~ Punch Needle Fusion Video Tutorial ~

Happy Monday evening 

Friends & Folk!

here is the little vid. tut. as promised:

enjoy!

Blessings from the Farm 

~ Lori

~ Claudia Cluck ~

H E L L O! 

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I am finished with my very first little Friend...

the start of a whole pattern-series of

Punch Needle Folk  

from Notforgotten Farm™

Once again, 

~ her name is Claudia Cluck ~

Claudia is the Head-Hen here at the farm...

she is most helpful with keeping the entire hen house on it's toes 

and will simply not tolerate any mischief from the chicklings.

Claudia is fond of earth worms, but prefers freshly baked cornbread while it is still warm.

On sunny Summer afternoons, 

you can find her taking her beloved dirt bath under the lilac bush on the side of the barn.

{Claudia also sews all of her own dresses from old printed flour-sacks}.

She is a free-standing doll 

... that I designed and created with punch needle embroidery.

I used my Ultra Punch Needle {with Medium tip} ~

Valdani pearl cotton size #8 {doubled} 

and DMC cotton floss {all 6 strands} were used to create her.

 I chose a beautiful floral cotton quilting fabric in blues for her backing...

and stuffed her firmly with clean cotton balls.

 

 {don't let that sweet face fool you into thinking she's just another dumb-cluck}

 I am now working on her best-friend, Roberta...

whom I'll introduce soon ;)

Blessings from the Farm

 ~ Lori

~ In the Works ~

well 

HELLO there!

 ៚៚៚៚៚៚៚៚៚៚

I am working on this girl now ~

her name is Claudia.

{{ Claudia Cluck is her full name actually. }}

 

...she has been living in my brain now for a while,

and I have finally let her come out to play ~

{ she is very persuasive }

ಊಊಊಊಊಊಊಊಊಊ

 here she is on my Hookinpunch© gripper frame,

waiting for me to finish my farm chores so I can get back to her!

she will be a stand-alone doll 

~ once she is finished coming to life with my needle and threads.

{threads are Valdani #8 pearl cottons & some DMC 6 strand}

 

then I will bring all of her friends to life too.

{and she has MANY}.

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And, once they are finished, 

I will set about creating their babies!

 FUN FUN!!!!!!

⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝⇝

Blessings from the Farm

 ~ Lori

~ A Punch Needle Tutorial - of sorts ~

Hello frosty Friends & Folk!

I have made a kinda-sorta little tutorial in photographs for those interested...

Click this Link:

" A Punch Needle Tutorial ~ of sorts "

.. to see it.

"Love Shack" ©Notforgotten Farm 2018 ~ pattern coming soon!

 Stay warm & keep those hands busy!!

Blessings from the Farm 

~ Lori

~ Tricks & Treats ~

Yes, I know.

early for Hallowe'en ~

but, 

when you're in my line of 'work'

you must be one step ahead of the season...

So

here is the 'almost' finish of one of two new punch needle designs I'll be releasing very soon:

BUT 

before I show you the entire design,

I thought I'd share a few tricks that I've learned in my 20+ years of doing punch needle ~

 a couple of simple ways to make your little loops behave better.

Some of you have asked me how I get my lettering so clear…

or how I avoid 'blending' the loops of the lettering with the loops of the background.

My simple answer would be to first be very careful of where your needle tip is going,

 being conscious of the existing loop underneath {or on the 'front' of your work} so that you don't accidentally splice the previous loop.

as you can see in the photo below, when I flipped my project over to the front ~ 

that has happened, and it does happen to everyone ~ OH YES IT DOES!

no matter how careful we are!

see?

where my sewing-needle is pointing to the letter 'm'

 and how I spliced the darker thread with the lighter thread while outlining it?

I do this to fix it:

I use that sewing-needle to gently work the blended threads apart!

 by carefully running the tip of a sewing-needle {or pin} along the 'channel' or 'ditch' between the contrasting rows of thread {this is the finished or front side of my work}

 it will seemingly be more defined, as you can see in the photo below.

YAY!

So that was trick number Uno.

trick numeral Deux is this:

when working with different height loops, or 'dimensional' punching

ALWAYS punch the lowest details of your work FIRST…

like the smiling Jack-o below, for example;

see how his eyes, nose & mouth have been punched on a lower setting?

by punching all of the low-looped details first, then moving on to the higher loops to fill,

you're left with a nice clear difference between the varying loop heights.

THEN if need be, 

use the sewing-needle tip that I mentioned above to define the rows

between low & high loops…

silly-grin

and here is tip #3 ~

sometimes I don't want to try to punch teeny tiny details such as eyeballs or teeth,

SO

I will use my sewing-needle again but this time it is threaded! 

and I will use it to surface-embroider those details instead

like:

eyeballs = french knots

teeth = super-small straight stitches

hello!

so those are my 'tricks' for you today ~

I know some of you who have taken my classes are familiar with these already ~

but thought I could be of help to those who are just starting on their journey into punch needle :)

Rain & humidity but almost cooler breezes today…

I swear I caught the fleeting scent of woodsmoke this morning.

~ Blessings from the Farm ~

 Lori