Greetings from New Mexico

Greetings from New Mexico

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My name is Donna and this is my first blog post on the Felting and Fiber Studio Blog.  I read it regularly and recently responded to a post by Shepherdess Ann with the fact that I too am a shepherdess.  Ann invited me to post about my sheep and felting.  As the title indicates, I live in New Mexico, just east of Albuquerque, in the high desert, where it is not always warm as some might think of New Mexico.  At an altitude of 7200′, we get snow and cold in the winter and warm to hot in the summer, but not enough moisture because then it would not be desert.

My husband and I started a hobby farm late in life because of my love of fiber.  We presently have 18 sheep,  2 pigs,  14 chickens, 2 livestock guardian dogs and one Australian Shepherd.  I started this adventure with Angora goats.  Of course they have beautiful locks as you can see from this photograph of CeCe on the left but as you experienced felters know that fine fiber does not felt well without wool to hold it down.

 

I then acquired a pair of twin Leicester Long wools, Winken and Blinken, from a friend in Colorado.  They have nice long wool but I was not pleased with their fiber color which did not resond well to dyeing.  They are big boys, wethers.  The goats have since gone to live with a guild member who is a spinner and weaver.  I could still get fiber from them if I wish.

I decided that Wensleydale sheep were what I wanted.  Thanks to the North American Wensleydale Sheep Association, I found a breeder in Oklahoma and my husband and I drove over to Kerrville and picked up a ram and 3 unrelated ewes to start my flock.  There are not many Wensleydale sheep in New Mexico.  The girls had 6 uncomplicated births.  Then there was Maddie, my 7th, who was rejected by her mom and had to be bottle fed.

I brought her into the kitchen and luckily my experienced shearer came the next day and told me that was a mistake.  She needed to be out with the flock for her own protection.  If she wasn’t used to being with the flock and later kept separate from them she would be the first to be attacked by a predator.  I complained to him that I was too old to be night bottle feeding in the barn!  He set me straight with a morning, noon and evening schedule. Whew…  At first it was exciting but quickly got old. (I bet Ann, the experienced shepherdess, is smiling at this.)  I have not bred any more ewes since.

Here is Maddie when she was abandoned in the barn and here she is now.

I have since acquired 6 Debouillet sheep from a friend of mine. The Debouillet is a cross between a Rambouillet and a Merino.  The breed was developed in Tatum, New Mexico, in the 1920s and they

have a nice wool fleece.  The total now is 18 sheep, 3 rams who live a boring life, 13 ewes, and 2 wethers who live in another pasture.  Winken since passed away and I sold one of my ewes.

Here is a picture of the ewes waiting for their breakfast. As you can see from the picture, the flock does not get to enjoy the green rolling hills like their relatives in the UK.

 

 

For those of you who purchase your wool, so do I.  As many of you know, the process of preparing fiber straight off the sheep is an onerous one.  It must be skirted (my least favorite job), scoured and then the locks must be picked. Last year, I had to take all my unskirted fleece to the dump because it had become infested with moths… Ugh!  The moths especially love the dirty stuff.  But surprise, surprise, there was much more after the shearer had come!

Here is a picture of the before and after the scour of some Wensleydale fiber.

 

I made cobweb felted scarf/shawl from some of the locks I hand dyed.  It was one of the items I sent to a Guild sale and was asked by some of the members working if I knew it had holes in it and did I want to take it home and fix it 😢😢  sigh…  There are not many felters in my guild.

 

Here is a picture of some scoured Debouillet fleece.  It is a shorter fiber, and I have not used it in any felting projects yet.  It still needs to be combe or carded to get more of the VM out, but it is not nearly as difficult to remove as it is from those tight Wensleydale curls.

I hope I haven’t bored you too much with the sheep stories.  The sun is coming up and it’s time to feed all the critters.  It may be in the barn today because the forecast is calling for snow.

Felted Lantern Cover Workshop.

Felted Lantern Cover Workshop.

