FALL NEST PILLOW

I just finished making another felted wool nest pillow for my "ring bearer pillow" customer from here.   It's going to be a birthday gift for her mom and is reserved for her in my etsy shop, Gillyflower Cottage.  These colors are completely different from any I've done in the past - so pretty!

Brown for the pillow itself, burnt orange for the flowers, green for the leaves, and green wool roving that will be needle-felted onto the pillow for the branches.

 I cut a variety of sizes for the flowers.  Larger circles make nice full flowers and the smaller circles look like little buds.

 Just cut the circles into spirals.

These are the same size circles - just cut differently.  I only circled around about three times on the left circle, and about 6 times on the right circle.  Fewer times around gives you a much looser flower.

 Here's the flower from the left cut circle.

 And, here's the flower from the right.

To finish off the flowers, put a little pile of hot glue on the bottom of the flower.

Then put the bottom of the flower onto the glue and let it dry.

 Then I took the green roving, my needle-felting tool, and the background fabric.  I felted in some random "branches".

 You might want to try several arrangements with the flowers and some leaves - remembering to leave room for the nest and bird somewhere in the design.

 Love the texture in these pillows!

 For the nest, I used some 2" strips of burlap.  I ironed the edges in, then folded them to the inside and ironed it one more time.  

 Then wind it up loosely so there's room for the eggs.

The eggs are made by rolling a little roving into a ball and needle-felting it into a nice little egg shape.  Just keep punching away and eventually it will be a solid egg!

Tomorrow . . . I'll finish it up and take more pictures!

300 FOLLOWERS AND A WINNER!

Hello!  I just got home after being gone all day, checked my blog, and

VOILA!

I have hit the 300 follower mark, and that means it's time to draw a name for my burlap pillow giveaway.  So, I went to random.org and put in my numbers.  The winner is . . .

Di from North Carolina!

Congratulations Di!  As soon as we communicate and I can get your mailing address, your pillow (along with your lavender sachet) will be on its way to you!  Enjoy!  Also, thank you, thank you, to everyone who started following during the giveaway!  I hope you will continue to visit.
Now, on to 400 followers! 
When I hit that milestone I'll be giving away one of my original paintings.

That will be a while, so more on that later!

Fabric Transfer with Citrasolv

Lots of words in this post.  Bear with me.  It's worth it.

I've been looking for a way to transfer a design from paper to fabric.  There are the iron-on transfer papers, but they leave a plastic-like residue on the fabric.  I really don't like that.  Stencils are a good way to get a design onto fabric and they're fine, but you're pretty limited to larger shapes and letters, plus they're expensive to buy and difficult to cut yourself.  

You see, I wanted to try to make my own "french laundry bag" looking fabric.  The Graphics Fairy has so many great designs and old ads and I wanted to put those onto fabric . . . and then use the fabric for pillows, towels, or fabric buckets.

So.

 I read about using Citrasolv to accomplish this.  It says you need to use copies that have been made on a toner based copy machine - not your typical home printer.   I went to Kinkos and asked.  Yes, all their printers are toner based.  So I pulled some art off the Graphics Fairy, and then combined them with some ideas of my own and printed them.  (Remember to print any letters, words, and numbers in the mirror image or you won't be able to read anything you transfer!)

Then, off to Kinkos with my copies.  

Next, to find Citrasolv (it's NOT readily available but I found some at our local health food store).  The large bottle was about $10.00.  It is very concentrated but you use it full strength for this project.  I figure what I don't use for transfer projects, I can use for cleaning!   

  

So I got started.  I folded a towel in half on the bathroom counter.  They say you need a padded surface under the fabric and paper so there's some "give".  On top of the towel I placed my 100% prewashed cotton fabric.   On top of THAT, I placed my printed paper design from Kinkos, face down.  Then use masking tape to hold it in place so your design transfers neatly without moving around.

Use a rag or cotton ball, dip it into a little bowl of Citrasolv, and wet the paper surface.  You'll see the design through the paper right away.  Don't douse it, just get it wet.  I let mine sit for about 3 minutes to let the Citrasolv really soak the paper and loosen that ink.  Then start to burnish the design using a big spoon.  It works best if you use the edge of the bowl of the spoon.  Just keep rubbing all over on the design, pressing hard, and pretty soon you'll be able to see that the paper is getting a little blurry.  That means the ink is coming off the paper and going onto the fabric.  That's good!  Be patient.  It takes a couple minutes.  Once the design has transferred (you can peek, but be careful you don't move the paper in case you need to burnish some more), you're supposed to set the ink on the fabric by ironing it, wash the fabric to get out the Citrasolv (it's kind of orangy colored), and iron it again.

Ta! Da!  You're done!
 I didn't really think it would work, because after quite a bit of rubbing nothing was happening.  But, again, be patient, because all of a sudden it starts to transfer.

I combined a few things for my pillow design.  I used a Paris postmark from the 1830s (The Graphics Fairy), and then added the house number, 601.  It makes a nice "thank you pillow" for Jan and Bob in McKinney - since that's their address!

The postmark part of the transfer.

And the house number.

Now you have a really neat little pillow that could very well be made from some old, antique, french laundry bag that you bought on your last visit to Paris for $129 from that pretty little antique store around the corner from your hotel after you enjoyed your cafe au lait and baguette with peach jam. 

Or.

It could be your very own imitation of the same.  

No one needs to know!



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