ReePin Crafts

Spring is Springing!

I’m sorry I’ve been away for a bit. Life like Spring has been Life-ing shall we say. Still, I’m still here to tell the tell and jump like a spring lamb into one of my favourite seasons. I just love Spring, the air even smells different this time of year. My seeds are starting to erupt from the soil I have carefully planted them into and the buds on my tree in my garden are creating beautiful shapes all over my tree which will eventually become leaves.

Although absent from my blog I have been busy making and although not totally finishing everything, I have made a good headway with a lot of the projects that I have started in the last couple of months. As you may have read in one of my previous blogs ‘Crafting is my SuperPower’ my mind jumps around like corn emerging as popcorn. It moves all over the place and keeping myself down to one task or indeed one project would be virtually impossible, but it certainly makes things interesting especially for my husband who always seems to be moving one of my projects out of the way. 

So – what have I been up to?

Washing and learning to comb Blue Faced Leicester Wool (BFL)

So far I have washed some Blue Faced Leicester Locks and have been learning to comb them which tbh is a little difficult still progress is being made, but slowly. 

Knitting a Waistcoat

In February I went to a smallish craft show at Sandown Racecourse in Esher with my Mum and brought some wool. With the wool I have been knitting a waistcoat and I am on the last side. I’ll show you in next months blog hopefully fully finished fingers crossed.

Spinning Wool and Making Fingerless Gloves 

For my daughters 18th Birthday she said she would like some fingerless gloves like I had made for myself. So I asked her to choose the wool colour she wanted out of the stock I have and I spun it up chunky once plied as she said she wanted them like that and knitted them together. I’m not a great knitter but I do enjoy it so I’m really happy with the result and after giving them to her on her birthday she was delighted with them too 🙂

Working on the Allotment

Of course owning an allotment is a very time consuming hobby and due to health over the winter I had covered the beds and left it to rest and recuperate after the summer. This year I have decided to grow a dye garden to dye my wool and fabric. I have wanted to grow one for many years but haven’t managed to do it so having the allotment now gives me ample space in which to do this. Very exciting and I’ll keep you updated on it’s progress.

Making a Silk Storage Box with my Quilting Group

At our local quilting group which I shared about in ‘Finding Your People’ we were asked if we wanted to make a Silk storage box. I had no idea what it was but thought “yep count me in”. 

We were all given some  mulberry silk carrier rods which are peculiar looking things. They are a waste product from the Silk Spinning Industry. I already had brought some years ago for my crafting because I thought they looked like birch trees. We had to after wetting them carefully peel them apart, after which you can re-wet the paper and then iron the individual pieces flat which in turn activates the sericin bonding to show the rectangle fibrous silk papers. Some of them still had the silk moth imprints on them, they were beautiful and all very different. I thought this is like no other storage box I’ve made so I was certainly intrigued.

Next came the dyeing part, (unfortunately I didn’t take photos at each stage which I am sorry for but you’ll see what I’ve done with the next set of photos). I wanted mine to be on a theme of green. So we all turned up wearing aprons and got to dyeing the individual silk papers. They really took the dye well and were a lot more vibrant then I thought they would be. The week before we had had the opportunity to delve into Liz’s stash. Liz has been sewing for many years and loves texture and colours as I do so I was able to find some lovely green silk coloured fabrics which I thought would go well with the piece. 

The next week we made handmade beads with wallpaper! Yes that’s right you heard it here first… Honestly though they were easy to make and looked very effective. I cut 5 pieces of textured wallpaper, painted them lightly and proceeded to cut them into differing sized triangles about 1/2” (12mm) – 1 1/2” (30mm) wide x 8” (200mm) long. With PVA glue and a small diameter knitting needle we carefully wound these pieces of wallpaper up until the pointy bit rested neatly on the top – I loved it and intend to make some more at a later date. We also painted our pieces of Dowling rods which our pieces were going to nestle into like a little house on stilts. 

Each of our dyed pieces of silk paper were then to be sewn onto a 6” x 6” (150mm) piece of felt. My silk box had 4 sides so 2 pieces of felt per side and 2 for the bottom, the felt was black so really enabled the individual pieces to stand out. A lot of my friends have sewn their silk papers on with a sewing machine I decided to sew everything by hand, this gave me the freedom to do it whilst watching TV and also when visiting a sick friend for our crafting afternoons. I am so very pleased with the randomness I have managed to create. Different textures, colours and techniques were used with each of the four sides as you can see here. It has a real organic feel about it.

After sewing and couching on the threads, silk material, homemade beads, tiny beads and other adornments it was time to hand the sew box together. Each square had another 6” x 6” (150mm) piece of felt on the back to cover the stitches which neatened everything up and produced a dark background.

After talking with Liz I decided like she did to blanket stitch all of  my squares to the bottom piece. This was a little tricky as when I was being random and free shall we say with my sewing I didn’t necessarily think of how I was going to sew it all together. Still, I lifted up pieces of silk and managed to get all of the stitches under everything so as not to disturb or indeed stitch through all of my hard work. It was starting to come together and look like a box, all handmade and sewn by myself. I have to say I was excited to see the end result after so many weeks of trying these new to me techniques.

After sewing all the sides together with blanket stitch on the bottom I then had to sew all the other sides together to create the  box. This was easier said then done as I had made my silk box with very textured bits of material which kept being caught with each stitch anyway I eventually got there by teasing out the tassels and ends of fabric. 🙂

With just one of the sides I decided to use some silk that I had spun. I had never spun silk before and really enjoyed it as I used one of my fastest ratio whorls. It was so  strong once spun and I even had enough for my mum so that she can sew with it on her pieces too.

With the other sides I used some textured thread of Liz’s and blanket stitched them all together. My husband then drilled three holes on the 4 pieces of Dowling big enough for my needle to go through to attach to the outside of the box shape I had created. This worked out so well, I have to admit though as I was watching TV at the time and not really paying that much attention that I did sew the second dowling piece of wood at a different height to the first (oops) which would of made a very wonky box – still I eventually noticed and took it off and measured it. 

Goodness I can’t tell you how proud I was to finally finish my little silk box on legs! We had tried so many new techniques and really got together as a group to discuss what each of us were going to do and one of the things I love about it is, they are all different. I love the freedom I allowed myself whilst making my box. I tried not to undo anything once I had sewn it as I wanted that randomness. It was so enjoyable and thing that I was really proud of was I actually managed to finish it! YAY!

Not everyone has finished their boxes but I have Liz and Caryl’s to show you which are below. As you can see Liz loves blue, and has made her box by tying her cord round the dowling which has made a different effect from mine. Liz also lined hers with fabric which looks so lovely with the blue material on the outside. I really like all the different stitches and fabrics she used. It makes everything look so interesting.

…and here are the pictures of my friend Caryl’s Silk Box which once again is beautiful and individual. I just love the different colours Caryl has used which all go so well together and the exceptionally neat sewing she has put over the top of the her silk papers and material she has chosen. I also really like the tassel’s that both Liz and Caryl have made.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the last couple of months. If you did then you can subscribe to my blog and get them sent straight to your email. I will not use your email for any other purpose.

You can also check out my YouTube Channel ReePin Crafts where my mum and myself have made some videos on sewing and spinning wool for you to enjoy.

See you again next month…