Summer Flowers 2011

The flowers just outside our front door. 

Bleu Faerie Finished!

Bleu is finished, wings and all.  Patterns for the basic doll, wire wings, and how to make a sweet dress from crochet lace are available on this blog.  Check out the left sidebar under Pocket Spirits.

Thinking even smaller Spirits are in the future :-)

Latest Pocket Spirit WIP

My latest Pocket Spirit work-in-progress, a Bleu Faerie commission for a dear friend.  She is alongside a BJD from B&G, a 16cm mini honey named Claire.  The BJD's are what inspired me to make the Pocket Spirits, with their movable heads and jointed shoulders.  This doll uses 9mm eyes at the shoulder to give a nice movable joint.

You can find the pattern for the Pocket Spirit on the left hand sidebar.

More later :-)

Felt Friends Forever

Petunia, Black-eyed Suzanne, and Amanda; Felt Friends Forever :-)

Petunia has a dark fuschia tunic embroidered with lazy daisy flowers and leaves.  It closes in the back with a single button and loop.

Her spring green pants are also embroidered, in featherstitch and French knots.  The waist is pulled in gently with a cord of perle cotton, threaded through the top of the pants. 

Amanda wears a felt and embroidered dress and tabard style apron, appliqued with orange mushrooms.  The apron has a slit at the neck about an inch long to facilitate putting it on, and is tied at the sides with silk ribbon ties.

Black-eyed Suzanne's dress is felt embroidered all over with her signature flower...black-eyed Susans :-)  The dress has slightly capped sleeves and slightly flared skirt.











All of these little outfits are simple modifications of the basic patterns available on this blog for these dear dolls from Gingermelon Doll's Pocket Pixie pattern.  Hand sewing felt is very easy, rewarding, satisfying, enjoyable, relaxing, and spiritual.  Enjoy.

Salley Mavor's enchanting art

My copy of 'Pocket Full of Posies' by Salley Mavor, recently arrived, which prompts this post.  Salley is an extraordinary fiber artist; she creates wonderful worlds with felt, yarn, found items, items from Nature, and all of it pure magic.

I am fortunate to have four of her books: 'In the Heart,' 'The Hollyhock Wall,' 'Felt Wee Folk,' and now 'Pocket Full of Posies.'  The summer that 'Felt Wee Folk' came out I made dozens and dozens of her delightful flower fairies.






Two of the many flower fairies I've made from Salley Mavor's book 'Felt Wee Folk'










Prized possessions of mine are three of Salley's original flower fairies:  Downey, Marina, and Opal.




Salley's latest book, 'Pocket Full of Posies,' is a nursery rhyme book illustrated, as all of her books are, with her fiber art illustrations.  The rich felt, the perfectly executed embroidery, the texture and design will take your breath away, and offers so much inspiration for all of us that like to play with needle and thread.

 Embroidery from 'Pocket Full of Posies' inspires Amanda's dress and pinafore; not quite finished :-)

Salley has a blog where she shares her latest projects, and happy glimpses of the artists life.   Pay her a visit and enjoy her enchanting view of the world.

New Pocket Pixie WIPS

Shelly's Pocket Pixie pattern is such a delightful doll form, and a wonderful pattern to embelish.  Here are three new WIPs (work in progress) that I've been playing with.














Felt applique hearts and cheek color for Amanda.  Her hair is Reynolds Lopi, a bulky weight single ply wool yarn.













Embroidered flowers and wool boucle yarn for Black Eyed Suzanne (of course!)

More embroidered flowers, and a very fuzzy mohair yarn with slubs of blue and yellow for Petunia. 

 Felt is such a wonderful dollmaking medium, and these little dolls are a delightful canvas.

Caution! Cute Attack!

A quick post to share with you a couple of really fun books.  "The Cute Book" and "The Cuter Book" are full of tiny, easy, delightful felt cuties :-)  I made three in a snap; each one probably took two hours from cutting out to finishing.   These would be great projects for children, all the sewing is done by hand.  The kitty on the left I turned into a pin to wear (just sewed a safety pin to the back).  Teddy and Bunny are toys for the Pocket Pixies.

You can see Finch snuggled up in bed with Bunny and Bear ( and a sleepy kitty!).


I own "The Cute Book," and borrowed "The Cuter Book" from the library.  If I were buying just one, I'd pick "The Cuter Book," because, well, it was just cuter :-)

 A peak into the Cardboard Cottage.  Little by little more things are being added to improve the cozy-ness for its occupants.

A pretty portrait on the wall, and a wool rug for the floor.  I used simple applique shapes from the book "101 Appliqué Blocks" for the rug.

Well, not such a short post after all.  More felt goodness to follow!

Pocket Pixie Clothing Patterns

With Shelly of Gingermelon Dolls kind permission, here are some simple outfit patterns for her delightful Pocket Pixie doll.  These outfits have already shown up on the blog, but not the patterns.  Please use Wool felt for the outfits, just as you use it for the doll.  Click on the links below for the pattern downloads.

Pocket Pixie Kimono

Pocket Pixie Overalls, Shirt, etc

From these simple patterns, a lot of other patterns can be derived.  Lengthen the tee shirt pattern, and gently flare the sides and you have a nightgown.  You could crochet the skirt onto the dress bodice, instead of using fabric.  The tee shirt can also be used as a dress bodice, or made slightly bigger and turned into a sweater or a coat.

Embroider your outfits before stitching up the seams, add crochet or purchased lace, beads, felt appliqués...embellish to your hearts content :-)

Cross Stitch Pixies

Like a lot of you, I enjoy cross stitch along with many other types of handwork.  I found Shelly's Pocket Pixies to be great inspiration in designing some very simple and fun cross stitch pictures.   Here is Nettie, as a doll and as a cross stitch banner.  The Nettie Chart and the Nettie color key can be found by clicking on the links.  The chart looks like this:

Here is Robin, also as a doll and a banner.  These little designs could be framed, backed with fabric, made into a tiny quilt, stitched on vinyl and used as a mug insert, or a trivet, or just about anything simple little thing you can think of.

Click the links for the Robin Chart and Robin color key.

 Actually, I started out by wanting to make a tiny cross stitch portrait of Wren to put in her dollhouse living room.  Here she is, with the edges finished in crochet and mounted on a circle of stiff cardboard.  This could be turned into a cute little pin, and you could substitute your own name for Wren's.

Click the links for Wren Chart and Wren color key.

These little designs were created with a program called Pattern Maker, by HobbyWare.  I've had the software since 2002; it was purchased after I broke my leg and is probably responsible for me not going totally crazy while my leg was in a cast up to my hip for 10 weeks.  It is easy to use, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

Hope you enjoy these little designs.  Don't be surprised if more show up here :-)