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I got to teach a felted lantern cover class recently. It was mostly people who had never handled wool before. This class is fun, interesting and technical. This project requires a very thin layout, but if it develops holes, that’s ok because it lets the light out.  It’s a great one to use to practice thin layout.

I made a new sample with prefelt shapes on the inside and sari silk on the outside. I didn’t have a sample of either of those. It always amazes me how much the sill disappears when you wet it, even on contrasting colours

And the finished sample. The inside shapes worked really well. Some of the mwere swallowed by the scrunched-up part, but that’s ok.

I had eight students. I let them choose if they wanted to make it all enough to be able to make part of it scrunched, or just tall enough for it to fit the glass vase/lantern. I almost forgot to take pictures.  It was about an even split. Scrunching them makes a fairly simple design stand out.

I almost forgot to take pictures. Here they are laying out their wool, lots of different ideas.

Then, of course, there was all the rubbing and rolling

Here are some finished but still wet. I am not sure how I ended up with only 5 of them. I was sure I took a picture of each of them.

And here are some pictures my students sent me when they were all dry.

I think they look great. This is a great project if you don’t have a lot of time, but want the satisfaction of start to finish in one session.

Landscape painted on nuno felt with watercolor paint.
Experimenting with Watercolor Landscape Techniques on Silk and Wool

Experimenting with Watercolor Landscape Techniques on Silk and Wool

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I recently wrote about using watercolors to create abstract landscapes. My purpose was to try the technique on paper and then try to translate it to silk and nuno felt. I experimented with a variety of small samples, the largest being 10″ x 13″.

My first attempt, I soaked 3mm silk in soda ash solution and placed it on white paper. I then mixed up a paste of fiber reactive dye with a bit of water and used a palette knife to apply the dye paste to the wet silk. I used dye colors pewter and daffodil. I added water with a spray bottle and with a paint brush. The photo above on the left shows the silk drying on the paper backing. The photo on the right shows the paper underneath after drying.

The picture on the left shows the silk after rinsing and the silk after nuno felting with fine white merino. It still is a landscape but I lost so much of the lovely green color. I love the paper that was underneath but the end result is a bit disappointing. I will be still using all these samples and adding further dye, paint or stitch so don’t worry, they will be improved. And I will see what other surface design techniques will give the end result I want. But I forged on trying to get a better result from the beginning.

The next step was to try painting the dye with the silk laid out on plastic. I covered my print board with plastic and laid wet silk soaked in soda ash on top. I used the same application with a palette knife and adding water as needed to spread the dye. The photo on the left is after applying the dry. The center photo is after the dye has dryed in the silk and the right photo is after nuno felting. This was a bit better and I can see the landscape in this result. I kept track of my results by taking photos, pasting them in my sketchbook and writing out the process for each piece. I also kept a running list of “what ifs” and further ideas to try.

Experiment number three was to nuno felt the silk first. The left photo shows the white nuno felt (a bad photo), the middle is after applying the dye and the left is after rinsing. The dye does not move very easily on the felted silk compared to plain silk. Therefore, the dye doesn’t spread as much. This is still using fiber reactive dye, so I asked myself “What about acid dye since now I have added wool to the equation?”

I think you can tell from looking at the results from left to right, there is some improvement in keeping the color in the end result.

I got a little off track here as I next decided to try felting some paper and see how that worked. I used small pieces of Kitakata handmade paper that I already had on hand. The photo on the left shows the felted paper. I got in a hurry and the paper didn’t felt in as well as I would have liked. But I decided since these are mainly samples, it didn’t matter. Forge ahead! I soaked the nuno felted paper in soda ash and then added fiber reactive dye for the landscape. I continued to use the palette knife method of dye application. The photo on the right shows the piece after rinsing and drying. My next thought was “What if I used the nuno felted paper but painted it with watercolor and didn’t rinse it out?”

I nuno felted more paper on to the merino and added the watercolor paint with the palette knife. I forgot to get a photo with the paint still wet. The photo on the right shows the dried result. The interesting thing with this one was that the water I applied above the horizon line (and none below) caused the water to seep into the dry paper moving most of the paint below the horizon line. Interesting end result though. Work upside down the next time?

