Easy Felted Accessories: 25 Projects for Stitched and Felted Accessories

Description

Teresa Searle demonstrates her unique method of combining felted knitting with applique and embroidery to produce a wide range of richly coloured accessories for children and adults. Projects include hats, mittens, slippers and scarves for adults and children, as well as jewellery such as brooches, hair clips and corsages. Felted knitting also presents opportunities for recycling that favourite sweater that has shrunk in the wash. Felted knitting can be made by placing pure wool knitting in a long wash in the washing machine. This produces a shrunk fabric with the feel and look of felt, but the flexibility of knit. It can be cut without fear of fraying, making it ideal for applique and embroidery projects.

Teresa Searle developed her technique while studying textiles at college. Her inspiration comes from many sources, including folk art, gardens and travel. She exhibits her work widely in Europe and North America, and lives in Bristol in the west of England.

New Stitches:You cannot have failed to notice the rise in popularity of felting recently. The question is, what to do with it once you have made it! This new book will answer this perfectly with 25 projects that are all decorated with stitch. If you do not want to make the felt yourself, you can easily use ready-made felt.The projects are varied with a mix of ideas for children and adults alike and use free stitchery and machine embroidery as well as added decoration such as beads and buttons. You can adapt the technique to suit your taste, using hand embroidery instead of machine and vice versa, or change colours and shades of thread and fabric. For adults, choose from a selection of hats, bags, scarves and other accessories. There are seven projects perfect for children including bunny slippers, blanket and a funky backpack.The book includes basic stitch instructions and advice for making knitted felt from scratch. Every project is illustrated with step-by-step photographs from the initial stage right through to making up. This is an inspirational book that is bound to be a starting point to your own ideas and projects using this most versatile of fabrics.Merseyside Embroiderers Guild:Theresa Searle has produced a lively book full of illustrations of colourful projects made from felted knitting. This is a very comfortable fabric for both wearing and as a basis for embellishment as it does not fray. It is easy to stitch into and can be cut to any desired shape for applique without losing its character. This is an excellent way to re-use the cherished sweater which felted in the wash, or could provide an excuse for trawling the Charity shops or Jumble sales. The projects range from bags to scarves to hairbands and includes a section for children which would interest any child who loves to sew. My adult daughter asked me to make her the bunny slippers! Ideas for stitching are simple enough for beginners to tackle. Sewing World:Take up the latest felting craze and combine it with some decorative stitching for a great range of accessories for adults and children. 25 colourful projects are included for stylish and cosy designs ranging from hats, slippers, scarves and bags to jewellery and corsages. Teresa explains how to felt hand and machine knitted pieces or recycle old sweaters to create a soft fabric that doesn't fray. Once the fabric is created she then shows how to embellish it using hand and machine embroidery and applique techniques. There are some lovely shapes and textures including a 'bubble' scraf and bag, a shaggy scarf made with strips of felt, plus 3D roses ideal for making brooches, hair accessories or chokers. Patterns and templates are provided for all the projects and the instructions are illustrated with plenty of close-up colour photos.Stitch:Felt is such a user-friendly fabric as it cuts so easily and it never frays - but many designs that use felt can look very basic. Using felted knitting as a base, Teresa Searle exploits the attributes of felt, and the 25 vibrant hand and machine embroidered accessory designs have a zingy appeal. The designs include a spectacles case, a lovely lavender needlecase, a tote bag with applied flowers, an interesting freeform scarf and a bubble scarf and bag. All of the designs are explained very clearly with full-colour photographs and would be great fun to make.Fabrications:Felting is enjoying a great deal of current interest, and not surprisingly as it is a way of using fabric in an original and colour-luscious way. This book concentrates on felted knitting, which is comfortable to wear and the structure is easy to work as it does not fray. It's also very trendy and 'in' as it is green - old jumpers etc. may be recycled to beautiful effect. The book is both instructional and inspirational, the photographs are excellent and tempt you to want to have a go. What's also nice is that the items are very useful and giveable as gifts, such as trendy hats and bags but we're not too sure about the mittens! 25 projects in total with clear instructions and good photography.SlipKnot:Not simply felt but felted knitting, embellished with hand and machine embroidery. If you don't like sewing and you don't like a 'folklorique' style, or what the author calls a 'naive homespun look', then I doubt you will enjoy this book as much as I did. In its 128 pages, with a soft cover, there are colourful photographs of the steps in making and embellishing 25 'cut and sew' projects: hats, mittens, slippers and scarves for adults and children, plus jewellery ideas. There are also templates for cutting the felt shapes. I particularly liked the idea of using the welt of a felted sweater to form the cuffs of a pair of mittens. Manipulating machine stitching to produce 'bubbles' in the fabric is another interesting idea. The illustrations show that an overlocker machine (serger) has been used, but of course the advantage of felt is that raw edges need minimal finishing.Workshop on the Web:Although this is a project book and I don't usually like them very much, Teresa Searle's work is special and there are some good techniques here to try out. The book is based on the felted knitting technique and the knitting can be produced by hand, machine or charity shop. This is clearly explained. The book gives design tips and brief notes on hand and machine applique and embroidery. There are 24 projects: hats, shoes, bags, slippers etc. with the patterns for them, included in the back of the book. Even if you don't want to make one of the projects, there are good ideas in each for using the felted knitting and you could combine ideas for some wonderful art-to-wear. The colours are lovely too and there is a wonderful free-form scarf I can't wait to get my hands on. Machine Knitting:We've all noticed the rise in popularity of felting recently. The question is, what do we do with it once we've made it! This new book has all the answers with 25 projects that are all decorated with stitch. Teresa Searle makes a wide range of accessories for children and adults using felted knitting embellished with applique and embroidery techniques.The projects are varied with a mix of ideas for all ages plus machine embroidery and decoration such as beads and buttons. Every project is illustrated with step-by-step photographs from the initial stage right through to making up. It's an inspirational book that's bound to be a starting point for your own ideas and projects.Journal for Weavers Spinners & Dyers:This is a book of designs for felting projects made from knitted fabric, mostly hats, bags, slippers and scarves, with lots of ideas for decoration using embroidery and applique techniques. The process of felting is clearly explained and the author gives clear advice about choosing a yarn that will felt easily.Hand knitted fabrics can be used for small projects but most require fair-sized pieces and apart from recycling of old wool garments (take care not to choose those which specifically state that they are machine washable!) the only viable option is to use a knitting machine. The requirement for access to a knitting machine together with a sewing machine and overlocker for the applique and embroidery, a washing machine for felting and a photocopier to enlarge the project patterns, does make using this book feel more like an industrial undertaking than a hand craft.However, there is something for everyone in the projects and all would make desirable gifts. The instructions are clearly laid out and there is plenty of scope for using your own design ideas. The free-form scarf is particularly good, made from scraps of felted fabric stitched to a commercial yarn and then knitted. Just allow yourself lots of time if you are considering making this for Christmas.West Country Embroiderers:This book lends a different slant to felting as it mainly features what I would call 'the boiled wool technique.' The author does suggest though that if you are a dedicated knitter you might not want to boil your precious knitting but prefer to raid jumble sales or charity shops for garments to felt. Certainly if like me you labour at knitting you might well take that option. The 25 projects featured are great fun and very colourful. Most are ideal for children to attempt. Each topic's starting point is a piece of felted knitting and is then embellished with beads, wired motifs and embroidery etc. I think it would have been helpful if the title had included the words 'felted knitting' as I didn't realise this applied until I read the book. But this book is great fun and useful if you want to accomplish something bold and unusual.