Filou, the flounder

I can re-assure you, Filou is still alive. I haven't eaten him, I promise!

How it all started: I love flicking through the cooking books of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. Not because I'm looking for recipes (you know that cooking is not my favourite past time, although eating is), but rather to enjoy the lovely illustrations. I particularly like the book "Hugh's Three Good Things", which has previously inspired my vegetable bunting. 

I have to write a little bit more about Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall as he is such an inspiring person. In 1999, the London journalist moved to the countryside of Dorset, to film a TV show about how he dealt with becoming a self sufficient small holder in the series "Escape to River Cottage".

 Along the way he shows how he deals with occuring problems due to his own inexpericence, gives insight in country life and  introduces the local farmers.

As the TV Series becomes more popular, he started expanding his adventures - included fishing, foraging, going on mushroom forray, seasonal farming, chicking holding, cheese making, bread baking, preserving, home brewing and much more. Besides his cooking books he has another more specific series of books "River Cottage Handbook No.1-10", in which he lets specialists detail about their own area of expertise (e.g. bread baking, brewing). 

He now supports many campaigns, like Hugh's Fish Fight (saving certain areas in the sea for fish population recovery. By the way, Tim Mälzer is a huge supporter of this campaign in Germany), Chicken-out Campaign (to stop chicken from being reared in cages for egg production or fatting them to sell the meat), the Land Share Project (to re-purpose unused land for allotments) and much more.

I respect Hugh as he is a man of simplicity who likes to share his gifts with others, is happy to trade knowledge and talent, he enjoys engaging with the community and promotes healthy living, and all in all he's very down-to-earth. It always inspires me to see what a single person can do to help others.  

Coming back to where I started ... I saw the quirky drawing of a flatfish in one of Hugh's cooking books, and so I decided to sew one just for the fun of it. 

I finally got round to using the embroidery foot of my sewing machine to embroider the felt patches and to create the textured scaling of the fish. Unintentionally, the embroidered scales created bubbles, which although probably wrong, I think looks great.

Another premier was the "quilting" of the fins and tail of the flounder. I stuffed the pre-sewed fabric with wadding and embroidered it with a wave like pattern.

I used up nearly all of my fluorescent NEON thread which I bought at Lidl, so I was very happy when I discovered, that Hobby Craft now finally stocks the NEON thread from Gütermann. I could stare for hours at my new NEON threads, my little gems.

What do you think of the new NEON threads from Gütermann and for what sewing project would you like to use them for?

What's his name, Mr. Bauble Bunting or Mr. Potato?

I made this little Soft Toy as a birthday present for a friend. I gave him the name "Mr. Bauble Bunting" inspired by christmas baubles and bunting. It's a catchy name that resulted in my boyfriend singing his name in Jamaican reggae style (and became a tune that sticks to your head!). 

Since the actual Birthday party, Mr. Bauble Bunting had a name change, because everyone called him Mr. Potato man. I guess this name does fit much better!

One of my favourite parts in the process is picking the colour scheme. 

The felt is available in so many wonderful bright colours, which makes it fun to experiment with.

My choice of a 5 colours scheme was: yellow, pastel green, pink, orange and turquoise.

You will need:

- Felt (5x different colours)

- Plain fabric (I used Lenda Beige from IKEA)

- Pearl Cotton thread or a fabric pen

- Pencil

- Scissors

- Cardboard for the stencil

- Pins

- Sewing thread / needle

- Ribbon

Quick tutorial

1. I made a stencil out of cardboard and marked the shape onto the fabric with a pencil. Then I 

    cut around the shape creating a 1 cm boarder to have some overlapping fabric for when 

    sewing the back and front together later in the process.

2. I cut a few felt triangles from each colour and placed them on the fabric. Then I fixed 

    triangles of the same colour in a row with needles (when attached like this, you can sew 

   easily over them with the sewing machine).

3. I sewed twice over the row of felt triangles. 

4. Then I repeated the procedure with the next row of felt triangles...

5. ... until the rows were complete. 

6. I drew the face with a fabric pen and then stitched the lines with the indigo pearl cotton 

    thread. I cut out two little circles of the pink felt to use as cheeks and hand sewed them onto 

    the face.

7. I used some ribbons for the hair and sewed them to the fabric pointing inwards.

8. I fixed the overlapping felt with needles, so that when I sew the insides together with the

    sewing machine, they won't be caught in-between the seam.

8. Then I turned the toy inside out and stuffed it with wadding. 

One of my favourite moments when making soft toys is the moment when you finally can turn the inside out. Then you finally get to see how the idea works out, and how the soft toy comes to life.

