came back and the body was missing. The cats had helpfully carried it off. Luckily it had only gone as far as the front window were it'd been abandoned almost entirely free of mauling.

At one point his head rolled off the couch and under a low table. I batted it out with some random pipe left over from a DIY project. Cats wanted to help but were successfully warded off. I broke one of my needles half way through but the other one carried on to the end.  I kept working at it until I was so tired my eyes were burning. I really should have packed it in a bit earlier as I think the quality suffered some for being worked on while exhausted. So off to bed I went with only his nose, mouth and fluffy ball to finish.

His arms and legs were a bit long and positioned oddly but I really like his tail as it looks a bit like my Fenn's tail.

I picked it up after work the next day. Turns out between the night before and this night the left over black wool seems to have grown legs and wandered off... not to point fingers or anything but I blame the cats. I'm not sure if I want it back as I anticipate significant cat slobber. I only really needed it for a bit of black wool around his eyes so it's only a minor hiccup in the scheme of things.

It took several tries to do his mouth and nose, even at the end I wasn’t too happy but I couldn't see it improving with more attempts so left it as is.

Next... you'd think I'd know better but nope left the little guy on the couch to get my (now overcooked) dinner off the stove. Came back and Fenn kitty was in the process of going in for the kill. Fortunately immediate intervention prevented any more damage than a bit of slobber and a single nibble.

 And here's the finished product; 

My City in Photos (2)

Oregano Pot-Pourri Sachet

It is DONE.

I swear this piece is/was cursed. I can see some little old lady witch dancing naked in the moonlight with this kit on her alter cursing it before gifting it to her rival all the while cackling internally. (Yes I know witches aren't really like that but I love the imagery) Almost anything that could go wrong with this piece did. Even blogging about it is torture! It's freaking tiny so I was NOT going let it win. 

Fun issues encountered while cross stitching;

1) I spilt coffee on it... twice. Fortunately a bit of diluted bleach and a cotton bud fixed it up nicely.

2) I miss counted the stem - realised too late to really fix so just worked around that one.

3) I had to frog the bottom left hand leaf THREE times! It has something like 40 stitches. 40 stitch in almost a square. I swore at it so so much when I did this and threw it in the bottom of a bag. It took months before I was willing to look at it again.

4) left it folded in the same place for too long and now have a probably permanent fold line straight through the middle and along one edge. Ironing got rid or a lot of the crease but it's still visible at the edges.

5) missed a few random stitches and had to come back to them - not a great mistake but annoying none the less.

6) I had to unpick the pink border twice. Got three quarters of the way around and realised the stitching wasn't going to meet. Had missed one stitch in the upper right corner. Unpick, try again. Missed a stitch in the lower right corner... third try was the charm.

I also decided to stitch the pink border all around in half stitches then go around again for the full cross stitch; This didn't really work the way I'd hoped due to the fact the whole border wasn't made up of full cross stitches. On the first round I did all the half stitches so when stitching the other way around at every half stitch point you see on the front at the back I've had to stretch the thread over two or three lines. Not optimal stitching and the back is a mess. If I'd left the half stitches to the second go round it would have worked significantly better. Hindsight.

The only bit that went right was the word 'oregano' which turned out quite nice.

Further issues encountered while trying to turn it into a sachet;

1) I hadn't really intended to turn it into a sachet in the beginning so I did the stitching as per usual, starting from the middle of the aida. Turns out that if you want enough aida for the sachet you needed to start from the corner around 2.5cm from the edge. Found this out after I spent several good minutes fiddling with the finished cross stitch trying to work out how turn is into a sachet before giving up and reading the instructions. Another lesson in reading ALL the instructions before starting.

2) could not find the right aida to use for the other half of the sachet. I needed 14 count aida to finish the stitching up as a sachet. I have plenty of random bits of 18 count adia, 14 count aida...in cream, black aida and various evenweave fabrics. No 14 count. I had to buy some especially for this... I'm sure I had some, I guess now I have more.

3) decided to hand stitch it... I hate hand stitching so I really have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. I feel like I stitch like a deranged 2year old. The inside is really rough, though it does mostly look okay on the outside.

The measurements of this little cursed piece is something like 10cm x 15cm for the whole sachet and 9.5cm x 11cm for the design.

I have two other similar kits to do... I don't think I'll be picking them up any-time soon. Also I'd take better photos in the daylight BUT it's done and I'm done. I really have nothing left for this piece. I'll put some pot-pourri in it and throw it in a draw and that will be that.

Yarn Corner @ Melbourne Town Hall

Not particularly inspired photos but here's some city colour from Yarn Corner.

Including some particularly inspired face by Annette Fitton (the tag on the faces says 'Annette Fitton. Guerilla knitting, crochet and design. Nini & Wink.'

My City in Photos (1)