Creating

We have been making a few more pieces for our autumn seasonal table this week to add to the pieces we made last week.

The fabric mâché bowl has now dried and been trimmed around the edges.  We are using it to store our finds from walks so far we have conkers, ash keys and three types of acorn from English, Sessile and Turkey Oak trees

We have successfully felted the little knitted bowl that I made.  I have made one of these little bowls before with a 100% wool yarn which felted fine, this time I used a yarn which contained 20% silk and was not sure if it would felt successfully.

I made two mice using a pattern from this book.  They are in the autumn section of the book but I suspect they will stay on our table all year round as they are a feature of our lives all year round.  Last winter we went away at Christmas and New Year and they moved into the house, in Spring and Summer they busy themselves eating as much of what we grow as they can.  We live on the edge of a village, surrounded by fields so it is hardly surprising.  The pattern suggests using beads for eyes but we did not have any of the right size and shade so I made french knots with some embroidery thread and I think they work fine.

We also made some little toadstools using acorns and and idea from here.  We painted the acorn tops red and added the white spots when it had dried.  The tops were glued to acorns, we chose narrower ones to give them a toadstool shape.  We had to sandpaper the bottom of the acorns to get them to stand up.

The leaves in our little tree were knitted using a pattern from here and we made the little acorn people at a friends house they were inspired from this delightful book.

Autumn

I have been making bits and pieces for our seasonal table over the last week or so.  I realised at the beginning of September when we changed the books in the basket, taking out the summer ones and replacing with autumn, that we had nothing to decorate our tree with.  I have knitted some leaves in autumn inspired colours once again using this pattern.  I might add to these leaves with some felt ones which I thought the children could help with.

We made some little acorn peg people with some friends at a crafting session at their house, we have shared them here where you can also see that the tree is still summery!

We have recently collected a few pieces whilst out on walks to keep them together I thought I would make some bowls to put them in.  I have knitted a bowl which now needs felting and we have made one using fabric and glue, fabric mâché.  To make one of these you need to find a bowl to use as a form and cover it with cling film.  The material needs to be cut into thin strips and the glue, we used PVA, is watered down slightly.  Coat the material in the glue and lay over the bowl covered in cling.  You will to start the strips the right side down for the inside of the bowl, once you have covered the bowl place the strips right side up for the outside of the bowl then leave it to dry.  We made ours last week and went away for the weekend hoping it would be dry when we came back it was on the outside so we separated it from the bowl we were using and found it was a little damp inside still we have had to reglue it a little as it had pulled apart a little.  The material I used was quite thick, it was leftover from the curtains I made in the living room where our seasonal table is, I thought it would be fun if they matched, so it has taken longer to dry.  Once it is fully dry I will trim off the edges to neaten it up.  We got the idea from a book we have borrowed from the library.

The knitted bowl is a really quick knit which I made whilst the children were having their bath, once I had finished I put the completed 'bowl' on top of the children's clothes that needed sorting. When I came to take the knitting downstairs I discovered I was a needle short and hunted around for it to no avail, it still hasn't turned up!

I have several other ideas of things we could make to add to our table including mushrooms and fungi if we have time we will make some this year if not then it can wait until next.  This is our first year having a seasonal table so we are taking it slowly building up items to put on it.