Friday Finish!

I am not sure if I should call this a finish or a mess, lol. I was thinking of making some yarn punched chair pads and thought it would be good to try a practice piece. I have an old cheese box and wanted something fun for fall and a pumpkin face seemed like a good idea.

With hooking  you can use a frame and move the piece around if it is large than the frame. With punch needle you need to use a frame that is the size of the piece or a hoop that won't damage the loops. I had a larger hoop and used that to trace the circle for the pumpkin. I drew a face on with a sharpie, something simple but fun.

The yarns I used were from a batch of old sears wool yarn for rug hooking. It was orange and I over dyed it with red so it is now reddish/orange and gives a nice variation. The black is lopi wool and the border was done by whipstitching around a half inch edge with an old wool, light brown.

As you can see from the photo, I made a mess, my stitches are uneven and in some areas I was too tight and it punched into the other loops. My fabric was not taught enough and would loosen, so some spots are higher than others. My hoop size was not big enough for the top of the cheese box, but it was a good learning experience. I learned that I would rather hook my chair pads;)

And another thing you will notice, it is not a circle, definitely a primitive scrappy piece.

Here is a close up of the wool yarns, so you can see the yarn textures. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I am hoping to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, that we will be having.

Dancing Bunnies Needlepunch!

Well, I finally feel human enough to start working on my projects. Yesterday was the first day I could sit up and still, long enough to work on my punch needle piece.

This punch needle design was a kit that I won from Ginger at Primitives By The Light Of The Moon. I have used my wool yarn in punching and found it hard to do, so I was worried about how I would do with Ginger's kit.

I really love the yarn that comes with the kit, the colors are beautiful, nice variation in the colors and it punches through weavers cloth easier than floss. Another thing about kits, is they always give you too little and you run out of yarn, but Ginger adds enough to finish the piece and extra to put into another project. The yarn in the background came from the same skein. It was really fun to just punch in areas and see how the colors came out, as I went.

After I finished my piece, I made it into a pillow and antiqued it. The rabbits were shades of white but the walnut turned them all brown, but I do like the antique look it has now. Of course the flash lightens it more. The border is a shade of green and blue yarn, that I twisted and sewed around the edge.

If you would like to make one of your own, you can visit her Etsy shop, Prairie Moon Primitives, which includes the pattern, weavers cloth and wool yarn.