Maker Post: Fun With Felt!

This is a little project I did last year in April. It was in my first 6 months of Richard Armitage fandom, and I was quite highly immersed in it all. One of the things I loved was that Richard was proving to be an excellent muse for me, he got me back into crafting after a long break and I had plenty of ideas swimming around my head.

Now a fandom friend Lolo had sent me a little parcel in the post, so I felt it was a nice opportunity to make something for her.

I’d previously asked Lolo which Armitage characters she liked best . Harry Kennedy, the Handsome Stranger from the British comedy The Vicar of Dibley was right at the top. So off I went and searched for info on Harry. So, apart from being deliciously handsome, Harry doesn’t have a huge part in the series-only 3 episodes in total. Harry moves from London to Dibley village to the initial disgust of Geraldine the Vicar (until she sees him!) . We see the inside of his home once, where we discover he likes books. Later on we find out that he’s an accountant and that he falls in love with a kooky, pretty vicar. Other than that he has an slightly odd relationship with his sister.

A work friend had been making stuff with felt, so I went and bought some and started thinking about what to make with it. There’s quite a big trend in crafting with felt atm and plushies are a very popular item to make.

I set about brainstorming about how I could make something Harry related.  I realised the most visual thing about him, apart from his Guy of Gisbourne hair, was his fondness for  woolly jumpers! So this is where I got my final idea; felt bunting incorporating Lolos name and Harry’s iconic jumpers.

See, when I make RA fandom related items, I tend to avoid the traditional ‘here’s a picture of RA’ . I prefer to make things that, unless you are a bit knowledgeable of the roles RA has played, you probably will miss the meaning. Which I think is nice, because it means the receiver of the gift can put it in pride of place (if they wish) and they should be safe from sarcastic comments from unbelievers! (though it may end up at the receiving end of queries to what the hell it is)

So, firstly and most importantly…. here’s some pictures of Harry in his iconic jumpers.

hmmm, stripey goodness

love a man in glasses

can I squeeze his chubby cheeks?

Next was to draw out the design then cut out paper templates to gauge size and help with eventual cutting out of the felt shapes:

As you can see, I drew 2 slightly different jumper shapes. Colour wise I probably should have put the red stripe jumper in the middle, but I felt the grey stripe one was the more memorable one and deserved centre stage.

The next part was fiddlier, these shapes are approx 10cm top to bottom, so cutting out the stripes thin enough was quite fun! #sarcasm .On the grey jumper I decided to hand embroider with cross stitch silks to make the jumper’s ribbed pattern. The other stripes were stuck on with UHU glue. I used a combination of scissors and scalpel to cut out the shapes. I did find that the edges of the stripes weren’t quite sitting properly so I stitched the edges of those too for a neater edge.

Next bit was to make the bunting pieces with Lolo’s name on it-I decided to go with bright, colorful, traditional flag style bunting to give it a cheery look. The string used is called butchers string as it’s traditionally used by butchers to tie up meat, but these days is very popular for  crafting and parcels.

I stitched the letters onto the flags and for a cute twist; attached the jumpers to the string with tiny wooden clothes pegs!

And hey presto! A unique fandom present. All in all, it took approx a days crafting and I was pretty pleased with the outcome. All that was needed to do was pack and post so it could fly over the waters to the USA to it’s permanent home 🙂

There is a another Richard Armitage related bunting project I made last year but I will write about in another blog post.