Tuesday 15 April 2008

Miniature Art, buttons and brooches



The Image above shows the size of these brooches next to a £2 coin.

I've been working very hard due to the inspiration I have been given by Helen, it was something she said about my Celtic wallhangings which made me realise that an opportunity had been staring me in the face.



Well, to cut a long story short, I was about to make some of my felt buttons and then I decided to make some brooches too, the latter being with a Celtic theme/flavour. Some have got miniture landscape pictures in them, the others are purely decorative motifs that I have been studying for some time. There is a wealth of inspiration in Celtic Art.



I also decided to try some thread painting and this time I managed to do exactly what I wanted to do. I bought some little tubes of microwave dyes called Quick Colour. I only bought the primaries and it is so simple to get the effect. You don't need many drops to dye some thread so it works great to get the variegated thread that I have been trying to get for some time. Here are some of the examples: the picture does not do it justice but believe me the colour combination I acheived was just so rewarding.
Well back to the brooches:

I am obviously happier with some of these than others but each one is very different either in colour or design.

Here are a few of the other more decorative brooches:



I am now sewing a backing on to each of these brooches with a brooch pin included like this:



The last of the pictures I am placing on here today show my felt buttons, these are great fun as you can see and are useful for knitted jackets but can also be used as an ornament to a textile piece of any description. They often remind me of sweets, depending on the colours I use. Each button is secured with an embroidery method I invented myself based upon a minute cord made on the fingers which is attached to the back so that attaching them to the textile piece is made simpler.





I will probably be putting some of these items for sale on etsy once I have finished them all. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at these as much as I have making them.

2 comments:

Helen said...

They really are very lovely. I'm amazed you managed to make the landscapes so small. They are so cool.

Tricks said...

Thanks for your encouragement, it was only due to you thinking that my wallhangings looked like brooches that I thought why not?
Well, it was obvious to anyone else but me, the style did after all come from Celtic brooches after all.
Yes, it is quite amazing what you can do with needle made felt. I really didn't have to do a lot as the felt sort of suggested the landscape and I just followed with it.
By the way, Sharon B has just helped me with the Challenge so now I have to catch up with April, wish me luck. Thanks Tricia