Friday 12 April 2013

Teeny Tiny Felt Whale



Here at the summerhouse, it's been a bit of a horrible week, for most of the week I've had a nasty tummy bug, which has left me feeling really grotty and joy of joys has caused my normal symptoms to flare too. So I've been stuck in bed feeling very sorry for myself. It's fair to say I've not been having a 'whale of a time'.



Do you remember in my Easter Weekend post,  I told you about the little whale I'd been cutting out of felt to make a brooch. Well since then he's just been sitting around waiting to be assembled. I'm making this little Whale as part of a project on 'Moby Dick' that my local craft club is doing. We basically had to make a craft on the theme of the book.

Well I didn't really have a clue what to make and reading the book really didn't appeal to me as a nature lover, so I've kinda been procrastinating a bit about this project, but seeing as my six week making time will be up this coming Tuesdays I thought I better get on with it.

As my crafting time is so limited and recently it's mostly been taken up with completing my Spring time wreath and Blog Candy makes, I decided that I needed to make something small and low energy for this project.

It really sucks sometime having no energy and having to pace every hour of the day, it really curbs my creativity, in my head I imagine lots of different whale crafts I could make a mobile with whales and boats, a painted whale with water spout split over three canvas's. But in the end I had to settle for making this teeny tiny whale brooch out of felt.


So each afternoon this week I've set up my Whale making station on my table tray so I can work on my brooch from my comfy bed. I find my table tray so very useful when crafting in bed, and also for blogging as I can set the laptop up on it and blog from bed, as I do find the laptop very heavy when it's resting on my legs.

Any road my first job was to attach the darker piece of felt to the whales tum. It was sewn on using invisible thread which is great stuff, but I do find it really tricky to work with so springy and the needle forever coming unthreaded, but I got there in the end.


Using some lovely sparkly embroidery thread I then stitched a row of back stitch on as decoration.


 I had enough space to do three rows of decorative stitching, two in the lovely blue sparkly thread and another in a contrasting blue silk.  As you can see I don't really do much sewing, so they are not the neatest three rows of stitching in the world!!



I then attached a tiny fin to my whale. I forgot to say earlier how I got my whale shape well I made a paper template for my whale by doing a very simple drawing, cutting it out and then pinning it and cutting out the pieces of the felt.

 

Then it was time to position and stitch on his button eye, using embroidery silk.


I then attached a brooch clasp to a piece if felt and


 Stitched it to the back of my little blue Whale


I then pinned the two pieces together and using my super sparkly thread I blanket stitched my little whale together, which was a bit tricky at times especially when stitching around his teeny tiny tail.


Originally I thought this would be my little whales Ta-Dah moment, but to me it seemed like my tiny Whale was lacking something.


When I say he's teeny tiny I mean it, he's about 5cm or so across, which I think it about the right size for a brooch.


So I went to the summerhouse and had a look through the supplies until I found these tiny half blue pearlised beads which I used to put some decorative spots on 'little blues' back.



and Ta-Dah my teeny tiny whale was complete. I don't really think that this little fellow in any way represents 'Moby Dick' he's way too cute,and doesn't look much like a sperm whale, but I don't care, my little Whale is finished and in time for Tuesday's Craft club, (who knows what they'll make of my very loose interpretation of the project title) I  just hope I'm well enough to go by Tuesday.

Happy Crafting

Clare xxx

Don't forget that my blog candy giveaway is running until  Thursday the 18th April  here all you have to do is leave a comment on my last post, to have a chance of winning.

Bye xx

2 comments:

  1. Your whale is so beautiful. I am working on some felt brooches at the moment and hope they turn out as lovely as yours.

    Hope you are feeling better soon.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Sara, I look forward to seeing your felt brooches over on your wonderful blog soon. xxx

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