I chose ceramic artist Clarice Cliff for inspiration in the second quarter challenge because I liked this plate that she decorated in 1929.
I planned to make a shallow bowl and matching pot plant mat, in the style of Clarice’s plate decoration, using the resist method to make a pod
This is the shape of the shallow bowl I wanted to make. It would be white on the outside (like the reverse of the plate above) and decorated on the whole inside surface. The large circle that would be cut out from the top would not be wasted but would be worked into a pot plant mat.
I have made a similar bowl before using this method so I was confident with my idea.
I took my colour palette from 8 plants that are growing in my garden during the second quarter of 2021 – red, mauve, green, orange, yellow, pink, white, blue.
I cut a circle of paper 24.5cm (9.5”) in diameter then drew shapes on it – similar to those above on the plate – then I coloured in the shapes using the colours of the plants…
…then I set about making 8 pieces of pre-felt to match.
To enable me to cut accurate shapes from the pre-felt I used freezer paper – the paper has wax on one side. Tackling one colour at a time, I traced the shapes onto the non-waxed side of the freezer paper then pressed the paper waxed side down onto the pre-felt using a medium iron for 2-3 seconds.
After cooling, the paper will stick to the felt making it easy to cut the shapes out and the paper will peel away very easily.
Here are the shapes after cutting out – I didn’t realise until I was up to my elbows in wet felt and soap suds that I forgotten to cut 2 of the orange shapes. There should have been 10 – doh!
I placed the paper pattern onto the bamboo mat then covered it with a clear plastic circle. I misted the plastic with soapy water then I made some black yarn wet and very soapy – hopefully to make it ‘sticky’ – then placed it onto the plastic circle following the lines of the paper pattern beneath it.
I dunked the felt shapes, one at a time, in a dish of soapy water then placed them on top of the yarn.
I covered the circle with 2 layers of white merino wool top before flipping it over.
I removed the paper pattern then once again put down the black yarn following the pattern showing through the clear plastic circle.
Then I placed the coloured shapes on top as I did for the first side.
For this project, I put 4 layers of white merino wool tops on each side then worked it as described in the pod tutorial.
I cut the hole, as shown below, leaving only a narrow edge.
I finished the felting process on the circle that I cut away for the pot plant mat, then I turned my attention to the bowl-in-progress.
My plan was to make a shallow bowl in the shape shown below.
I’m not sure what went wrong but the felting gods were definitely not smiling upon me and my shallow bowl didn’t form as I’d planned.
So after a quick re-think I cut away the edge of the non-bowl then turned the remaining circle of felt upside down on a cake tin to form a dish in the shape of a pin-tray by Clarice Cliff (2 pin trays shown below).
It took a lot of soap and persuasion to get it shaped and my fingers looked like prunes after a while but I was very determined!
I did achieve my pot plant mat, but instead of a matching shallow bowl I made a key dish instead!
They would be ideal for a hallway table.
I hope you feel inspired by the 1920’s to make something in your chosen medium, and if you do, please post a photo in the Studio Challenges Section on The Forum.
During the wire adhesion and rotational experiments, I awoke in the middle of the night wondering if the use of parallel wires would reduce wool rotation? Would parallel wires increase the likelihood of needle entrapment leading to breakage? How would the flexibility of the sample be affected by the use of parallel wire? How would parallel wire compare to twisted wire of the same gauge? Am I not getting enough sleep since I seem to be dreaming about wire?
Since I had found the floral tape was helpful with adhesion and may reduce the entrapment of the needles I applied it to the twisted and one of the parallel samples.
Sample 3.1 twisted wire sample with floral tape compared to the parallel sample 3.2 with floral tape. Both are 10ga/3mm Aluminum.
1-5 Parallel vs Twisted, both with Floral tape
Sample 3.3 parallel, without floral tape also in 10ga/3mm Aluminum.
The second investigation on parallel wire, this time without the floral tape. Found that there was rotation in both the wire and wool. I used elastic on one end just to keep the wires together while the wool was wrapped.