I guess it's up to my friend to get to know him better, she has him now - so I can't tell you much about this guy. 
I will ask her though next time I see her how he's doing :)

Have you ever made a present, where the recipient of the gift saw something else in it and named/used it differently?

Creative people: Berlin based artist Vanessa

In today's post I would like to introduce you to the artist and friend Vanessa Puschmann, and show you some of her work - which always inspired me. 

Vanessa is a mixed media artist, working and living in Berlin. I met her when studying Art Therapy in Bremen, Germany. She left after a few terms to study cultural science, but we stayed friends.

With her background as a dressmaker and her theatre experience, she connected with the art scene in Bremen on various quirky projects:

“Sproutbau” (2007)
For one month about 70 international artists lived and worked together in a high-rise block, which was planned to be destroyed. 
Vanessa, as a part of the textile studio, and other artists worked towards a final festival week, to present exhibitions, readings, performances and concerts. 

“EphmerisKosMusTanten” (2008)
For one month artists installed a fictional temporary state "Ephmeristan" in an industrial building area. Different artists worked on various projects and prepared for events for the festivals final weekend. 
Vanessa was part of the fashion performance "EphmerisKosMusTanten", which was a collaboration project of 6 fashion designers, a make-up  artist and some experimental performers. She designed the costumes and also performed on stage.

After finishing her studies, Vanessa decided to move to Berlin. She quickly connected with the art scene and frequently participates in exhibitions and cultural events. 
As a mixed media artist she uses paintings, textile art and performance to explore questions of identity, physicality, spirituality and society. She works as a solo artist and also on collaboration projects.

Here are two recent projects of hers, which inspire my work.

"Kiezkinder" (2010)
Vanessa used old fabric, old clothes and every day materials to tell the stories of some characters of Berlin. Please find below some of her art puppets "Kiezkinder" (Children from the Berlin district Kiez).

Pepe and Joe

William, the Flying Fox

Oda, die Taube

Uschi & Freddie 

Kalle Strassenfuchs 

“Djangos fahrende Flickwerkstatt” (2012)
Textile artist Vanessa, photographer Effrosynio Kontogeorgou and writer Dorothea Ahlemeyer set of to Eastern Europe. With the medium of the puppet Django, they visited the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia, and engaged with people on questions of happiness, sorrow, hope. Due to interaction with these people new puppets were created with found fabric and materials. The result was a patchwork of stories, pictures and experience, which is documented in an art book.
(Winner of the competition "kultur-im-dialog.moe 2012" - a programme of the Schering Foundation and the association MitOst e.V.)

Django Weltenbummler and his buddies

Django Weltenbummler

Mick Mücke from Berlin

Ludmilla from Bratislava

Lamela from Grgurici

Grrrgz wants to go home…

I had a opurtunity to interview Vanessa this week about her work and future projects, which you can read below:

What do puppets mean for you as an art medium?
I love to think about identity and to create them. The puppets are one possibility to do this. And I can create what I want. I love it, when they look like real personalities, when you feel them. 
The thing with the puppets grew out of a birthday present for a friend. I did it with another friend of mine. I liked to do it and tried more and then more ideas came, e.g. using text to describe their character and it was a feast to do, and to see what happens with the different puppets.

Did you depict typical Berlin inhabitants?
Some of them YES. "Kalle Straßenfuchs" (I created him together with my boyfriend) is one who lived all of his life on the streets of Berlin. He had so many adventures in his life but also some accidents, you can see the wounds on his body. He lost the half of his tail in fight with a car... So yes, you can find them on the streets. In Berlin you see lots of different characters. I really like it! Of course I'm inspired by this diversity. My puppets are mostly inspired by people of the districts of Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Friedrichshain.

Can you tell me more about the puppets which were created on "Django's Journey"?
The puppets are made of old fabrics and stuff from people who gave it to me as a present. The puppets Lamella and Ludmilla were part of an art and culture project in 2012 "Djangos Journey". The idea was to meet people around the Balkans, talk to them, listen to their stories, get some personal stuff from them and create a puppet out of the people we met. So every place has a character with its own identity, including every story, every person we met and of course my interpretation and artistic view.
As a frame to our trip we had the story of puppet Django, he is an adventurer and loves to travel! I created him in 2011 as a present for my friend Doro, after a while he inspired us to this project. Ludmilla was made in Bratislava. She was the fourth puppet. And she looks like a traditional woman. Lamella was the last one, I made her together with Grrrrgs. For me both were the hardest puppets to create. It was at the end of the trip and I was full of stories and experiences. It was hot and I was really tired. I had real problems, but when they were born, I was so happy! I loved them. I had the feeling, Grrrrgs was my first child.

