Friday 2 December 2016

Making Christmas Tree Angels with Tinsel Yarn Halos

"Ooo, I've never seen handspun, 
100% wool, eyelash yarn dyed gold with plants. Who'd have thought!" 
My companion has been rather a trial to live with this week. I pretended I hadn't heard her.
"Have you heard back from your agent about that audition yet?"
She remained apparently absorbed in marvelling over the tinsel yarn.
"Wonderful work. Such craft."
"Elinor, you know as well as I do that's just King Cole polyester."
"Oh, I don't take a dim view of a bit of sparkle, Beaut. You're the dreary eco-warrior round here." She let go of my three balls of shiny tinsel in order to push her specs up her nose and give me one of her looks. "I see the worm has not so much turned, as tied itself in a bow."


I bought this tinsel yarn with a view to adding halos to my usual wool fairy making process, in order to turn them into Christmas angels. 
Wrap most of the length of a long pipecleaner with white roving, just as you would for the arms. Now tie on the tinsel yarn near to one end and twist the pipecleaner to wrap a diagonal of tinsel around it, simply knotting it again when you get toward the other end. Bend the decorated, middle section into a circle, leaving a few centimetres of straight pipecleaner on either end.  Pass the wool roving meant for the head and body through this loop before you tie up the fairy's neck and it works a treat. Once the waist is also tied over the dress, the hidden straight part of the halo loop has been fixed in two places, making the whole thing firm, ready to be bent into its final position while you are adding hair.




















I also made bigger, angel style wings, by folding two decent strips of white wool roving in half and tying them together about two thirds of the way up, then needlefelting them into a butterfly shape before knotting them around the fairy's waist.
I think these angels hang better with a thread suspending them from the waist, rather than the top of the head.


Next day, I spotted Elinor out in the frosty garden, deep in an angelic conflab. Tirion and Seren were bending low over her head. They were talking in Welsh and I couldn't make out what they were saying.


Elinor came back into the kitchen stamping her hooves against the cold.
"Did you hear any tidings of comfort and joy, then?"
"No, Beaut, I did not.  Fair play, Seren and Tirion are nice girls, but they tell me angels don't do wishes." She sighed as she unwound her scarf. "Never can find a fairy when you need one."
I reached for the tea bags.
"Put the kettle on, shall I?"

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