6-7 Parallel without floral tape
The lack of adhesion to the wire allowed the wool to be compressed which was not seen in the other samples.
8-9 Wool compression along the length of wire.
I tried bending both with the wire stacked and adjacent. I found the Stacked was stiffer than adjacent.
10 Double bend with wire to investigate if the alignment of wire will make a difference in flexibility
11 Stacked (one wire on top of the other)
12 adjacent (one wire beside the other)
Would parallel wires reduce wool rotation?
parallel bare wire, greatest rotation of the three samples
twisted wire with floral tape, less than bare wire
parallel wire with floral tape, least rotation of these samples
How would the flexibility of the sample be affected by the use of parallel wire?
parallel wire with floral tape, when stacked seemed the stiffest but still flexible.
adjacent alignment of both parallel samples seem similar to the stiffness of the twisted sample
Would parallel wires increase the likelihood of needle entrapment leading to breakage?
I did not find the needle catching between the wires but I wrapped the wires when they were straight, not shaped so this may have reduced the likelihood of catching. I also suspect the wires with the floral tape would be less likely to catch than the bare mettle. If the wires are twisted loosely there is more opportunity for the needle to get caught in the looping sections. Only two samples may be too small a sample size to be definitive.
Being conscious of the working depth of your needle and not speed stabbing will also reduce your rate of breakage.
How would parallel wire compare to twisted wire of the same gauge? For these samples at this gauge, I found:
if taped the parallel gives less rotation of wool
depending on the wire alignment at the bend, it can give either a similar or stiffer flexibility to the twisted wire
if no tape is used and the sample section is straight, the wool can be compressed after wrapping.
The use of parallel wire may have an application depending on what you are creating. The ability to compress the wool along the length of the wire was interesting. I will keep it in mind but don’t have an application for it at present.
Dealing with the Pointy bits:
I found that the ends of the parallel samples were very pointy and sharp. To reduce this, I tried my rasp file to take off the point and then softened the edges with a metal nail file. This worked very well and maybe worth considering at least for the larger size wire.
13 Hardware Rasp and metal Nail file
Am I not getting enough sleep since I seem to be dreaming about wire?
possibly not, so I am now thinking about a studio in the garage…… ah, renovations!
Thinking of the garage:
In case I have been over investigating the wire options for armatures I have turned my thoughts to another topic. Glenn is on holiday and we are still in lock down so have to stay home. Instead of heading off on a vacation, we went to the garage at the end of our driveway, the detached and sinking one. We have been wanting to sort through the stuff that is in there and then try to fix the sinking walls and aesthetically dipping and twisting roof (someone did not put in an adequate number of roof trusses…you should not skimp on roof trusses!). We had been pulling gardening pots and other essential stuff out of the garage when we, (OK, Glenn is doing the lifting) started hearing odd noises from the back corner of the garage. It grew louder when I adjusted the sonic mouse deterrent. (It’s a plug-in high-frequency sound generator that is said to be offensive to mice and drive them out of an area. It only works in straight lines so if your area is well cluttered it does not work as well.)
14 Squatters trying to make a run for it!!!
On further investigation we found we had squatters living in the garage, three of them had taken over the ruff-tote bin with air mattresses in it!! Well, they need to be evicted!!! NOW! Not only are they not paying rent they have shredded a foam sleeping pad, cardboard and chewed at the roof decking (there is a tarp on the roof so the hole isn’t leaking).
15-16 Odd, I was sure we saw three of them in the bin originally.
Glenn went back in to start to clean up the mess but heard more noise from the corner and emerged with raccoon number three.
17 Oh no here is number three
OK, now he can clean up… and is that another one?
18 Number four is added to the bin.
While Glenn returned to clean up I gave them a thorough lecture about their eviction and that they were not welcome in the garden either. I am not sure if I was successful since they fell asleep as I was telling them they had been evicted and were not allowed back in the garage.
19 Well they don’t seem too stressed about being evicted if they are sleeping through my eviction lecture!
Back in the garage a fifth squatter was found unsuccessfully hiding behind the leg of the shelf they had been living on. (Hiding is not successful if we can see your butt on one side of the shelf leg and a paw on the other side!) After more moving of the stuff number five was evicted too.