3mm silk gauze pre-dyed with light blue for sky color.

 

In the middle of these experiments, I helped a friend with how to dye cotton fabric. She had not dyed before so we had a fun afternoon playing with dye. I had my pieces of silk ready for nuno felting and I thought I would dye some a very light blue for sky colors.

Silk that was light blue, painted on acid dyes and then steamed. Colors ran while steaming.

This next piece has the blue silk,  nuno felted first and then soaked in a vinegar solution to get ready for acid dyes. I applied the dyes as usual, forgot to take a photo and then steamed the piece to set the acid dye. The dye shifted all over the place and the end result looked nothing like the original application of dye. It still looks like a landscape, kept the color better but I didn’t want this much shifting of the dye.

So I tried a second one with blue sky silk and acid dyes. It’s not a good photo because of the glare but you get the idea of what it looked like after painting with dye. I picked it up, did not think to put it on a tray or flat surface and the dye came pouring out and the landscape was lost. I just rinsed the piece and you see on the right, that a slight amount of dye took without steaming. That gave a nice misty background that I decided would work for depth.

Landscape painted on nuno felt with watercolor paint.

I then added watercolor of Payne’s Gray and Quinacridone Gold Deep in the usual manner. I let the watercolors dry and didn’t rinse as this will be a wall hanging and will not be washed. This is getting a little closer to the outcome I want.

Next up was to treat the silk as if it was a silk painting. I stretched the silk over a wooden frame and used tacks to attach it to the frame. I then applied the dye with a palette knife and added water. The edges were a bit tricky as I didn’t have any gutta resist to keep the dye from spreading but again, it’s just a sample. Then I decided I could dry/heat the silk without removing it from the frame with my heat gun. Oops, I burned a hole in it. Perhaps next time, I will let it dry and then iron it. Or I could use silk paints and the proper resists. The right photo is the piece after nuno felting. Still looks like a landscape and I don’t mind the edges.

I still have quite a few ideas to tweak the process and I want to try adding more on top of the results I have shown here. I am having fun experimenting and perhaps one of these days, I will decide to make a bigger piece once I have an end result that works for me.

Inspiration from world travels – Part 1

Inspiration from world travels – Part 1

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In Oct/Nov EPH (Ever Patient Husband) and I took a trip of a lifetime and spent a wonderful four weeks exploring mostly Cambodia. Initially, we were on a two-week tour with a group, before saying goodbye and then doing two weeks solo exploring.

Below is just a glimpse of what we encountered from a creative viewpoint, although I have slipped in a few extras, beginning with….

Transportation!

 

 

 

 

 

We started in Vietnam; a country we have been to before and as we had organised our own there-and-back travel we arrived a day earlier than the group – to allow for any travel glitches! We actually stayed for our first night in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) in the same hotel we stayed in 23 years previously….it was exactly as we remembered, so much so we could have been there just a few months previously!

 

Parcels, packages and wares

 

 

 

 

 

Transferring to our next hotel, within the city, we met the group and after an overnight stay we then transferred to a river boat. Yes, we spent 7 nights in total luxury (I did say the holiday of a lifetime!) cruising the Mekong River from Vietnam into Cambodia, before discovering Cambodia overland with the group.

 

The Mekong is Ennnnorrrrmous!

 

 

Along the way we were participants in all the side excursions. Many involved local industry such as lacquer work, silk production, silk weaving and water hyacinth weaving etc, (water hyacinth is very abundant along the river!). It can be argued that these venues are purely for the tourists, and I agree to an extent….All I can say is that without these excursions I might not have been able to, easily, access the sites.  What I did see was that we were a small part of helping these crafts to survive, providing much needed employment (often for disabled persons) within the communities, whilst also allowing the skills to be passed on….but this is not a discussion for this post!

 

Lacquer work in Saigon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water hyacinth weaving in C’ai Bé

 

 

Bamboo

Another grown product that is extremely plentiful and is used ubiquitously

 

 

Everywhere nurtured our souls and provided inspiration for our creative spirits. From the contrast of the busy city to ‘gentle’ rural landscapes, from simply daily life to the busy crafting communities, to the amazing architecture both ancient and modern.

