Wednesday 14 November 2012

Autumn leaves, fruits & textile charms....

fabric leaf charms
Can you guess what has inspired this make?


It's a bit grey out today but last weekend it was sunny & bright which made the beautiful range of autumnal colours of the leaves really 'pop' against the blue sky! I couldn't resist going out & about to take a few snaps and, after all the crocheting last week, I felt like I needed a bit of fresh air and maybe a change of craft medium before I get stuck back into making stuff for the yarnstorm (only 3 weeks to go until the stitch up!)


How beautiful the deep russet browns and coppers...

                           
and striking the bright yellows & golds...

                           
Such luscious shades of pinks from blush to scarlet reds   
- all adding up to a truly stunning colour palette!   


Some of the trees even seemed alight with colour!


It was all simply magnificent!

So, inspired by the colour overload and on the search for something a bit different I started to have an idea for making some textile charms that I could use in some sort of jewellery design.  When we got in I rummaged through my fabric stash for something with the kinds of colours that I wanted to work with and sat down to figure out just how I would go about making my fabric into 'charms'....

I tested several ideas before settling on the final technique and I think they worked out quite well in the end.  They do have the colour mix I was aiming for and I like the rustic handmade look.  They also hang quite well without 'curling' which is what you need  when you want to use something like this in jewellery.

If you would like to have a go I have put all the steps together in an ADM mini-make for you (click here)

 
how to make fabric charms



Of course, you could add a few beaded charms as extra embellishments to your charm bracelet or use the basic technique as a guide for making other shaped textile charms.  They would also look quite good on a lariat style necklace... the choices for variation are many!

I think I am going to put this one in my box of Christmas gift makes and I know just the person who would like this sort of thing so that's one thing ticked off my gift list!


Oh - and here's some autumn fruits too.....

autumn fruit

....I can feel a pudding post coming on :-)


Enjoy making xx 


UPDATE: now also available as a flip book style tutorial
- simply click to see it:


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