20 eviction number five.
Glenn has not had the extensive hunting by hand experience that I had growing up (snakes, a soft-shelled mud turtle, frogs, crayfish, mice, moles, voles and a squirrel). Unfortunately, the mind remembers how, but the back is very insistent that I am not bending and reaching to catch a teen raccoon, at least not at the moment. Glenn’s more limited snake and feral cat experiences have been greatly augmented by the eviction of five raccoons. Neither Glenn nor the Evicttees seemed stressed by the experience.
21 There are now five teen raccoons in my air mattress bin!
By the time he had all of them out of the garage and done a check for alternate entry points and blocked them it was getting late in the day and the temperature was getting a bit chilly. I retrieved one of the lids and put it askew over the racoon-lets to keep them warm. (I may be Evil and have evicted them but I’m not totally heartless)
22-23 Glenn secured the perimeter and I added a lid for warmth until their Mom comes to collect them.
The next morning I went to check on the evicted and found the lid off and the bin only holding chewed-on air mattresses. My plastic owl was also knocked over. So we can report the eviction was a success, so far no one has tried to move back into the garage!
24 Successful extraction… now I think I should have kept one for the soft possibly feltable fur.
We have another week to keep sorting through and clearing the garage before Glenn is finished his vacation. Then it’s back to having fun with felt. I may yet find some raccoon fur to add to my felting since we still have more stuff to move and sort through.
First, the part everyone wants to know, who won the Custom Fibre Chest. The winner is Karen Cantwell. Congratulations, I am sure you will enjoy your basket of goodies. For everyone else get a Free goody bag if you place an order this month. Just mention you saw it on the Felting and Fiber Studio Blog.
And now the less exciting part,
I decided to make another little bag to keep things in my basket organized. I am going to use some thick prefelt I have. The nice thing about the thick felt is you can split it and cut away a layer so you can overlap the edges and not have a thick seam.
Here’s the layout ready to wrap around. I use a felting needle to keep it all in place before wetting.
I thought it would make it more versatile if it had a little loop so it could be attached to something if I wanted to use it somewhere else, maybe attached to my sketchbook. to add it I used the offcuts from pealing the prefelt and some of the yarn I am using to decorate it. It’s handspun wool and silk. This is the back with the loop wrapped up so it won’t stick down. I needled the ends of the yarn down.
And this is the front. I may embellish it after it’s felted. I will see what it looks like. It looks very blank at the top but I will be cutting that later to make a foldover flap.
It felted down really well and you can’t see where the joins were. The join is right down the middle top to bottom.
I added the pen for size and a little piece of white felt so you can see where the opening is. It didn’t show with the black on black. I will probably add a magnetic closure if I have a small enough one. If not I will add a snap.
I love the way this yarn worked. This yarn is handspun. it’d shredded sari silk and wool. I don’t remember spinning this but looking at it I think it must be mine. Firstly it is a very small amount and I typically do this. The other is how it’s plyed. It looks like it sat in a center-pull ball or on a spindle a long time before plying. When you do that the yarn sets and when you ply it, it doesn’t really look right until you wet finish it to give the yarn back its spin energy. I almost never bother to wet finish my yarn because I won’t be knitting with it. Essentially I’m lazy about it, what can I say?
I didn’t look at this too closely before using it, I just liked the colours and thought they would look good on both the black and grey. Now looking at it after felting I suspect ( I would have to go look to be sure) that it was plyed in the wrong direction. I plyed it in the same direction as the spin so added more energy rather than plying in the opposite direction, removing energy and balancing the yarn. If you look at the yarn now you will notice it sometimes looks like two parallel yarns and sometimes one wrap around the other and that seems to be happening in the same direction as the single yarn. It didn’t just all unravel because I have tacked down at both ends.