 

As I have too many photos for this post I’ll sign off until my next one. Just a taster – silk, rice, sweets etc will be included!

But as this post was entitled ‘Inspiration’, and most reading this will be working with textiles, I will leave you with a couple of thoughts on I how I see creative ideas everywhere in terms of shape, colour and design etc. These can be translated into – sewing, embroidery, landscape stitching, patchwork, felting, painting, and weaving to name but a few.

 

 

I hope you are able to use your surroundings for inspiration.

 

 

Punch needle tree and coasters

Punch needle tree and coasters

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I am still learning how to use my new Oxford Punch needles and make punched fabric. This can be rugs, chair pads, coasters, art work.  Whatever you fancy really.  I continued working on the freeform piece that was started in the workshop I took last fall.  I decided to add a border to the piece.  Once that was done I took it off the frame.

Since I am still a beginner I decided to experiment with some blank Monks Cloth.  I stretched the cloth onto my frame and got out my Sharpie to draw a pattern.  I decided to try making a small Christmas tree and some coasters.  Then I picked out my yarn and started punching.  I drafted the pattern and started the tree one evening, then finished it off in another evening.

Then I turned my attention to the coasters.  After a couple of hours of punching spread over 2 evenings I had completed my coasters.  Generally you work by outlining your shapes, then filling in the middles. I was using a bulky yarn that changes colours slowly as you move through the ball.  On the first coaster I let the background yarn move through a colour transition.  But I decided that I preferred to have the background be more solid so I avoided that with the rest of the coasters.

I now had to learn how to finish my pieces.  I watched some videos and asked for help on a punch needle forum.  I learned that I needed to iron the pieces to block them.  So I wet a large bathroom towel, covered the piece with the damp towel and ironed them.  Both the front and the back of the pieces were ironed.  This helped flatten my pieces.  I cut out the pieces and used the iron to fold down the hems to make sewing them down easier.

After gathering my sewing supplies I started with the tree piece, sewing down the hems. Next I sewed the tree into a cone.  Then I added a small star made from pipe cleaner and sewed small brass bells randomly onto the tree.  When I was happy with all that, I stuffed the tree and then sewed a circle of black felt onto the bottom of the tree.  Then I moved onto finishing the other pieces.  The freeform piece was easy to sew since there were nice wide seam allowances.  The coasters were harder because the seam allowance was too small.  However, I fudged it and got them sewed down.

The final step was to sign my pieces.  Black sharpie for the win!  (Though I could not sign the tree since it had a black felt bottom.)

The tree was gifted to my parents and was a small addition to their holiday decor.

I had a great time working on these pieces and learned quite a few valuable lessons:

1) Design: The tree should not have had a curved line on the bottom (my tree leans).  Since this was a 3D piece I should have made a paper cutout to test my design.

2) Spacing: A larger seam allowance would have been better for the coasters.  They suggest 2″ on all sides.

3) Density: I should have made fewer punches in some of the pieces.  My punching was very dense which caused the pieces to curve when taken off the frame.  Luckily blocking with the iron helped with that.  In future I should skip more space between punches and leave a bit more space between rows of punches.  I think this is an easy beginner mistake to make because you are working from the back and the tendency is to fill everything in.  However, in reality you need to give the yarn some breathing room to let it bloom.

Thanks for listening to me babble about punch needling.  I’m enjoying learning this new craft and looking forward to my next project.

 

 

A felted object in orchid, teal, yellow and white wool is on a wooden table. The object seems to hold no particular shape.
Buying boxes? Nossir! (or maybe I should have..): how to salvage a misshapen project.

Buying boxes? Nossir! (or maybe I should have..): how to salvage a misshapen project.

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Hello, my creative friends.

Here we are at the start of a new and exciting adventure: making a felt box out of, yes, wool!