Where do you find the materials to create the puppets and will your future work include puppets as an art medium?
I use old stuff, old fabrics, plastic... different things with their own histories. People give things to me or I find them on the streets or somewhere else. The material inspires me. My newest puppet, called "Alienfounding", is made out of an old dress I made, and I think it started a new way of creating puppets for me. The dress (which I loved) was made of white wool with a hood. After a time I decided to dye it brown. Unfortunately I forgot it was wollen and after I washed it, it shrunk to a child size - Shit. So I cried and thought about what to do... and the idea of the puppet came to me. It's a tribute to my old dress. 
The new thing is, that it's bigger and not so cute - it's more spooky. I began taking photos of it and I think, I will go in new ways directions from here. Perhaps I will do take more photos or make a small film - I'm not sure yet, but I'm positive that the ideas will come to me!

If you want to know more about her work, please check out her website and Facebook page:

Vanessa's website
Vanessa's Facebook page

Please welcome to the stage: Carl Confetti

Well, it isn't quite Easter yet, but I felt like I had to do something colourful, and it had to be a rabbit.
I wanted a design that would remind me of the computer game "Raving Rabbids", where the rabbits are look like a kid has drawn them.

I like design that looks unfinished, clumsy - it has a certain charm (and that's not my excuse for not having mastered the sewing machine yet.) One of my new year's resolutions (they have come early this year) is to particpate in a sewing class to discover more options, tricks and tips of the trade. 

Allow me to briefly introduce Carl Confetti. 
Carl loves the circus, and that's where he wants to learn how to roar like a lion. He is under tuition from Cato, the Lion, but his rabbit voice is rather squeaky. 
Unfortunatley Carl has never visited a circus before, because he is terribly afraid of clowns. They scare him with their curly wigs and their big smiles. 

The tulle pompoms were easy crafted. Instead of using a long woollen thread, I used a ribbon of tulle. One can cut along the tulle - 1m long and 10cm wide. Then pick the tull, so it becomes more voluminous. 

I have a slight affection for confetti patterns (see the Felefant).

Does anyone else have a love of confetti or polka dot patterns, if so; have you produced something similar that you would like to share?

Bookshelf Elves - Berry and Blue

The bookshelf elves are related to the Pebbles, but different from them, they love to live in bookshelves, preferably next to their favourite book.

Berry prefers the classics more, Blue is more into films, and therefore likes geeky film books.

Sometimes it takes a long time until a book is finally chosen from the shelf to be read. The elves keep the books happy and entertained in the time when nothing exciting happens. 

Once when I was visiting my mother during a university semester, I had the idea when looking at her huge bookshelf to organize the books by colour. It took my mother actually two months to realize what I'd done. Although she didn't share my taste in colour composition, we both had a giggle about my strange humour. 

The bookshelf elves are filled with rice, so they have some weight, sometimes enough to work as bookends.

They also make a nice decoration for bookshelves, to give them a bit of life, between those dusty treasures. 

Blue was my first bookshelf elf. Although I'm normally not too keen in rainbow colour palettes, I choose the palette, as I thought it makes a beautiful frame of scales.

This time I wanted to try the blanket stitch, which I had seen on a tutorial on The Pearl Bee blog. The embroidery is made with pearl cotton.  I don’t know if it worked out well, but it’s something different.

When designing Berry, I was thinking of the 60's colour palette - of orange/red/pink. I decided to use blue for the embroidery to give it some contrast.

Do you choose a colour palette before starting a new project or do you decide in the process of making what looks good and what doesn’t?

My name is Fluffy

Let me introduce you to Fluffy (in German: Wuschel). He is a crossbreed of a Teddy Bear and an old English Sheep Dog. A bit shy, he tends to have his hair covering his eyes, in the misbelieve, that no one will see him. He needs time to open up to people, but when he does, he is a loyal friend, always there to listen or to make you laugh. 

When naming him, I had to think of the animated film "Despicable me". There is this one cute scene, where little Agnes sees a Soft Toy Unicorn at the fun fair and totally falls in love with it, shouting: "It's soooo fluffy!" Awesome! 

Sometimes I feel like half of what I am saying, are film quotes or song lyrics ...

I'm really happy, that this experiment turned out well. In the beginning I was trying to create a different texture by embroidering the fabric with parcel thread using the running stitch. I was playing with the idea of doll hair without having looked up a tutorial. 

So I decided to knot a bit of parcel thread to each single stitch - crazy amounts of work. I wouldn't have managed without a few episodes of Downton Abbey. 

But once I was finished it looked more like a mop than anything soft toy like.

Luckily, after cutting his hair, I was re-inspired again. 

I figured that he needs something more livelily on his face, and found some teddy bear eyes and nose in my button stash.  

The embroidery is inspired by Scandinavian needlework, using Backstitch, Daisy stitch and the seed stitch. 

