Creative Friday

Welcome to Creative Friday :) Thank you so much to everyone who shares the love and posts their links to their amazing work:) Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry...etc...

I also love to hear from you, so if you have a moment, please leave a comment:) Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us! Just add the name of your blog to the widget and then add your blog link with the http:// at the beginning of your link address:) I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)

Handwork and Sparrows

We have really been enjoying a great amount of outside handwork lately, Erin has been working on her crochet blanket and Jenna has started knitting a pair of rainbow socks, she is very happy as the pattern is for a flat pair knitted on two needles. The colours are really knitting up beautifully:)  Today, while sitting on our quilt outside, both of my girls thanked me for homeschooling them, saying how much they enjoyed learning at home and for teaching them how to knit and crochet... Well... as you can imagine, my heart almost burst! I feel so very blessed that we are on this path, I am filled with such gratitude... when we started homeschooling, we were quite daunted by the idea, but now I know that we are on the journey that was meant for us...

Such an amazing book for knitting, dyeing...

This is my work basket, I bought it at Beaver Creek Farm, a coffee plantation, last year when we visited the coast, I love it, it's so compact and small but huge inside, if that makes any sense.

While we were outside today Erin put some Merino roving in our Fever tree for the birds.... well within minutes the sparrows had descended and were all taking little pieces of roving for their nests... This was truly magical to watch...

Not the greatest photo I know but I really had to take it in a hurry, these are really fast little birds.

Aaaah but when we looked up later, there in the Sparrow nest, was a cloud of white fleece, this made our hearts burst with joy!

Valentine's Heart Transparency Tutorial

I really Love transparencies! They are so simple to make and yet so effective:) I have just made two little hearts on this one but you can really be creative and also make quite intricate designs that look amazing. I am going to make a few more of these and stand them all along our mantlepiece for our Valentine's dinner on the 14th.

Materials:
Red card
Scissors
Wax wrap paper
Pencil
Glue
Candle
Matches

Fold the sides of the card in towards the middle.

Draw two hearts or whatever design you would like and cut it out.

Cut out your wax wrap paper and stick on the inside of your card.

Stand up your card and place a little candle or two behind your transparency and you will have a very effective Valentine ornament.
Have fun:)

Valentine String Heart Tutorial

Today I have been working on these Valentine string hearts. We all went and sat outside with our chickens on the cool grass, craft materials in tow, our tea and a sliced mango to eat, the boys rode their bikes, the girls and I sat and spoke about many different things...  I feel very fortunate that we can enjoy our outside time in the warm South African sunshine and that autumn is still a little while away, this definately helps the creativity to flow...

I wanted to create something quite colourful, I love rainbows, so I decided on this rainbow string Valentine heart.


 Photo taken by Caiden...

Always a curious chicken nearby...

Materials:

Wire

Pliers

Rainbow yarn

Wool sewing needle

Scissors

Fold a piece of metal into a heart shape.

I used my yarn that I dyed at a recent dyeing workshop, I really appreciate the vibrance of the colours...

First I tied on the lighter rainbow yarn to form a warp of sorts...

The warp...

I then tied on the bright rainbow yarn and started weaving in and out of the lighter yarn...

Until I had woven this...

Tomorrow we will all make more hearts with different variations...
Happy Tuesday:) xo

Valentine's Heart Hanging Mobile Tutorial

Here is a Valentine's Heart Mobile the girls and I made up a short while ago. It was really easy to put together and we have them hanging all over our classroom at the moment to celebrate Valentine's Day :)

Materials:
Wool felt
Merino roving for stuffing
Scissors
Needle and thread in red and white
Golden thread
Heart templates in 3 different sizes

You can Google for heart templates in different sizes or just use a biscuit cutter and size it one size larer and one size smaller for the different heart sizes.

Cut out two felt hearts for each heart.

Sew them together and leave a small opening to fill with fleece and then sew closed.

Connect the hearts with golden thread sewing the largest heart at the top. Tie a small loop on the top if the gold thread so your mobile can hang.

Enjoy this craft:)
xo Linda, Jenna and Erin