WoolNiques
Gather together your wool, Old wool from old clothing is good or you can purchase hand dyed wool from several crafters on the internet, or use Wool-felt by National Non Wovens. No matter what wool you use, I always grubby it to make it look old, along with felting it at the same time to give it that soft texture fluffy feeling.
Always dye your colored wools separate for they will bleed and you don’t want a mess.
Fill kitchen sink with hot water,, 2-3cups of instant coffee & a capful of fabric softener. (the more coffee you use the darker the fabric will be.) Let soak for 5 minutes until saturated. Put in washing machine on spin, then toss in dryer for 10 min till dry. Press with iron on low heat. You are now ready to cut your wool for your Twigs Design.
Appliqué’
*Make a copy of the pattern, place copy on top of wool and cut pattern out using colors suggested.
*Using Elmer’s Glue Sticks, place glue on back of wool pieces and arrange on background wool. Iron them with warm iron to stay put.
*Whip stitch around pieces with 3 strand of DMC thread or pearl cotton. I prefer whip stitch over blanket stitches for it just looks nicer.
*If you are creating an item to be hand washed with homespun i.e.: shirt, sweatshirt then please use heat n bond instead of Elmer’s glue sticks & use a zig zag stitch completely around each design to make sure it is secure & wont fray.
Hooking
*Cut wool into trips, about a quarter inch approx 16 inches long or #8 strips.
*Cut pattern out with poster-board makes great sturdy pattern pieces to trace.
*Trace pattern onto burlap with a black marker. *note: you may choose to remove the small details if you find it hard to hook them.
*Bind edges with masking tape so they don’t fray while hooking.
*Place burlap in frame and begin making loops of hoops to fill in your Twigs Design.
*Hand-stitch border around edges so that your hooked rug looks nice.