It is another fun thing about making your own yarn. You can do some cool stuff on purpose or by accident. It fun, you should try it. It’s all the same supplies you already have. You just need a cheap drop spindle. You can even have lots of them, cheap and expensive and still not be in as deep as one spinning wheel.
I sold three of my landscape pieces in March and I need to get more down to the gallery shop soon. So I took five pieces to be framed and I needed to make a few smaller pieces to go in ready made frames. The first one was easy, I made a replica of the holiday exchange card of winter time birch trees. I wrote a post about creating it here.
Here’s the second version. I forgot that I had used two layers of prefelt for the birch trees so they weren’t as white this time. But to me, it just makes it look colder!
Then I needed another idea. I have been watching some artist spotlight videos on the Youtube channel Fibre Arts Take Two and had seen one about the felt maker Kristy Kun. There were several short segments in the video that showed a bit about her process which looked interesting.
Then I walked by this small piece in our living room that I created in Level 3 Art and Design. It’s made with paint, gel medium and cardboard. Perhaps I could recreate this design in felt? And I could attempt some three dimensional felt on the horizon line with a similar method to the video I had just watched.
I first laid out wool in similar colors as the original. I should have noticed at this point that the horizon line was too close to the center vertically but I missed that.
Then I laid out some strips of the dark red and black mixed together in different sizes.
Then I began felting. I only wanted to go to the prefelt stage with both of these elements. The red bits reminded me of bacon the entire time I was felting.
The strips seemed too wide for what I had in mind, so I folded them in half lengthwise and ironed them. Once I figured out what I wanted the arrangement to look like, I began stitching them in place. I used a thread that would blend in so I wouldn’t need to take it out.
Suddenly, I remembered that I was supposed to needle felt these in place before stitching. No worries, I went ahead and needle felted the already stitched pieces and kept going. Once everything was in place, I felted everything together. I spent a lot of time rubbing the strips in place and making sure that they were holding on to the background felt. I even tried a little underwater felting as I had seen in the video.
Here is the end result. I am happy with how it came out and it is well attached between the strips and the background. It didn’t shrink down as much as I wanted so I will need to find a bit larger frame for it. And I might remove a bit of the bottom to make the horizon line a bit lower. It was a fun experiment and hopefully, someone will love it and take it home.
Post edited to add final photo.
Here is the final photo of the piece in it’s frame. I did trim a bit off the bottom to change the horizon line a little. The frame is 8″ x 10″.
There is an innovative indie-dyer who to supplements my addiction from time to time. She has access to some lovely long wools such as Teeswater and Masham, great blends, and exotics that don’t come my way very often. She is superlative at using colour and just great fun in her experimentation. This past winter I decided to take the plunge and buy some of her less expensive offerings of a mixed bag of long wools. These bags can have any kind of breed. They generally are a little felted or cotted but not impossible to work with for spinning.
Because the locks were slightly felted I decided to use small dog combs as flick carders to open the wool. That was a surprise! A lock that was five inches long ended up 14 or more inches after being carded. The dog combs are very fine and do a good job on the locks if used gently.
The colours in the grab bag were mouth watering and spoke of spring.
Each lock was kept separate and spun individually. The singles were plied using the chain ply method to let the colours remain in blocks.
The bag was primarily long wool, but had a great variety of lengths, so I think it was more a grab bag of breeds.
The residual wool caught in the carders was short and had some neps. This was carded as for wool spinning, some was run through wool combs to see if that would yield any decent results, but the wastage was very high, so I gave up on that as a processing method and went back to using carders.
The wool caught in the dog combs was slightly blended and the colours were muted.The dog combs pulled out short bits and neps that will add texture to this woollen spin.
I haven’t spun the wool waste yet, but it should be fairly quick to do and easy to finish if I do long draw. The colours will be more heather than the crisp colours that I’m trying to maintain by carding the individual locks, but they will have a muted heather look and will be attractive in their own way.
Each lock was spun individually into singles, which were then cable plied as a three ply. This is the only way I know to protect the individuality of the colours.
