Felt Mistress workshop at Foyles and Lola...

When Lynsey of knotsewinteresting invited me along to a workshop with Felt Mistress, there wasn't a very long space of time between her asking and me saying 'hell yeah!', not only is Felt Mistress awesome (if you don't know what she does, then I seriously recommend you find out) she also uses, well, felt.

A lot.

And I LOVE felt. It's just so easy to work with and also comes in such a great range of colours!! So off I toddled off to London on a rare sunny morning to go to a monster making workshop at Foyles...

We were given all the tools to make a monster like this...

When we arrived there were bags with different colourways to choose from, typically me, I could not decide, I think I picked up every colour before deciding on the pinkest one of the lot. Again typically me. I'm still not sure I even like pink, but well I must do... I mean look at the blog... Anyway I digress...

Then we were given sheets to come up with our own designs, I doodled cut out and moved things around, I then rummaged into a box of extra felt, at one point I had bright pink lips and 3 eyes, but then I stumbled upon some lovely blue felt and I decided it had to happen... After mumbling to myself for about 20 minutes and banging my head against the desk, I had a plan... (Serious creative block!) 

The only thing I was sure of was that she had to have eyelashes...

And 'Lola' was born! 

I didn't want to call her Lola at first, (I love the name so much it was in my bank for future kids) but she went from being a girl to a boy to a girl to a boy so many times that it seemed highly appropriate and "Lola" by the Kinks became her theme tune. 

She also met a boy... he's called Lance, it must be love, he even got a tattoo...

I think it must have been her beautiful lashes that won him over... Made the same way I did the whiskers on my Bunny birthday card...

Lola is also a famous showgirl as I'm sure we're all aware... So I used some of my leftover felt to give her a showgirl style skirt, before embroidering her name on her back... No going back now!

Once I'd finished the decoration, I decided to cut off her ears and give her a more rounded shape, yes, she has a bit of a hunched back!! 

Finally I was ready to assemble the two sides together with a blanket stitch, this kept me occupied on my train journey home... 

...Where she was stuffed ready to meet her adoring public! 

My niece and nephew loved her, I can definitely think of two small people who'll be getting monsters this Christmas!!

The session was such a great day, and it was lovely to see kids getting stuck in on the table next to us! We met some lovely folk, 2 of whom were so lovely they bought us Hummingbird Bakery Cupcakes, I tried my very first Red Velvet Cupcake... It was lush, thanks!

Until next time....