I wanted to put together this quick little tutorial after Kitty said that she found getting the cushions pointy enough was the bane of her life, strong words, I felt like that once too Kitty...but then I worked out a new way of making cushions, inspired by Gill's patchwork tutorial. :D
I felt so bad about the thought of anyone else suffering with their unpointy enough cushions, I had to get this out there pronto! :D
You will need:-
Fabric
Needle
Thread
Paper (preferably graph)
Glass beads or stuffing
Iron/Hair straighteners
Carefully cut out a template using graph paper, keep it as square as possible, then cut a piece of fabric slightly larger.
Turn the fabric over and place your template in the centre.
Fold fabric (preferably along the grain) using the paper to guide you. Use your nail to press the edge down.
Press the fold, either using hair straighteners or an Iron, you will need to repeat this for each fold.
I use hair straighteners, because they're quite handy for mini ironing.
Make sure to test a scrap piece of your material, just in case it melts.
Fold as before, but on the opposite side from the last fold, and press.
Fold as shown, press, then fold the other side and press. Try your best to keep the sides of this particular fold, as square as possible, it helps to begin the fold at either end and move inwards towards the centre, using your fingers to press the fabric down.
Now make another one. I usually use plain fabric for the back, to conserve the printed fabric. An old pillow case is a great source of plain fabric.
Abracadabra.........the fabric will now change (apologies for the continuity error, we will now be demonstrating with a new fabric...)
Cut a length of fine thread, for this cushion I think I used about 35 cm. Tie a knot at one end, thread it, and insert the needle into the corner from the reverse of the fabric.
You should sew from this point, where you can see the folds (this means you will have a less fussy edge to sew later on). Connect the two with your needle and thread as shown.
Now that the two pieces are joined, begin sewing your cushion together. I use the ladder stitch, putting the needle under just a thread or two of the fabric. Do not sew the inner folds together, work over them.
Ladderstitch diagram.
When you are almost back at the beginning, you can start filling the cushion. I use micro glass beads, I can't remember which size, but I bought them from Mohair Bearmaking supplies. I hold the cushion over a jar of them, and use a teaspoon to drop them in, until it's just right. You may have to smoosh the cushion a bit to fit them in as you go.
Now carefully holding the cushion, sew up the hole, still using the ladderstitch.
Sorry for the blur, under the last stitch at the corner put the needle under and draw through until you are left with a small loop...
...then put the needle through this loop and draw through to create a knot close to the corner. Repeat once or twice more.
Then push the needle down through the corner as shown (where you just made the knot)
Push the needle through the cushion until it pops out somewhere on the other side.
And cut the loose thread. If there is a little short bit poking out after you have cut the thread, smoosh the cushion and it should disappear.
The only downside about this method, is that the stitches will be slightly more visible than they would be if you used the "turning inside out" method, you can always glue a strand of thicker thread around the cushion to act as piping, which I haven't tried out yet, but I imagine it would work very nicely.
Hello, I'm alive. I recently received the most gorgeous Elisabeth Causeret Pottery from the lovely Pepper (of Mitchymoominiatures), which is also very convenient because I have little to blog about at the moment, and probably won't until after Christmas. We're having very dull weather here in N.Ireland at the moment (what's new?), so photos have been lightened up so that you can see them. Pepper was at Miniatura this Autumn and asked if I needed anything.....which I did.......
Pepper surprised me with this little flower pot, I love the detail around the rim! It has a little drainage hole too, so your miniature plant won't get root rot!
And some cushions I made recently, all of the fabric is from Little Trimmings
And that's me away for another little while... I have quite a few miniatures in the making at the moment. If I post about them half finished, I may not finish them, new rule for myself, I'm too good at leaving cliffhanger endings to my miniatures on occasion. I'm sorry to say I haven't been great at keeping up with everybody's work at the moment either, and I am going to be working on some things for Pepper, which I will post about as well, once they are in her possession of course! Very much looking forward to the Pepper project actually! So until next time...
