Love ROCKS!!

Ooooh, the excitement!! Our felted Valentine stones have made it into the Etsy Valentine Voter!

It's a fun collection of LOVEly goodies so, if you have a moment, pop on over and vote for your favorite.

Blessings and magic.

Using Tea to make an Aromatherapy Rice Pillow from a Felted Cashmere Sweater.

Yesterday, I felted two of my favorite cashmere sweaters (click on the link to see how easy felting a sweater is). Felting turns your sweater from a relatively loosely knitted weave into a strong, tight weave. The hot water, detergent and agitation, mats the fibers together and your sweater becomes a lovely, fluffy piece of felt.

What I love so much about working with sweater felt is that the felting process provides you with a fabric that not only comes in so many wonderful colors and textures, but is also totally 'cutable'! When you cut a felted sweater, it will not unravel, it will not fray... it will give you a lovely clean edge - just the perfect medium for a person like me who doesn't sew all that much!

Yesterday, my children weren't feeling so very well. They needed comfort and I suggested we make a soothing Aromatherapy Rice Pillow for them. Not just any Microwavable Rice Pillow... oh no! Our one would be made from felted cashmere! Can you imagine how luxurious this would feel to a poor sick baby?

We needed a felted cashmere sweater, a needle and thread and scissors...

Rice

And for the aromatherapy part, I provided a selection of my sweetest smelling teas.

Cut the arm off the felted sweater, just under the armpit. Then cut off the cuff so that you have a tube to work with.

Turn your tube inside out and sew one end of the tube closed.

Like this...

Turn your tube the right way and you will have a cleanly sewn bottom to your rice pillow.

Now for the fun part of choosing your favorite tea to add it's wonderful aroma to the rice.

K chose my Ruby Red Chai - not surprising as it's the tea she drinks when she's not feeling well.

She opened the tea bag and mixed the brown leaves into the rice, a therapeutic activity in itself.

Then she spooned the wonderfully aromatic rice into her rice pillow.

Please note how I turned over the top edge of the tube so that tea leaves did not get stuck onto the outside of the rice pillow. If your child is anything like mine... one little itch from a stray stalk of tea would have the rice pillow thrown indignantly into the corner, never to be touched again. A Princess and the Pea I have here!

Fill the felted sweater tube up with the rice until it is about an inch from the top. If you wiggle it gently on the ground, the rice will settle and you'll get a better idea of how much more rice to add.

We had to interrupt our rice pillow to give Timone a nut.

When our rice pillow was adequately filled, I sewed it closed. Please don't look too closely at my sewing... as I said earlier, sewing isn't my strong point *blush*, *blush*.

We popped K's gorgeously aromatic rice pillow into the microwave for 1 minute and put it into her bed to warm and sooth her as she read her favorite book.

She is feeling much better, thank you, although she walks around with her sweet smelling mauve pillow as if it's her newest best friend. Now I have orders for one from Mr T AND A Good Man... seems like I'm going to be busy felting sweaters!

Blessings and magic.

How to make colorful, wet felted stones.

We made some

gorgeously colorful wet felted stones

yesterday. It was an activity that both my children (5 and 2) could do together. They both have played for ages with their stones and I delight in watching them focus their imaginations on something their own hands created.

We needed some clean stones, colorful wool roving and some warm, soapy water (we used dish detergent).

I used my felting needle to secure the wool in place. This is not necessary but did make things easier for them as it helped the wool to stay in place in the beginning. This activity can definitely be done without using the needle, just use a little more care at the beginning of the wet felting process.

Try not to fight over the stones at the very start... but then, if some sibling rivalry didn't raise it's head, your mother might faint with surprise! So, fight away, if you must...

Chose a color of wool. Divide the wool into two strips. Start wrapping the stone with one of the strips, like this...

Make sure the wool wraps over its self, like this...

Then the 'tufty' sides wrap over, like this...

place the second wool strip in your hand. Place the stone you have just wrapped on top of it, unsecured side down, like this...

Wrap as before.

You can start the wet felting process now or you can needle felt the wool into place to make the wet felting process a little easier.

Your wrapped stone is now ready for the wet felting process...

Dip it in the warm, soapy water.

Begin wet felting by gently rubbing the stone. K pointed out that it felt like she was making mud pies. The wool is all squishy at first and it's important to agitate the stone very gently in your hands so that it remains evenly covered with your wool.

Once you feel the wool firming up over your stone, you can start rubbing it more vigorously. The soap, warm water and agitation makes the wool fibers intertwine and hook together, shrinking them and making them lock tightly over your stone.

When the wool is tightly wet felted over your stone, it's time for rinsing...

You want to rinse all the soap from the wool. As you can see from the expression on T's face, this is a VERY important and serious task...

Squeeze the excess water from your clean, felted rocks and put them in a sunny spot to dry.

Aren't they beautiful...

K has used her pretty stones in her play scenes and even just played with them as if they were the characters from her imagination. T has lined them up, switching the colors around, and stacked them to make a pretty tower.

I made myself a set too... they sit in the center of my table to bring the color and feel of the outdoors to into our house... They are so pretty, I doubled up and mede a set for my Etsy shop too.

For another wet felting activity to do with your kids, look at this amazing wet felted nest project.

Blessings and magic.

ps - I get my felting supplies (wool and needles) from Weir Dolls - http://weirdolls.com