I always knew I had kept my scraps of felt (from the making of cushions and bags) for a reason. My large bag full of the smaller bits and pieces
and the large stash under the bed was going to come in handy for my next project.
I had just bought myself one of those dieing machines (not one that coloured things , silly , one that cut things out) and was wanting to try it out straight away. It came with one die suitable for thicker fabrics such as felt , and within that die were 2 heart shapes. Ha ha I thought , pity I had missed valentines day , but everyone loves a heart or two any time of the year.
I had just made some felted buntings , you know the triangular pennant type and got a great response from my team mates on Etsy, so thought perhaps a smaller version (those die hearts were small) would do the trick.
Cutting out the hearts was so easy and fun to do , brilliantly taking little scraps of felt and turning them in to little shapes , finding out how many hearts you could get out of what was left of a sweater sleeve is great fun.
But I needed to work out how to string the hearts together in to a garland. I didn't want to machine sew my little beauties in to 1 large string of joined up hearts and I didn't want to have the string showing across the heart either.
The only way to do it in my mind was to thread the heart through 2 layers of them and that's what I did. That way not only can you move the hearts on the string , having the distance between them to what you want , I could also include some of the thinner felts and the fair isle knits in to the garlands too.
Do you have any recycled tricks of your own to share , then please let me know and I'll do my best to share
I've joined Polyvore and started bringing together items that show off my knitted creations well. Don't worry I won't be blatently parading all of these to you via my blog postings , but just thought I would show you what a great tool this is. One or two postings might slip in though as they are so easy and fun to do.
Why don't you join in the fun x 
Hi all
You know I said I had given up full time work a few months back and I was still deciding what I should.
Well one of the things I've always been a little interested in AND would sort of link up to the homely parts of the TheFeminineTouch is "Interior Design". So going back a couple of months, just after I got back from a little holiday I decided to enrol in an on-line Interior Design course. Its a 12 week course , which doesn't in fact mean that I have only 12 weeks to do it in , it only means that I get sent 12 weekly tutorials to read through in my own time. There is a lot to learn , ranging from colour theory to architecture , designing rooms to what standard symbols you use on room plans. There is a whole load of reference material too , which I will find really useful (its a good job they said we didn't need to learn all that off by heart).
I have now completed tutorial 6 , which in theory should mean that I'm half way there.
Humph , not so sure about that.
There are a number of assignments to do too , these are the things that take the time. I have completed 3 1/2 of them (1/2 because I have completed the 1st half of assignment 4 and got it marked before I embarked on the 2nd half).
I have yet to look forward to see how many assignments I have to do as I think that will put me off. They are getting steadily harder and harder.
The 1/2 assignment I completed successfully was to collect samples of wallpaper , fabrics , carpets and pictures of lighting and furniture to make what we call a "mood board".
But it's not just about putting the samples together on the board and having it looking pretty , you also have to have them all labelled neatly , and have these all listed , where you buy the fabrics etc from , how much you will need and it all costed up properly.
and what did my tutor have to say.......
Sandra, your sample board and index for the
living room reads very well, your client will have no difficulty in seeing what
you are intending to achieve with their space
Now to get back to the second half of that assignment - a drawn to scale room plan. See you later.....
