Balance, weaving & bringing in the harvest...

There's been a lot of writing tasks to do lately and not so much time for crafting, which I guess just happens every now and then.  Usually the balance is restored by taking a quick trip out somewhere to gather inspiration or by just having a little rummage through my craft stash and trying something new.

I've had it in my mind recently to have a go at weaving a wall hanging using lots of threads, yarns, ribbons and things that I have around so, I made a loom out of an old picture frame and had a play with a blue/green seaside theme - deliberately wanting it to look kind of 'un-settled' like the sea and leaving wispy ends like seaweed.  I attached a wavy 'drift wood' type stick as a hanger too  (I think I'm yearning for a holiday.. or at least a trip to the seaside!)

Anyway, weaving is quite a slow process and you can't really be in a hurry doing it but that makes it quite relaxing and sort of therapeutic as your mind can simply wander while you work.  It was an enjoyable thing to do and I've invested in a proper small wooden loom for my next piece.

Something else I've enjoyed doing this weekend is bringing in the harvest... not proper farm crops (although there's plenty of that type of activity going on around here) but a beautiful, scented crop of lavender.  

Last year I noticed one of my neighbours had a huge lavender bush in their front garden and, when they were cutting it back towards the end of the summer I asked if I could have some of the stems which they told me they just throw away (eek!)  

This year I offered to cut it back for them which they were more than happy about and meant I could harvest all the flower stems so bit of a win/win.  It didn't take long before I had a huge bucket full (and that was only half the bush!) 

The first thing I did was tie it all into bunches and let them hang for a couple of hours to get rid of any creepy-crawlies.. and while that was going on I nipped indoors to have a quick search around the internet to find the best technique for drying it out without loosing the scent.  The general advice is to hang in a dark, dry room or airing cupboard - or failing that put into brown paper bags to dry out.  I didn't have a large enough room/cupboard or any bags either so needed to come up with a bit of improvisation.....luckily we had a huge roll of brown wrapping paper to hand so I thought I would just make big 'envelopes' for each bunch.

I laid each bunch out on the paper and untied the strings - the scent that wafted up whilst doing it was immense!

 Then I folded the ends up and taped the sides together...

...and finally taped over the ends to make huge envelopes.

After that I made some fine vertical slashes so that some air can get in and help dry it out without getting mouldy. I now  have 5 big envelopes of lavender drying!  

Apparently it can take a good month for the lavender to properly dry out and be ready to remove from the stems so I just need to wait now (although I will give them a little shake every day or so to help separate them out whilst drying too).  

I wonder how many lavender bags I will be able to stuff with that lot?!  At least I should be able to sleep well and maybe I'll even dream up some new tutorials ;-)

Happy weekend!





All photos & text (c) Addicted to Making 2014

Autumn leaves, fruits & textile 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)

 

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.....

....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: