Champagne in one hand...

Choose Your Friends (and Family) Wisely...

I'm not saying I'm friends with my friends just because they are good-looking....my friends are beautiful inside and out.  My family too.  But it sure helps, when looking for top models for my scarves if they are kind and aesthetically pleasing ;-)!  This week, two loyal and brave friends (Els and Karen) came over at lunchtime for a spot of midday gorgeousness and modeling!  I had a go too.  It's much harder than it looks! Here are a couple of the shots (Mum worked her creative background magic on a couple). Don't they look good?!!

Karen looks amazing in this sunflower scarf (nuno felting on silk gauze).  I love the sunny background mum chose too.

Work it for the camera baby!

Flawless Els looks amazing in the purple lattice scarf.  Her dad is going to do some background magic on her shots.  See, I have a huge bunch of kind people helping me!!

Beautiful Els rocking the V-G! I love these colors on her!

Me doing my very best "Blue Steel" impression! Yeah, stick to your day job Sara... hey wait?!!!

Over the other side of the Atlantic, a top photographer (Dad) was photographing a hot babe (mum) on location (in the back garden).  "Hot" in many senses of the word!!  Full on sunshine, a blooming garden and dear mum donned a winter coat and gloves to model the peacock scarf I made her for her birthday!

Gorgeous mum! (and the garden looks fantastic too!)

Ready for a glamorous winter

Meanwhile....back in the US...because of the lunchtime rush (thanks Els and Karen for giving up your break!) and my modeling photography and styling inexperience, we didn't get good pics of all the scarves. So, I asked a favor of my friend Hilary. I learnt a lot from the second photoshoot. The light was just right (4pm - we had trouble with midday glare with E and K) so we could come indoors and use a cream wall as background, the clothing was monochrome which really set off the scarves and throwing in a bit of glamour (a sexy LBD and some pointy patent stilettos) definitely didn't do any harm either!  We also had a lot more time to play with pics. Hilary worked the camera! Here are a couple of those shots.

Post-mum backgound treatment! Looking fabulous in fringed silk habotai.

Ready for the opera in a spring meadow silk gauze nuno scarf.

Hilary's coloring worked so well with this sunny yellow scarf.
I love this pic!  It looks so warm and snuggly!

I'm super happy with all the pics and my talented models!! Thanks to my lovely, lovely friends and family for making my scarves look so cool!

I have plans to make some scarves for men soon, then I'll break out the male models! 

Adventures in Nuno

So, my felting (yes Karen, I said 'felting') obsession continues in full force, and I promised a tutorial right?  but then i got carried away playing with 'nuno' felting. Nuno (Japanese for 'cloth') describes a felting technique when wool or other loose fiber is bonded to a sheer fabric (most often silk).  Pretty much anything with an open weave (ie. you can blow through it and feel your breath on the other side....which makes for some odd images of me at the fabric store!!) can be used. The resulting pieces tend to be lighter and more delicate-looking than felted wool alone. It's useful to have an extra couple of pieces of kit here (to add to your pool noodle, bubble wrap, knee high stockings, dishwashing liquid and other seemingly random items etc....): a polyester curtain ($2.99 for a pair from a Ventura thrift store!) and a finishing sander!!!  yes a sander -  I never thought I'd be excited to own a sander!  I got this one. 

There are a few differences between wet felting and nuno felting.  You have to be a little bit more precious with nuno, and it takes a bit longer to coax the little wool roving fibers through the silk and tangle and get stuck.  That's where the sander is a big help.  You can roll your bubble wrap bundle for eternity (close to), or you can do that for a little while then blast the thing with 14000 orbits (vibration thingies)/min  (sorry neighbours for the excessive power tool usage!!).

I promise (fingers may be crossed) I will put up some photo tutorials for these techniques one day.... but I keep forgetting to take pertinent photos!  So for now, here are a couple of my creations so far.

Meadow Flowers Scarf:

My spring meadow-inspired scarf laid out on silk gauze (before nuno felting)

 

Close up of the flowers before felting. I was inspired by some of the flowers that I saw in Rosiepink's "Creating Felt Artwork" e-book.

Taa-daaaa! I was really excited about how this nuno scarf turned out :-)

With a bit of soapy water and lots of rolling and sanding, the wool fibers migrate through the silk and lock into place.

I found the purple and pink yarn that I'm using as a stem in a grab bag at a thrift store.  I love that it looks like leaves on a flower stem. 

Starry Starry Night Scarf:

What do you mean I'm being over-ambitious?!! My take on Van Gogh's "starry starry night" (is it really called that, or is that just the song title?). Scarf before nuno-felting.

I love the colors in this (thanks V-G!  I added some purple too). Before nuno-felting

 

Close-ups before nuno-felting.

After felting:  I was a little disappointed about how the image got shrunken and a little distorted.  Perhaps I should do a wall hanging so it stays a bit 'fluffier'.  Some lovely ladies at "the felting forum" told me I was being too harsh on myself and gave me advice on how to manage shrinkage another time.

I do like it.....honest :-)

That's all for now! I'm tripping over myself to try out some of the techniques. I hate not being an expert at something! But I'm already meeting some great people online who are going to help me get better!

Tomorrow some of my friends are coming round to model the scarves, so I'll have real people to show you!

Flying the Flag(s)! 2000 Hits and Beyond!

On Sunday my blog went over 2000 hits (total, not per day)!! This may not seem much to seasoned bloggers but I'm a very proud infant blog mama!  What I'm super excited about is how international the blogkingdom is. Champagne in One Hand... has had visitors from 36 countries (that I've seen, I think I may have missed a couple)!!  Some of the people definitely got here by accident (you wouldn't believe some of the nasty Google searches that led to my site - let's just say, Dolly, my headless, limbless manniquin, is disgusted about what people thought they were going to see when they saw her instead ;-).  Interestingly, many of the dirty Google searches come from India, but the prize for nastiest goes to someone in Jamaica!!  I'm watching you!

So here's a fun test for you.  Below are the flags of those countries. How many can you identify (I was super bad at this!!)?

 
 
Scroll down to see the answers........

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Belgium, Belarus, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Canada, Egypt, France, Greece, Germany, Hungary, Holland, Ireland, India, Jamaica, Lebanon, Oman, Phillipines, Russian Federation, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Slovakia, Spain, Swaziland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela.

How did you do? Need to brush up on geography?!!  Perhaps you could use this to pick your next travel destination ;-)

Here's to the next 1000 hits!

How I Felt...

What do you get if you cross these:

 
with a pool noodle, some bubble wrap, washing up liquid, vinegar, hot water, a pair of knee-high tights, a rolling pin and a towel? (No, it's not a joke!)

 

 This!!!! (and my new obsession ;-)

 I made the iris scarf with white merino roving (wool) and layered on purple and green roving for the irises and leaves.  I added some gold silk hankie and some silk tops in gold and purples and greens, to add some shine. the green swirly stuff is some Icelandic yarn.

close up of an iris.  i love the way the silk hanky (from one silkworm cocoon) and silk top wrinkles up when I felt it.

Then I made this:

I love the purples. 
 
yeah I know this is out of focus but I kinda like the way it shows the colors! I'll get some proper pics taken soon!

arms....are....too....short! 

Then I made a snowdrop one using Prussian blue, with some white Merino for the snowdrops and decorated with grey merino and some silk top highlighting

 

 

I made this one for mum's 70th birthday (it was the second one ever that I made).  I added some beads to create a feather look

 

 

Oh dear...I'm so addicted!  In my next post I'll show you how I did it.  Then I move onto silk :-)

Have a fabulous weekend!

Saraxx

Iceland - Loving all thing woolen

There's a lot of sheep in Iceland.  That many sheep must produce quite a lot of wool... and it's cold in Iceland, most of the time.  No wonder Icelandic folk have an affinity for all things woolen (in addition to elves and trolls and vikings). This blog post is a photographic homage to all things yarntastic in Iceland from my recent trip.

Iceland - with no national army, yarn bombing is alive and well in Rekjavik!

 Lovely, lovely, lovely - why did I come home with just 2 balls of Icelandic wool????

Drag me away before I do something I may regret! A yarn fantasy land in Rekjavik

Traditional Icelandic pattern (they really wear all this stuff all the time!  it's cold!)

Felt-tastic!  oooh I feel a new obsession coming on!

More fabulous felt 

A veritable felt garden of Eden

Felt slippers

Felt scarflets - hmmm I reckon I could do better than that....hmmm

The vikings are coming, the vikings are coming!

