A Flutter of Fairy Folk

Forget-me-not

Spring is in the air here in England, and with flowers appearing I just thought I would put all my fairy folk together, for a bit of a fairy gathering. What to call a party of fairies? After a bit of research I decided a flutter sounds nice. These are all knitted and adapted from my Mermaid and Flower Fairy pattern.

I do like it best where I have managed to photograph them in a natural setting. Most of these fairies have already found new homes, although one or two are still in my shop. There is such variety in nature that I have only once or twice repeated a design. I am already thinking of a few new ones: primrose, blackthorn, or honeysuckle.

So if you have a flower or tree that means a lot to you, please get in touch and I will have a go at making it.

Holly

Dandelion

Oak Tree

Lily

Apple Blossom

Stitchwort

Bluebell

Lavender

Cherry Tree

Snowflake

Mermaids

Christmas Fairies

Pohutukawa (New Zealand Christmas Tree Fairy)

Echinacea (but photographed on a sunflower)

Daisies

Dandelion

Meet Dandelion. She is not very seasonal, I know, but I have some more fairies (some of whom are a bit more Christmassy), and am going to feature them all over the next week. Hopefully there will be a new one to see each day. I started off thinking I will make angels, but they have ended up being fairies again. 

My problem has been photographing them, as the light does not seem good before I go to work, or when I get back.

 

For some reason I keep humming Barry Manilow's Copacabana. Can't think why! She just looks like a bit of a show girl to me. She is off to Etsy later today, where I have had a bit of a run of sales on my fairies recently.

Embroidery Pincushions

I have been saying for a few weeks that I was going to do a post on some hand embroidered pincushions I have been making.

This was my first attempt. I really like plants like cow parsley, or any plants that have a nice round seed head. I cut up a very old, partially felted, jumper to embroider on, but have decided shop bought felt may work out better. Although it doesn't really show in the photo it was a bit lumpy. The French knots is one of my favourite stitches, and have been thinking of other flowers that I could sew with knots.  

This is my version on shop bought felt. I wanted the cushions to have depth, but sewing a heart shape like this was much harder than I imagined.

Here are the bluebells that I showed before ...

And the final one is a dandelion clock. It has some clear beads sewn on too.

They have a few imperfections, so they are not heading for Etsy. I will keep them for a craft fair, as I feel more comfortable selling them in person.

My plan for the coming week is to get to grips with machine embroidery. My only previous attempt of a Butterfly I felt was too constrained. I enclosed everything with neat zigzags. I want to be able to paint with the thread, and it have that lovely free look. 

There are some blogs featuring machine embroidery that I really admire: one of the best is Sweet Birdy Love. The embroidery are works of art. I look at the beautiful work and think I'd just love to be able to make something half as nice. So I have a reel of machine embroidery thread, and am going to lower those feed dogs and just go for it.

Sorry about not commenting last week on Handmade Monday. We only got internet by sitting in one particular place in the garden in France.