Hope you enjoyed the lovely work of Elisabeth Causeret!
Still in a strange haitus, thanks for your support in the last few posts everyone. I know we all get this from time to time :D Nature has filled in quite a bit for me for this one.
Last week I dragged a friend to the beach, and then embarked on a long mini beach combing session. Apparently it looked a bit strange and he suggested (if there is a) next time we should wear white overalls and fence the beach off, because it looked like a "crime scene investigation" was in progress. Not surprised either, finding tiny shells involves getting your eyes as close to the sand as possible and then carefully picking over it...I'll get him to take a photo of me in action! Many people walked past and the odd dog got in the way, I don't remember much, just lots of coarse sand with the odd nice shell in it.
The Shells are a mix of Dogwhelks, Periwinkles (ridiculous amount of those), Flattops (Gibbula..) Cone shells (Turritella..) and cowries.
Driftwood twigs. You can break driftwood twig into smaller sizes and then sand the ends. The starfish are made using thick wire and soldered in the centre, the tips are rounded off with a file and then sponge painted.
I REALLY, REALLY LOVE THESE! Miniature Japanese style glass floats, made using crochet thread and marbles. I made one for Genevieve in a swap, though I've perfected them a bit since then, particularly the colour, Genevieve, if you want a refit, get in touch! I used a brilliant video and picture tutorial by Sharon Ojala, which you can see below. Instead of using a wire ring, I made a loop in the middle of one of the eight threads needed.
Lovely little beach finds! Tiny limpet shells, sea glass and coral weed. The pretty little spiral one is a Gibbula Umbilicalis (thank goodness for Google :D )
Edit :-
I was just reading that a stunted version of Coral weed grows in high shore pools, which makes it perfect for miniatures eh? This is the skeleton of the plant, washed ashore.
Crates with rope handles (lollypop sticks and linen thread)
Er...yeah. getting there. The tomato leaves and flowers are from a Georgie Steed kit. Instead of using the red beads supplied I made little tomatoes with fimo, which came out a little RED! I had made the plant up, but then decided it was far too big and took it all apart, next time maybe....... :D
I almost managed to see this happen in a rock pool, but unfortunately there were two crabs fighting over the same shell, so I had to watch it on youtube instead..I should have flipped a coin for them and removed the loser :D
Ray Storey Glass bottle, Mini Mundus washstand kit and Daffodils kit by Bonnie Lavish
Before starting, you will need straight wire. You can use a dremel tool and vice to straighten wire. You will need to run some wire wool down the unstraightened wire first, put one end of the wire into the drill and the other in the vice, then pull the wire taught, wait for the twang to end then briefly switch the dremel tool on. Run your finger and thumb down the wire to make sure it isn't kinked, and wear goggles whilst the tool is switched on...or like me, close your eyes and hope for the best! There are other ways to straighten wire, but this is the way that works for me.
You will need:-
Wire (suitable for soldering)
Solder and flux
Soldering iron (preferably one with flame)
Wire snips
Wooden block or similar (something that you don't mind getting burnt..)
Wire wool
Graph paper
Masking tape
Stainless steel tray
To work out the length of the wire pieces needed, place them against your block as shown, the parts touching the wooden block will be the base of the basket, and the overhang will be the sides.
To work out the number of wires needed for each side, place the block onto a piece of graph paper. I've chosen to use each 1mm square as the spacing guide. The blue lines indicate the other wires needed, that aren't shown. Make sure to leave a small space at either side, as indicated by the red arrows.
You will need to do this again, with the other side of your block (if you're using a block with equal sides, then just double the number you got originally)
Once you have all of your wires cut to length, carefully wash them in soapy water and leave to dry, and only handle with tweezers afterwards.
Let's try and explain this... You have to stick down strips of masking tape on to the back of a stainless steel tray, with the STICKY SIDE UP!. The horizontal strips have to be parallel with a gap slightly less than the height of one of the wires...and the same for the vertical strips, with the other length of wire... The following pictures will probably help to make sense of this..moving on..