Nuno felting.  Beautiful and my next challenge!
Iceland's top model (Tinna) rocking the woollen hat look.

Works in Progress

Just like Rihanna (who knew she crocheted?), chains and WIPs excite me!  I haven't talked about crochet for a while on my blog but believe me, there's still plenty going on.  Here are a few of my latest Works In Progress :-)

First up: the yarn-gobbling Glamorous Granny from Le Monde de Sucrette's giant granny challenge.  The pressure is on because Angie from Le Monde, has finished hers.  It's super cute - look!.

My Glamorous Granny has turned 43 (rounds) and measures 43" square, but I've decided it is too glam for a baby so I'm gonna keep going till either, it is big enough for a grown-up bed or it has bankrupted me with its yarn-intensive demands!

I'm no (granny) square

43 and gorgeous! 

Second: I have the most amazing, glorious, inspiring, visually stunning freeform crochet book by Renate Kirkpatrick.  It's called Freeform Crochet and Beyond.  I beyond recommend it to anyone who is thinking of giving freeform a try (like me!).  It's full of colorful photos and ideas that extend well beyond crochet (eg weaving, felting, embroidery...). Renate is a hugely talented artist with a really friendly and encouraging writing style.  I've been playing around with some of the patches and motifs.  Not sure where I'm going with them yet and think I need to add a couple more shades, but I'm having fun learning some new stitches (eg the almighty bullion) and shapes.

A load of bull(ion). Page 60: a Spiral Bullion A Star (page 108) and a Sunflower (page 100)
 
Page 43: A decorated spiral
Page 148: Pile up your yarn odds and ends and place on some water-soluble 'stabilizer'.  Sew in every direction to secure and rinse in water to wash away the stabilizer and leave a glorious patch! So clever!

Third: I got this cute flower pattern from Debi Y's blog Crochet, Crafts and Gardening.  She got it from LeeAnn's Lovables.  This flower is quick, simple and works really well!  I think I could use these in a freeform piece too.

 Flower Garden
 

 

Last but not least!: Ok, so all that can't have taken that long!  What else have I really been spending a lot, lot, lot, of time on?  I have a confession.... I have a new obsession!  It's so fun and totally addictive! I'll post about it next week. Here's a couple of clues :-)

 
 

Iceland Photos - Horsing Around

A week has flown by since I returned from Iceland!  Sadly, this adventure was the "last huraah" for my faithful, world-traveling netbook....it must have been jiggled around in one too many timezones :-( "Death due to fried motherboard" (ouch!) recorded last week.  RIP dear friend, you will be missed...

So, after my previous photographic teaser, time for some more Iceland photos.  The theme of this post is "Icelandic Horses" and is dedicated to my friend Mette who asked me to bring her a photo of me riding an Icelandic horse.  I'm sad to say I didn't get a chance to ride any, but I certainly saw 100s and met quite a few personally!  The Icelandic horse (yes I know it's quite small but for heaven's sake don't call it a pony when you are in Iceland!!) is very famous for being hardy and for having two extra gaits in addition to walk, trot, canter and gallop.  They have an ambling gait called the tölt and another called a skeið, flugskeið or "flying pace". It must be pretty hard for them to get much sleep in the summer when they are outside in 24 hour daylight.  But just imagine lying back in your field and watching the Aurora Borealis in winter - magical! I may have got a little carried away taking photos. They are so gentle and pretty-looking!  Here is a (greatly) condensed album for you!

 It's called the windswept look 
Did you hear what they're saying about that new blonde mare? gossip, gossip, gossip
Welcome to my beautiful country
yeah, I know i'm cute! 
Before my current owners I wasn't treated very well.  So I'm super shy and don't trust anyone, even the other horses :-( But I'm still beautiful.

Amazing!  We all share the same hairdresser! (no offence Michael!). At Inna and Gunnar's farm in Northeast Iceland.  Little Tinna is in the foreground.

Here's looking at you kid!

 

I'm still keeping my eye on you! 

 Can I have a side of grass with that grass you have in your hand?

 and more grass for dessert?

In Moonlighting from my job as a unicorn. In Höfn (pronounced 'hup' - no I don't get it either!) with a backdrop of one of Vatnajökull's glacial tongues.

 Come here and give us a KISS!!