Singles of different “long wool”
The final result is interesting, but a little bit “all over the place” and frankly a little disappointing. It had no clear purpose, no underlying colour theme, no direction and it shows. If this is used in weaving I will use a monochrome warp and complimentary weft to help pull it together and make one or two specific colours pop. Right now, none of the colours really stand out. The yarn itself is actually surprisingly soft for long wool. It’s lusterous, silky and smooth.
Three ply cable yarn that is lustrous and surprisingly soft.
I’ll keep trying different kinds of long wool, I enjoy them, but I think I’ll try finding my own fleece supplier if possible and see what I can do with my own cleaning and dyeing. I need to find out what the fleece are like right from the animal. So the learning curve continues.
A recent post from on spinning byShepherdess Ann reminded me of a wonderful trip to Finland back in 2013. This weeklong trip brought together representatives from many European Union countries. We spent the time together in an Artists’ commune in Järvenpää experimenting with various fibre media. It was an incredible experience; there was lots of learning and some great friendships were formed during our time together. Participants were each given a drop spindle and a lesson in how to use it. My spindle has taken pride of place (gathering dust) in among the Tunisian crochet hooks. That was until I saw Shepherdess Ann’s beautifully spun fibre. I had to try my hand at it again.
A dear friend had gifted me some tops which came in 25 gram packs so I decided I would use these for my experiments. As my previous lesson was long forgotten, I consulted YouTube tutorials and marvelled at the near balletic elegance of the teacher’s movement. I soon discovered that like ballet, ease does not mean easy.
During my first attempt I endeavoured to copy the tutor, pulling on the tops so that a uniform amount of fibre was spun. I will not even refer to what I produced as ply – it was thick in places and perhaps less thick in other spots. A friend introduced me to a new language when she asked me if I was using the ‘park and draft’ method. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about (back to Google again!) Here is the result of my first attempt:
I thought I would play a bit and use it to crochet. Using my 15mm (US size P) hook I made a magic circle (ring) with the aim of starting some hyperbolic crochet after the first few rounds. There was so little yarn that the end result was flat (except for the risen centre) (4 rounds).
For my next attempt I decided to pay more attention to the division of the fibre so this time, using my eye as a guide, I separated strands of the tops and started spinning. The result was a bit better but there were still areas of thickness when the yarn was spinning. Two possible causes identified; the fibre was thicker where I joined ends and I got distracted and at times used too much fibre in the process. Still this was an improvement from the point of view of the length of yarn I had produced.
In order that I could compare my samples, I used the same methods making my hyperbolic piece. I was happier with the result as I started to see curling at the outermost edge. (7 rounds)
My third sample was made using the orange/purple fibre. On this occasion I decided to use my scales to weigh out the fibre, rather than relying on my eye. I know it’s not the correct way to do this but I just had to see if I could find a more even way to divide the fibre. So, I ended up with 25 lots at 1 gram each. It produced a more even width on the yarn. Now I was aware of another issue, tension. I had no control over it so it was back to YouTube. From this I surmised that I should be pushing the twist up through the fibre as I spun but I found this tricky. Despite the still imperfect result and the problems with tension I managed to get more yardage and it was a lot more even than the previous samples.
Notwithstanding the dreadful tension I was quite pleased with the shape of the hyperbolic crochet. In fact I felt that the tightness (tension issues) of the yarn gave quite an attractive finish to the stitches. Also, I was delighted that I managed 8 rounds before the yarn ran out.
I don’t know if I was feeling frustrated by my efforts while making this third sample but I started thinking of how spinning was second nature to females throughout the millennia. The Tarkhan dress, excavated in Egypt in the 1900’s was subsequently carbon dated and found to be at least 5,000 years old. In fact according to the Harvard Gazette (2009) a team of archaeologists and paleobiologists discovered flax fibres that are more than 34,000 years old, during excavations in a cave in the Republic of Georgia. They surmised that the flax collected from the wild could have been used to make linen and thread quite possibly to make clothing. In early Ireland (I’m Irish), spinning and weaving skills were so important that the Brehon Laws, written about 600-800 A.D. lay down as part of a wife’s entitlement in case of divorce, that she should keep her spindles, wool bags, weaver’s reeds and a share of the yarn she had spun and the cloth she had woven (https://weavespindye.ie/history/). Spinning was still carried out by females prior to the arrival of the Spinning Jenny just over 250 years ago. In essence, a skill which was once learnt by girls on their mother’s knee was lost to many with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. I could deduce from this that what once came naturally to the female line of my ancestors is now the cause of much personal frustration. I am resolved to find somebody once the world reopens who will be prepared to sit beside me and guide me through this process so that I can gain this lost skill.
