It’s Football Season!!

It’s football season.  Anyone who is a fan has been counting down the days since the

Superbowl game.  For me it means getting out my favorite team’s glass and cup to use on game day.  (I am a Green bay Packer fan. Green Bay, Wisconsin is my family’s hometown.)

Recently I bought a set of cookie cutters which included a helmet and football shape.  Now I didn’t buy these cutters for cookies; I bought them for needle felting (See my blog post “Needle Felting in a Cookie Cutter”).  But I began to wonder what other things the cutters could be used for.  

So here are ten ways to use the football and helmet cookie cutters (but any shape and any occasion will work here).

1- Use the shape to needlefelt an ornament or press the cookie cutter into clay for an ornament.

2- Trace the shape onto a blank card and decorate it for an invitation to your football watching party.

3- Trace the shape onto a blank card but leave the shape plain.  Tell your guests they have to bring the card colored or decorated to the party and a prize will be given to the best card.

4- String yarn or a chain through the cookie cutter and wear it as a necklace.

5- Having coloring sheets with the shapes on it for the children or adults to color if the game gets boring or your team is losing.

6- Use the cutter as a template for appliqué, embroidery or coloring on fabric.  (See blog post “Cookie Cutters are just for Cookies” and “Colored Pencils on Fabric”).

7- Use the cutters to create different shaped deli meats or cheese for your food table

8-Tic Tac Toe game – Create a 9 patch ( a 3 x 3 square grid) with the squares big enough for the cookie cutter shape.  Pick 2 shapes and make five of each.  You can use paper, card stock, felt, or fabric.  You can also use one shape like the helmet and make 5 from 2 different colors.  Use the shapes as you would Xs and Os in a tic tac toe game but instead of marking a paper, you place the shapes on the squares.

9- Use them as napkin holders.  If you have just a couple of sports related cookie cutters, add stars, circles, hearts, fall leaves, whatever might be appropriate or fun.  (If the weather is still warm or even if it isn’t try a snowman).

10- Oh, yeah, and make some cookies with the cutters.

Remember what I said in an earlier blog: cookie cutters aren’t just for cookies.  So go have some fun with football or any cookie cutters.

©2017  Cheryl Fillion

Who Would Have Thought It?

You never know where life will take you.  About 3 years ago, my brother gave me a gift card to a craft store.  I always like to spend gift cards on something special. One thing I had been eyeing for a while was the needle felting kits. The little projects were cute (mostly little animals) and the idea of poking a needle into wool and creating something fascinated me. So I bought a kit of two little fish.  

The kit was wonderful.  It had the roving, little pattern pieces for the fins and tail, the needle, the foam block and very detailed instructions.  But I will admit it took me a while to actually start it because I was afraid I would mess it up.

I did finally delve in.  The instructions called for wet felting which involves water and soap on the roving and in this case rubbing the roving in your hands to created the friction needed to felt.  Wet felting is another way felt is made.  It was a bit messy and took forever for the body of one fish to dry so I could complete it.  When I did get to finish it and needle felted the face, eyes, fin and tail, I was hooked (or maybe needled).

I did a little research and dry needle felted the body of the second fish.  I liked the ‘dry’ needle felting better than wet felting.  I was able to control the shape of the fish better and did not have to wait for it to dry.

I found things on line to needle felt, went back to the store and bought more  felting supplies.  I found a kit to make a bowl over a Styrofoam ball.  And with that I made a little bowl for our Fiber Arts group holiday gift exchange.  When the other members saw the bowl, they asked me to teach them how to do it.  

I continued to try all kinds of projects.  This past spring I made a little owl and posted its picture on facebook (by the way, I am so glad owls are popular again.  I have been able to bring out the owls I collected as a teen). Anyways, an artist friend saw it and wanted one and then asked me to teach a class at the Creative center where she worked (it is a paint your own pottery place that is expanding to include other crafts).  I taught that owl class in May. 

The owner asked for another class which I did a couple of weeks ago.  For this class I did a bowl made much like the clay coil  bowls we made in art class at school.   But this time it was the students who asked for more classes.  So now we have 6 classes scheduled for this fall.