By the way, you have to do all of the above so that you can slip this little bit of graph paper under ;)
Use tweezers to place the wires as shown, using the graph paper as a guide to keep everything straight and evenly spaced.
Then lay the other wires on top as shown...
Use a paintbrush to apply flux under the wires, being careful not to dislodge or bend them.
You will need two strips of masking tape to hold down the top wires, at either end. This helps to make sure the top (horizontal) wires are all in contact with the bottom (vertical) wires. Be careful not to tack them down too tightly though, it's mostly to make sure they don't move about when applying the solder.
Use a craft knife to slice off little bits of solder. You can try using them at that size, or you can be mad like me, and cut each slice in two, as the red line indicates.
Welcome to the most awful part! You now need to carefully place each bit of solder so that it "might" be touching the upper and lower wire at the same time... HAVE FUN! You can actually lift the solder pieces by touching them with your tweezers or even a tapestry needle, they're that light, thankfully the flux on the wires causes them to stick on quite easily, no balancing act, you'll be glad to hear.
Once they are all in place you can use the flame of your soldering iron to melt all of those little bits of solder...and hope everything goes to plan.
And then you will be left with something like this.. I burnt mine slightly!.. but the show must go on., and a few bits of solder did NOT join the wires either..luckily it does the job regardless....And I'm not doing all of the above again for aesthetic purposes! :D
To make the rim of the basket, get a length of the straightened wire, and bend it around the block. You will need to twist the ends together, which is a bit tricky. And I only had one hand at the time to demonstrate this, the other using the camera, so this is a mirror image of one half of a picture. You use your index fingers to push the wires together so they cross over close to the block, this makes it easier to twist them. Hope this weird picture helps! P.s. You don't want to make the "wrap" too tight, the vertical wires of the basket mesh need to fit between the "wrap" and the block.
Make two small twists by hand..
Then use pliers to twist them a bit tighter and closer to the block.
Use pliers as shown, and then clamp tightly.
..Now both sides of the wire meet in a straight line, then you can snip the excess of the twist as shown. Don't snip the twist off!
You can now remove the wrap from the block, and clamp the twist in pliers, as shown.
Now you have a lovely straight join. Lovely!
Place the mesh over the block. It was at this point, I realised a wire was missing from the vertical section of the mesh..whoops!
Using your fingers to firmly hold the base of the basket mesh to the block, use a ruler or something similar to carefully bend the wires over each side of the block. It helps to roll the ruler over the wires, so place the ruler slightly back as the red arrow indicates, then roll it towards you. Don't worry about them not being straight as you bend them, you can tidy them up later.
Just wanted to stick this extra photo in, in case the above one didn't make much sense... I'm not Martha Stewart by the way! :D
Now with the wire mesh formed over the block, you can carefully shimmy the wrap down, until you have it where you want it.
Due to that missing wire from earlier, I've decided to fan the wires out slightly on this side, but they should have been vertical. I quite like it though! Anyway...Use your paintbrush to put flux on the wires as shown.
In order to get a good join, all of the vertical wires, need to be touching the horizontal wire. You can use a bit of folded tin foil or tea light foil, until that is achieved. Then place a sliver of solder as shown, and blast with the soldering flame. Work one side at a time.
Er..having technical problems.. Don't forget to flux and solder the twist! It is important that all vertical wires have soldered properly to the horizontal wire, unless you don't mind having a "vintage" basket.
When you remove the basket from the block, snip off the excess wire, including the twist, and carefully file the edges. Make sure to clean the basket with soap and a toothbrush or wirewool, to remove the flux residue. I would imagine you could paint these, Tamiya spray paint would probably work very well.
Click here for a great tutorial by a Japanese miniaturist, for making an umbrella frame, which should be very useful for people with more advanced miniature wirework ideas.
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