Back to Finland: One of the other skills I learnt while with the group was how to crochet. I have since found it very meditative, especially when I just crochet for the fun of it (no pattern). So, some years ago, in this frame of mind and with a pile of pink spare yarn on my hands, I decided to crochet a hyperbolic plane. I had no pattern, I just wanted to see what would happen if I started with 6 stitches on a magic circle (round) and doubled my number of stitches in each row. By Row 10 my round had 6,144 stitches. I committed to one more round (12,288 stitches) and decided to change my colour to green so that I could monitor the row’s completion. Let’s just say it took a while to complete. Although it is a number of years since I completed it, I still love to pick it up and run my fingers through the ruffles. It’s actually quite soothing. My adult comfort blanket!
Last year during the early covid of 2020 Glenn was browsing Kickstarter, likely looking for no-fun-train-board-games which he enjoys. This time he found an electric spinning wheel looking for funding. I had a tiny portable electric wheel from the same developer which worked great but I found the tiny bobbins frustratingly tiny! Glenn was sure a bigger bobbin and a upgraded motor strength would be a perfect x-mass/birthday present.
Electric Eel Wheel (EEW) 6.0 was described as a production eSpinner that offers large bobbins, quiet operation and could both spin and ply. It was developed by Maurice Ribble (his company is called Dreaming Robots).
(what a cool logo!!!)
The Kickstarter campaign was active May 21 2020 – Jun 20 2020 (30 days) and 1,791 backers pledged $445,892 to get the project going by pre-ordering EEW 6.0’s. Maurice was very good at keeping everyone up to date with development, testing, and manufacturing. He asked for impute for the instruction booklets and made instruction Videos too. (He has made 114 update videos so far on you tube.) if you missed the Kickstarter but would like one too he is selling them on his website. https://www.dreamingrobots.com/
Earlier this month a mysterious box arrived at our postal box, it was a very sturdy box and seemed to be quite full of something…. Could it be? YES!!!
The Unboxing:
1-2 Well packaged, a good weight, there must be something interesting in here.
3 Excellent packaging, but I may have opened the bottom end.
4 I wonder what this is?
5-6 Oh my! Is this the Lazy Kate parts?
7-8 Six bobbins and a flyer,
9-10 and the base with power cord, foot on/off switch and battery holder.
This is obviously a box with no bottom it just keeps adding more stuff to the table!!!
11 No I am mistaken there is a bottom!! How did it all fit in there?
Glenn took the parts away to do the assembly but got distracted watching something on his computer, after a couple “is it done yet?’s” it was and I got to try it out.
I think there are 3 of us in the guild that have received this wonderful new wheel, Angela T, Terry N and myself. Angela was fast and had hers unboxed, assembled and photographed before mine even made it home from the post box. I posted pictures of the box, its contence and a video of the first spinning on my new wheel in the guild Facebook group. If you are looking for a reasonably priced, lightweight, electric wheel with a big bobbin and orifice, you may want to check this out. I hope we will be able to resume socials sometime this summer, I am suspect all three of us will be bringing our new wheels. (There is a battery you can get so you don’t need a long extension cord!!)