Who would have thought that a gift card and a little fish felting kit would lead to me to teaching classes?  I certainly didn’t and never would have thought it would be needle felting but I am so glad life turned out this way.  You never know what will come from a curiosity.  So if you ever get a change to demo your craft or teach a class, do it.  It might lead to wonderful things.

©2017  Cheryl Fillion

Try something new

Have you ever been given the opportunity to take a class or watch a demo or hear a speech and you thought, no I don’t do that craft or I’m not interested in that subject. Well, go anyway. 

You never know when going to a talk of something you have no interest in will actually spark an interest.  I belong to a number of crafters groups.  I often see someone prepare a talk or a demo and very few people in the group show up.  “Oh I don’t do that type of craft,” I hear them say.  So?  How do you know if you will like it or not if you don’t see it?

Maybe you won’t like it but maybe you will.  I went to a meeting once with no interest what so ever in punchneedle embroidery.  I heard how it was done and saw some finished projects and I turned to my friend and said “I want to learn that”.  And now I do punchneedle all the time.  My little 3 heart logo in the corner of the blog is done in punchneedle.   

Even if you have no interest in something, what you learn might apply to something else you do creatively or intellectually.  I learned to make rings at a meeting of our local Fiber Artist group.  I really have no interest in making jewelry but the technique I learned for the ring I can use to make embellishments for some of my needle felted bowls.

If the class or demo or talk is being done by someone you know, wouldn’t it be nice for them to see a friendly face in the group?  It takes a lot of time and energy to put together a demonstration for a group (especially a group where you are a member) and it is a little disheartening to just see just four or five people in the audience.

So go try something new.  You might learn about something you didn’t know you wanted to do.  Or learn about something you might not do but will now appreciate more.  Think of how smart you will look when you can discuss the intricacies of basket weaving at a dinner party. Or just go and be supportive whether the speaker is a friend or stranger. Just go anyway.

© 2017 – Cheryl Fillion

Embroidery on Dark Fabric

I love doing embroidery.  I have many of my grandmother’s embroidery iron on transfers.  I don’t iron them on the fabric since they are so old and the paper is quite brittle.  Instead I place the design under the fabric I am using, and trace it on to the fabric with a fabric pen.

But sometimes the fabric I am using is too dark, too thick or maybe a fabric with a design on it to see the embroidery design through the fabric.  Even use of a brightly lit window or light box doesn’t help.

embroidery on black fabric 

Embroidery on printed fabric

In those cases I have learned to trace the design on to very thin tissue paper (the type you would use in a gift box not the type you would use for a runny nose) and then place the tissue paper over the fabric and into the hoop.

tissue in hoop

Here’s what I do.  I first trace the design onto the tissue paper (trust me the design is there.  It is my blog logo).  Make sure the tissue paper is big enough to fit in the embroidery hoop or frame.  This will help keep the tissue from moving around while you stitch.

pinned corner of tissue

Now center the design where you want it on the fabric.  I usually pin the corners of the tissue paper to the fabric so the tissue doesn’t move when I am putting it in the embroidery hoop. Carefully close up the hoop.  If you have to adjust the fabric so it is smooth, pull only on the fabric.  If you pull on the tissue paper, it will tear.  

Once everything is tightly secure, you can start stitching.  It will feel a little weird at first to be stitching on paper but know that what you see on the tissue paper is what will be seen on the fabric when the paper is removed.  Make sure your stitches are tight.

tear above the pink stitch line

Just a little warning: you might tear the tissue in the way you are holding the hoop or in some other action you might take.  I tore the tissue above the design just by picking up the hoop (one finger pressed into the tissue- oops).  Know that that is OK.  You don’t have to start over just make sure the tear doesn’t get too big so that it moves your design around.

embroidery done

When you are done stitching then comes one of the fun parts; tearing off the tissue paper.

removing tissue

What I do is gently take my needle or a straight pin and perforate the paper near the stitching.  This makes it easier to remove the paper.  Be careful pulling the paper around the stitching.  If you pull too hard you can pull at the embroidery and distort it.  If paper gets stuck under the stitches, very carefully with the point of a needle or pin pull it out.

Heartfully Cheryl logo

©2017 Cheryl Fillion