You think that I am stating the obvious, felt is oftentimes made of wool and of course you can make felt boxes: just look at the internet and you will see tons of them for sale (mostly made with industrial felt)! But you would not believe how many times I have had to explain those two bits of information to people during the time that I was making my box: yes, I am felting it. Yes, it is made of wool. No, I am not going to sew it (if I possibly can), I am felting it. Yes, I make it by felting wool. W-O-O-L. How, you ask? You can make all sorts of shapes by felting with the right resist..no, I am not going to sew it, I assure you it will come out with the box shape. Well, hopefully.

To be sure, a box is just another type of wet felt vessel made with a resist, and yes, of course you can make it by sewing the single felted flat sides and a flat bottom together, but…sewing, where is the fun in that? (total respect to people who like sewing, eh, it is just not me)

Long story medium-short, we decided that we needed to organise our living room in a better way, changing bits of furniture and generally trying to sort out the chaos, also because we are in the process of adopting guinea pigs (oh, my! let’s see) and we need the space for an indoor cage. So, we are plus bookshelves and minus an office desk with drawers, and we need some kind of storage box that fits the shelves and, crucial, does not seem something that you find in your shed. Unfortunately, the size of our shelves is not standard, and a standard storage box will not fit, either because too small or too big. So I thought, let’s have a box that is good to look at and the maximum size that will fit in there, let’s make it ourselves!

(well, I would not want you to think that I normally talk to myself with that royal We. It is clear to any who know me that all that was just me and me thinking “What, 30 pounds for that soulless box that does not even fit properly? no way, I can make one better than that and spend less!” or something of the sort)

A white sheet of paper with measurements for two boxes, a bigger one and a smaller one.
The size of the bookshelves that we have comes in two flavours, big and small, both somewhat non standard, so I originally thought about making a smaller box as well, and took measurements for both. All measurements are in centimeters.
Calculations for a 40 per cent increase on a piece of paper.
I arbitrarily added a 40 % increase on all sides, and did the same also for the height of the lid (all other measurements being the same for lid and box, of course)

To start, I prepared my resist for the bottom of the box: this involved a bit of sewing, namely attaching together the various bits of bubble wrap in the shape of a very floppy box without a top, as I will make a lid to fit it (some time in the far future). It does not show well in photo, but here it is:

A bubble wrap resist is on a floor
Here is the resist seen with the bottom part prominent (naughty).
A resist made of bubble wrap is on a brownish floor with a rug.
And here is the resist bottom down: very floppy, you can not really tell that this is a box shape.

I hate hand sewing on bubble wrap, the plastic just clings firmly to your needle and it is worse than sewing sewing, in my opinion, so let’s not dwell on it.

I did not have as much wool as I needed, so I ordered some from World of Wool. I wanted to try out something different from my usual Merino, as I needed something coarser that could be hard wearing and stand a bit stiffer, because the box is not small and will be full of quite a few things that are on the heavier side, such as tape and packing tape, some cables, and so on. Unfortunately, I am not used to coarser wool, the room was in a chaos and I did not have time for much research on our brilliant Blog or Forum (yes, it is lame. Let’s say, it is not the best excuse for not doing my homework that I have ever found, I’ll admit, but if you give me a bit more time I can say that the guinea pigs have eaten my research), anyway, ahem, later on our wise felt experts from the FFS Forum have determined that apparently I picked the wrong wool.

Well, you know, it can happen to anyone if they skip research and sampling. Well, yes, I also skipped making samples, because, let me think, the guinea pigs ate my sample? OK, maybe not. I’ll get better, pinky promise.

Anyway, I got my generic “English wool” from World of Wool, and yes, it was a bit coarser than Merino but still quite soft..in hindsight I may have been suspicious when it felt so soft, I do not know. Actually, that is a mix of different breeds’ wool, some that may actually be quite good for stiffer felt and some that are not, although they are coarser than Merino. Perfectly fine felting with it for all sorts of uses, but , a word to the wise, do not use it to make big boxes, eh.

A label reading: White 56's English Top, Size 100g, Quantity 6, Total 600g.
Here it is, the challenging wool.

