Desert flowers

I wanted to create a nice soft felted bed for the desert flowers. This is some wool roving, which I combed to make it loose.

I fastened it with a few straight stitches. The roving secured with a pin were supposed to stay there and support future plants.

Next I stitched lazy daisies. The straight stitches I made before are in the centres of the lazy daisies.

What happened to the wool roving meant as a bed???? It completely disappeared. So I decided te remove the roving held with the pin.

Red flower beads with a yellow/brown bead in the centre.

This is how the desert looks right now.

drizzle cacti

With a variegated perlé I stitched drizzle cacti. A normal drizzle stitch and a little red bead on top of it, just before  pulling the needle through the cast ons. How a drizzle stitch is done, can be found here.

  

Here is a bunch of drizzle cacti. Planted safely behind a rock.

Desert pebble vegetation continued.

This is where I was. The grass was much too high, so I cut it back.

The wrinkles will get a treatment below.

With a needle I pull the fabric up where I want excess fabric/wrinkle.

The wrinkles are sewed down in the folds with a little straight stitch.

French knots in different sizes fasten the wrinkles and hide the sewing stitches.

I also added a little rock (about 7 mm). This rock is glued on a threaded piece of plastic.

Needle felted cactus: tutorial part II

I thought it would be a good idea to provide a needle felted cactus with a skeleton.

I used the same method as in part I, only I felted around a green wire.

Attached the arms....

twisted the wires and added a plastic bead to keep everything together...

and felted around the bead.

The weak point is that the cactus can be pulled easily from his skeleton.

Better is to use bent wire, like this

Then you can felt between the wires so they get fixed.

Here it is, not attached yet. The wires can be pulled through the fabric and fastened on the back, just like stumpwork pieces.

I might decide I will not detach it at all, because it seems much too big. It is about 4 to 5 cm high.

May block CQJP: finished

The chain stitch branches are finished.

In the centre of the triangle is a french knot (two wraps), stitched with gold Kreinik I showed in the previous post.

I sprinkled some lilac flower beads along the branches and fastened them with a golden french knot in the centre.

The finished May block.

The tatted triangle

Because the tatted triangle continues on the block below, I sewed the two blocks together first.

Next I fastened the lower right corner of the triangle.

My first thought was: "What a dull triangle in comparison to the rest of the block, shall I rip it off? How can I make it fit into the block? "

I decided to give it a chance.

The six "circles" (or petals) in the centre are not exactly round, I mean not round at all.

The three shapes at the corners aren't regular either.

To camouflage this I stitched circles in stem stitch along the tatted circles. The circles are certainly not even in width, but the difference is small. Anyway, it looks better. The thread I used has a color that comes back in the block just below the triangle which makes the triangle integrate more with the blocks.

I also stitched stem stitches along the three corners and the three curves between them. I used Kreinik very fine braid #4. This is absolutely my favorite metallic thread. It is strong and isn't damaged easily, though you must not cut your thread too long.

In the centre I sewed on tiny glass beads.

I also started with branches in chain stitch. They stretch out from the triangle to the adjacent patches.

Left is the thread I used for the centre circles. It is 100% rayon. It has a beautiful sheen and a high twist. That means it is hard to stitch with. After every stitch you have to let your needle hang free so it can spin back.

On the right are the Kreinik threads, what a lustre ;)

Needle felted cactus: tutorial part I

Browsing the internet for needle felting I came accross this tutorial.

As I want cacti in my desert, I followed the clear step-by-step tutorial and ended with two felted cilinders.

I didn't know how to attach the smaller one to the bigger one, so I tried something.

And guess what? The "arm" got secured to the "body".

The cactus in the desert. I didn't attach it to the pebble yet, it is too vulnerable.

Here I made a smaller one. A cilinder cut in two pieces.

Cute little cactus.