Handmade Christmas Stockings for Elsie and Ted

After I had felted an owl for Ted two Christmas Eve’s ago, I then had to get on with making him a fleece stocking. I was feeling guilty for making Elsie her first stocking but hadn’t got round to doing one for Ted. He, being only nearly two had absolutely no idea whether his stocking was homemade or not, but I still felt guilty. So on Christmas Eve, having prepared loads of food for the holidays including a big turkey and trimmings, several Tupperware boxes full of biscuits, cakes, homemade chocolates etc., and having completed a soft fleecy owl, I then started work on making Ted a stocking. I used soft turquoise fleece with a lime green trim and added a little, needle felted polar bear using natural coloured merino fleece.

And here is the detail from Elsie's first stocking...

Felted Owl for Ted 2008

Ted loves owls and I’d been wanting to make him one for ages. Then after doing a brilliant training course where I learnt how to do needle felting, I decided to put these newly acquired skills into making him a soft, part felted owl.

I used coloured merino fleece to create the details on the eyes and wings and then felted them together using a tiny, barbed felting needle. Such an amazing technique, I understand how it works but it still blows my mind how quick and relatively easy it is. I created the body using lovely soft turquoise fleece stuffed with filling from an old pillow. The buttons for eyes finished him off.

I made this on Christmas eve 2 years ago and when Ted opened it the next day he cuddled it for ages and he has slept with it ever since. Unfortunately felted items should probably have a label saying “this is not a toy and is for purely decorative purposes” as he has pretty much cuddled all the fleecy bits off and the poor owl looks about 20 years old not just 2! It doesn’t matter though; he still loves his owl regardless of its shabby appearance.

60th Birthday Cake

A friend Elaine, asked me to make a cake for her mum’s 60^th birthday. I was pleased that she didn’t want me to make a massive 60 and instead gave me a lovely, loose brief, saying that her mum loves flowers and shopping and her favourite colours are lilac and lemon.

I had a vague design in my head and as I worked on the cake I added a few more details as I went along until I was happy with the final design.

The cake is a vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream filling. I covered the cake with a light lilac fondant and added a deep purple fondant ribbon and base. I gave it a light layer of pearlescent spray to make it look more luxurious.

 I mixed up some subtly different lemons shades of fondant mixed with Mexican paste which I used to stamp out 3 sizes of daisy shapes. I added indents for the centre and used a knife to add small details on the petals. I left the large flowers to dry on top of some pots and lids to create a slight curve. The bigger daisies had a small flourish of lemon glitter and I added dark purple centres to the tiny blossoms, to tie in with the ribbon and the base.

I am very pleased with the result, it was really nice to make a ‘grown up’ cake!