Fabric Pom-Poms

Pom-pom making

Today I have been making fabric pom-poms with the No Borders art group (the guys are from Carlton Day Service and the group is run by Prism Arts.) Over the past few weeks we have done some weaving and some tie-dye. I thought something a bit more sculptural might be fun so that's what we did!

The pom-pom I made as an example

Pom pom detail

Pom-pom making using fabric

Using wool and fabric

Fabric and lace, all in warm colours

The guys really enjoyed the pom-pom making; I've never known them be so quiet! Everyone was deep in concentration and did really well, I think these pom-poms are going to look great when they're finished.

Tie-dye from last week

Tie-dye

Weaving

Weaving

Flock

Heathlands Flock

Woo, it feels like a very long time since I've been here writing my little posts. Pre Christmas was a bit hectic, to put it mildly, but I've been getting together my to-do lists and getting myself organised and focused again now that the madness is more or less over for another year. I made quite a lot of presents this year and it was really lovely at Christmas to hear people say how pleased they were with their handmade gifts. It cheered me up after the make-athon that was December and I have vowed (probably foolishly) to try and make even more presents next year.

Anyway, the main point of this post was to show you some pictures of pom-pom sheep. Inspired by Anthony Gormley's 'Flock' Eden Arts have been running a project to get as many people as possible to make pom-pom sheep using wool yarn as a way of promoting wool, specifically British wool. I believe this is a Good Thing and so got my textiles group at Heathlands to make some. Today I posted them off to join the bigger flock. Check out Eden Arts website for more details (just search Eden arts.)

Flock

Happy Sheep

Scary Sheep

Pom-Pom-a-licious Scarf

New season, new scarf!

I sorted out my fabric stash last week as it was in serious danger of taking over not only the spare room but the entire house. Whilst sorting I came across a long piece of purple embroidered crinkle cotton. I was puzzled by this discovery, why would I have cut a long strip of fabric? I then remembered that I'd used it previously as a cravat type thing when I was the Mad Hatter. So, I wrapped it around my neck as I was running out of space to create new piles of fabric when it struck me that it would make an excellent autumn scarf. I had a rummage through my trims box and found some pom-pom trim and an idea began to form. I didn't have enough pom-pom trim so I put it on my shopping list. Anyway, today I went to get said trim, there was no purple but they did have shocking pink and I decided that this would work very nicely so I purchased 5m and headed home to commence makeage.

In progress

I'm very pleased with the outcome, the colours work well together to create a bright fun accessory and it's the perfect weight for this time of year. There's a definite chill in the air which I love as it means it's getting close to hat, scarf and gloves season. If you would like to make a similar scarf, the instructions are up on Burdastyle (http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/pom-pom-a-licious)

Detail

Well wrapped

More draped