Salaric

Repurpose fabric, egg boxes, broken jewellery and more to create fantastical headwear and other accessories such as unicorns, dragons, fairies, lions, festival fashions or anything else your imagination can think of! Part of the Upcycling and Junk Art workshop series. Suitable for all ages and skill levels

We are all huge Terry Pratchett fans and I decided I was going to make some disc world toys for the kids – this is the Great Star Turtle A’Tuin who carries the Discworld on it’s back. The elephants and disc are still being made 🙂

I cut out the shapes – this was all free form with the top of the shell being bigger than the tummy shell so that it could be pleated and stand up in a three dimensional shape – I will try and make an actual template to share at some point 🙂

I laid them all out to check it was going to work and then began to sew – I used embroidery silks and the felt for the upper shell has sparkly silver bits in it to represent the stars reflected on the interstellar ice on the star turtles back.

I sewed the fins, head and tail together first, making sure I left the parts that would attack to the body open so that stuffing could be added. I then turned them inside out so that the stitching was hidden, stuffed them and sewed them onto the lower part of the body/shell.

pinched the fabric in on the larger top bit of shell/body so that I could sew a pleat and give it it’s 3D shape, I then stitched it to the main body leaving a small whole for stuffing. Once it was secure I stuffed and and sewed up the remain whole.

I sewed two black-brown buttons on for the eyes 🙂

These photos are of the finished turtle with and without the flash on the camera.

My eldest loves the computer game MineCraft so for her birthday I set about making a MinceCraft Banner using felt – both sheets of felt from which I cut her name – it was a pack of animal skin patterned sheet felt. And needle felt – this is a dry felt technique where you stab the felt fibre to tangle them all up together. I used a brush to sit the fibres on to stab them and got a tool that contains more than one needle so that the process goes quicker.

The creatures are a creeper and the head of an Enderman and they were created free form so there is no pattern I am afraid.

We then sewed them onto a medium width piece of green ribbon, folding the ribbon back on itself at the ends and sewing hanging loops into the banner.

I made this for my friends little girl – it is Red Monster who is one of my story telling monsters 🙂

I cut the shapes out of felt – two red rectangles, a small black rectangle, two sections of jagged triangle cut white, two white ovals and two dark grey buttons for the eyes. I then sewed it all together with embroidery silk and stuffed it with hypo-allergenic stuffing.

I’ve decided to give embroidery a bit of a go, we bought a plan purple lining set which I am working on. The theme is space though I am not sure that is really coming across in the patterns I’ve chosen.

Pretty much my mum bought me a large embroidery hoop which I stretch the fabric in one corner of the duvet in and then using the pack of 100 embroidery silks I am just following stitching ideas I’ve found in an old how to do needle craft book.

It is going to take me a while and I am doing one week of embroidery and one week of it being on the bed and of course I am having tones of embroidery ideas whilst making it!

Last year not that many months after starting to knit I decided to try and knit a witch for Halloween. However I was still knitting it two weeks after Halloween so I popped all the bits in a box and this October I got them out and stitched it altogether and stuffed it.

My little girl has called her Anna and is now inseperable – it did have a hat but that is already missing!

She now wants me to knit an entire witch family to go with Anna! I mean while am attempting a pumpkin for her younger sister! I got the pattern from an old how to knit toys book – I will attempt to dig it out and review it/amazon link it at some point.

I am also thinking I might have to write some stories to go with this toy 🙂

I wanted Mary to be able to make something for Halloween and she loves monsters so I had already cut up an old jumper for Jean to make a trick or treat bag with so I just used one of the sleeves to make a little cuddly monster for Mary.

I sewed across the bit where I had chopped it off the jumper. The almost all the way across the bit just below the cuff. I then turned it inside out and stuff it, arranging the cuff for a tufty hair look.

I then sewed up the remaining gap so the stuffing wouldn’t come back out and fixed the cuff in place (this was quiet a tricky thing todo so not sure I would repeat it).

I then got my little girl to stick self adhesive monster eyes made of felt on it. Obviously these can be a choking hazard so I sewed them on securely after wards but she enjoyed being able to take part.

October is coming and that means my little one is already excited about Halloween, I informed her we were not buying a replacement trick or treat bag but that she would be making one – she was really enthusiastic which I hadn’t quiet expected her being 7 now and getting to the point of rolling eyes and saying ‘oh mummy!’

We found rummaged through our black sack of cloths that are stained and wholey and she found my old furry purple jumper so we cut a rectangular chunk out of it (well almost rectangular – she did the cutting!). We folded it in half and she stitched it together up the two sides. I let her do it free form and she found the problem of the fabric shifting around so we lernt about tacking and then she did grate big stitches and learnt that this wasn’t a good idea and then we did some back stitch too which she prefered the results of but took too long for her concentration span. Once the sewing was finished we turned it inside out so the stitching was on the inside and not to be seen!

We then cut strips of jumper and plated them together to make a handle which we sewed on. Jean Later added some felt eyes to the bag.

All the sewing was done with a large bodkin needle and yarn/acrylic wool making it easier for her to handle and for me to see what she’d done wrong and there for to untangle her!

I spent the last week doing craft and writing with people at Centre Arts. And boy have we crammed it in!

We made cards, Olympic torches and medals, decorated volcanos, made leaf garlands, sock puppets, upcycled skirts out of old t-shirts, beaded rings, made hair bands, pom poms, created cardboard looms and wove, knitted and crotcheted, plaited/braided, worked on story ideas and comic book sketches, we made pencil pots, templates and phones.

Here are the photos 🙂

And of course we had CAKE! The who to of which is on my cooking blog.

Jeany has really enjoyed this week and has even been looking after the plant! The baby too has been tiring herself out 🙂 The kids and adults who have come along have all enjoyed themselves 🙂 I shall be running it again next week starting on Tuesday!

The next two weeks from Tuesday will see me running Centre Arts in Cheltenham. Apart from the wonderful art work which deserves a visit in it’s own right! There is information about the excellent courses they run during term time and drop in craft workshops run by me 🙂

Tuesdays I will be doing paper craft and beading

Wednesdays I will be doing Fun with Fabrics

Thursdays is Story Time for the little ones at 1 and creative writing for adults 3-5 kids are welcome as I have lots of stuff to keep them occupied

Fridays is yarn craft and the knitting doctor

Saturdays is Upcycling and Junk Art

There will also be cake and drinks 🙂