I'm totally useless learning the French knot. I got it right a few times with the Soft Toy Camilla and the Soft Toy Lion, but I always forget the how I made it afterwards. So I cheated a bit this time, using the seed stitch instead, which is a pair of very short straight stitches. 

Did you have any projects, which at first seems like they were complete nonsense and a waste of time, but later turned out to be something great?

Star Constellations - Beautiful Crafting Ideas

I was always fascinated with star constellations. Most of the constellations can be traced back to ancient asterisms long Before Christ. I love ancient Greek mythology, an area that I was always keen to learn more about.

I found some amazing craft ideas in the internet based on this subject, which I would love to share with you. Maybe it will inspire you, too.

Libra - hand-embroidered linen rabbit on Etsy by MayBeMe

ursa major constellation - soft sculpture animal on Etsy by MountRoyalMint 

DIY quilt kit of the Southern hemisphere on Fab by Haptic Lab

DIY tutorial for a constellation scarf on the wonderful blog a beautiful mess

Ursa Major Constellation Pillow on Etsy by love, california

Hoodie with handmade appliqué The Great Bear constellation on Etsy by  Zoe's lollipop

DIY tutorial for a constellation table runner by the inspirational blog  Design*Sponge 

Some geeky Information:

I know I am a geek and I know I am one of those persons who ask too many questions. 

Although people condemn Wikipedia as not accurate enough - I consider it as one of my favourite pages. Well, I was that kind of child who always wanted to inherit my father's huge Brookhaus collection (encyclopaedia, similar to the Britannica). So, forgive me if I had to though in some facts:

In many cultures, constellations were a tool for orientation and therefore important for the seafaring. Single bright stars were merged into a group of 5-20 stars and considered as a visual unity, and assigned to a mythological figure, an animal or object.

The constellations as we know them today, where defined 1922 by the IAU (International Astronomical Union). Forty eight constellations were based on the Greek constellations which were catalogued by the writer Ptolemy in the 2nd century in the Ancient Library of Alexandria.

Thirty of them have an even longer history going back at least to the Late Bronze Age (in particular the zodiacal constellations from the old Babylonian astronomy).

In 1603 Johann Bayer published a star atlas Uranometria Omnium Asterismorum, which was the first atlas to cover the entire celectial sphere and was based on the research of other astronomer of his time and used the star constellations of Ptolemy. 

There were several attempts to rename the star constellations. Julius Schiller published 1627 a star atlas in celestial cartography to replace pagan constellations with biblical and early Christian figures. It was considered as a curiosity and didn't gain wide acceptance. 

Besides the IAU constellation mapping, there are other completely different ones from other cultures such as those from Chinese, Indian, Mayan and Australian Aboriginal astrology. 

Tutorial for constellation medallion keychain by Nature Watch

 

I still haven't given up on the idea of learning the constellations one day. 

I'm always amazed by the clear night sky whenever I am in rural areas and I can see an amazing sky, away from the city lights, especially when the Milky Way is also visible. 

Maybe I should try to use my Smartphone app ‘Planets’ more or simply make some handmade medallions as above. 

Update 14/10/13

Welcome to the jungle - the felefant

I know it is written elephant not felefant, but there is something I remember from primary school in Germany, a book when I started learning to read. In this book somebody tells someone else that the telephone is ringing, but instead of saying telephone, they say feletone. I remember that I used to say feletone instead of telephone at home for a long time, and still love to do so. To cut a long story short, it's a felefant, not a ... No, that doesn't work. Anyway ...

I’m fascinated with the festive decorated Indian elephants, embellished with vibrant colours, saddle cloth and heavy jewellery. I love the illustrations of elephants carrying the Maharaja on their backs and photos of Indian elephants at festivals in the National Geographic. 

These Indian elephants present a wonderful theme for arts and crafts, especially for soft toy embroidery.

This fabric is an old bed sheet. When I saw it for the first time I was excited about the patterns and the possibilities it presented.

As the pattern reminded me of the embroidered blankets which festive Indian elephants wear - I tried to use this association by using the cut of the fabric to mimic this. I then had the option of embroidering the fabric in a more traditional way. I decided to reference the colours that they are decorated with, by using these sequins.

I love the mixed sequins bag that I found in Poundland. It’s like a lucky dip bag and you never know what you get. I think lucky dip bags are underrated! Why aren't there any lucky dip bags for adults?

For the first picture on top of this post, I used the green leaves picures of my boyfriend office.

For the other pictures I wanted something more crafty, more me. So I decided to use the old curtain fabric for some scenery, cut out some green felt in the shape of leaves and use the temporary fabric adhesive to glue them onto it. Like this, the set up is quick, and I can re-use the materials later.