12 Here is the video. (i am working on finding a format will keep trying)
I was working on this post, had only spun a bit, when I finally got through to my Doctors’ office to ask questions about the Covid vaccine and was advised just get whatever was on offer. So next call was to one of the local pharmacy to ask more questions and inquire how long the waiting list was. I was extremely surprised to get the offer of a cancellation later the same day. I did mention I have not done well with flu shots in the past and have an odd assortment of allergies. So, I fretted until it was time to drive over for the Shot. I wound up with the AstraZeneca shot with a second coming in August. The Pharmacist did a fabulous job with the injection. However, within 3 hours of the injection I started to feel all over achy, nauseous, headache…. and crawled off to bed with my plastic bucket. It took about 3 days to climb back out of bed with only a stiff shoulder, exhaustion and bouts of wanting to go back to bed. With that much of a reaction, it defiantly means I got a dose that works.
13-14 having fun
I have had a chance to spin a bit more and am enjoying quiet motor, large bobbins and the adjustable speeds. I haven’t tried plying on it yet, but suspect that it will be as easy spinning is.
Silk, silk and silk! It goes with everything and always improves any project I create. I consider it a ‘workhorse fibre’ due to how adaptable it is. Even the smallest amount does wonders and I consider it essential for any of my personal projects, or where I want to really wow someone.
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Q-2 Two tools you use all the time?
A felting rolling pin. I start all of my felting projects with this. It takes the hard work out of felting and I don’t have to roll the felt up, I can work on it flat. Within minutes I can have a large piece of felt that is ready to be developed further.
My trilobite finishing tool. I use the tool at the end of the felting process to give a sheen and smooth finish to my felt. It works especially well when I’m using silk.
Q-1 One fibre art technique you love the most?
I looooove *gestures at the void* how can you ask me to narrow it down?! I suppose if I had to choose, I love making nuno felted garments using fibres I’ve dyed myself.
General Questions
What is your business?
Marie Redding Arts
What kind of items do you sell?
Felting, weaving, crafting, knitting materials, tools and supplies. I also create and sell my own yarn and locally sourced sheep fleece and locks.
I supply a wide range of wooden tools which my master carpenter makes just for me, to my designs.
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I ship worldwide and have customers in every country which has enriched my experience and consider myself very lucky.
I’ve recently started creating spirit dolls on a custom basis as well. They’ve proven to be very popular with my customers.
What do you think makes your business different from similar ones?
I have a unique eye for colour and use books for inspiration, such as Alice In Wonderland
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I make sure every order that goes out is special and contains little gifts. I also pride myself on being a one stop shop and cater for all my customers’ needs if I can, with a very diverse range of goods. Being plastic free as much as possible is important to me.
Marie has done an amazing giveaway of a felting basket of goodies. To get in on the draw leave a comment below. Make sure there is an email attached to your profile so we can contact you. (don’t post your email ) If we can’t contact you we will pick another number. Marie will use a random number generator on May 4th to pick the lucky winner and I will announce it in my blog post on May 5th.
A luxury mixed media treasure chest in a gorgeous wicker hamper, ideal for a gift or a treat just for you. A bumper haul of mixed media fibre in your chosen complementary colours, merino wool, hand dyed silks, beads, hand dyed nylon sparkle, hand dyed locks and Teeswater fleece, and a gorgeous piece of luxury fabric to top it off! Presented in a beautiful wicker hamper which can be supplied gift wrapped at no extra cost, with a gift message or blank gift tag. This kit has no plastic packaging as I care about the environment.
I haven’t updated you recently on my slow stitching project. I hate to admit it but after my last post in January, I got out of the habit of daily stitching. It’s amazing how easy it is to stop doing something and then find it hard to get back into the habit again. But I did start stitching again towards the end of March and I have made a little progress.
Here’s the entire piece now. I have added some darker values in the foreground trees, added a few leaves down in the trunk areas and stitched some of the “shrubbery” to the left of the trees. I also added some darker values in the middle ground area to give it more depth.
Here’s a closer look at the area to the left of the trees. I am planning on continuing the stitching in the foreground areas to give the look of bushes and undergrowth. So the slow stitching will continue. I could probably forgo the stitching in the foreground but I like the look of the dense stitching and want to cover the entire surface. It’s not about the time spent on this one but the journey.
I thought it would be interesting to compare a very early photo on the left to the way it looks now on the right. A bit different?
(what a cool logo!!!)