So, I got on my white horse and started felting on my resist straight away with a lot of good will. I assumed that the coarser wool would need less layers to obtain the same felt (do not ask, pre-christmas chaos guinea pigs mind fugue hobblegobble chicachicacha) and I decided on 4 good layers.

Here are a few photos of my felting the first box:

A rectangle of laid out white wool just sprinkled with water, on a bubble wrap.
Starting from the bottom, that was the biggest area.
A work in progress of wet felt in white wool is on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. There is a smaller rectangle covered in a small layer of wool resting over a bigger rectangle covered in white plastic sheets.
First layer on a short side. I took care to cover each already worked on part with a layer of plastic (I used plastic bin bags) as I learned from Lena Archibold’s advice on how to work with a book resist.
Folds wrapped in bubble wrap open over a rectangular shape wrapped in white plastic sheets.
Figuring out how to fold the different sides to get an even result was a bit puzzling at first, I spent some time opening and closing folds, it must have looked weird from outside!
A rectangle of wool pre felt has a layer of Merino wool on top. The Merino wool is half rectangle in orchid color, and bright yellow and teal on the other half rectangle, overlapping a bit the orchid color.
Yes, we are at the fun part of the 5th layer, when I could use dyed Merino wool for the wow effect!
Another rectangular side of the box. There is a rectangle of laid out Merino wool, half the rectangle is teal and half is orchid color, and the two colors overlap a bit.
Here is another side. I actually decorated both four sides, but forgot to take photos of the two smaller. Anyway, it is the same colours for all the sides, only different layout.
A smaller rectangle of wet and soaped Merino wool, with the upper part in teal, a small central line in yellow and a bigger area in orchid color, all slightly overlapping each other.
This is one of the small sides, all wet and soaped, being worked on.
A roll of pre felt is on a wooden table, covered with a white towel and a plastic bubble wrap.
And here we are at the rolling stage. I also used throwing and variously manipulating the shape.

Wait, let’s see if you were attentive: have you noticed that I said “first box”?

Exactly: here is how it stood after drying, that is to say not at all:

A felted object in orchid, teal, yellow and white wool is on a wooden table. The object seems to hold no particular shape.
No words, really.

It took more or less a day to felt, and a few days to dry. I liked the colours (a last layer of Merino wool, the 5th, to do that), and the shape ended up exactly the right size, but it would not stand, and I thought that it was because the layers were just not enough. I had enough wool to start a new one doubling the layers, so I went back to it using the same resist and the same type of wool (not my cleverest day, fine).

A big bag of white wool is being weighted on a scale on a wooden table.
I weighted the remaining wool and I found out that I only had used about 150 grams of it, so I had still about 450 grams to try again.

The steps were the same, only more layers, so I will not show more pics of it, only the final result when the box had dried:

A felted box with the sides slightly collapsing is on a grey sofa.
One side..
A felted box with a side in yellow and teal is on a grey sofa. The sides of the box are collapsing in.
..the other side. I did not decorate the small sides this time, but left them natural white, as they are not going to be seen when the box is in the bookshelf.

It was better, but still the sides were not holding up.

At that point, it was definitely time for my felting fairy godmothers to intervene: I asked the classic “Help, what did I do wrong?” on the Felting and Fiber Studio Forum and, thank goodness, got kind replies that explained the generic English wool issue as probable cause (so, no, adding more layers was likely not going to cure that, in case I still had not clicked on to that) and gave me very good advice on what I could try next to avoid throwing the 2 boxes into the scrap pile and to salvage them.

The suggestions were:

– to try and stiffen the sides or corners with machine or hand stitching

– to try and put a wire armature inside the felt or stitch it on the inside of the box

– to use PVA glue to stiffen the felt

– to stitch the two boxes together one inside the other, and maybe also

– to add some stiff padding, sandwiching it in between the two boxes.

Or possibly to try a combination of the above suggestions until the aim was reached. Which is exactly what I did, apart from the PVA glue and the stitching, both left as last resort, the glue because I was not fancying working with glue with such a big object, and the stitching because I do not have a sewing machine and it takes ages to stitch by hand.

What worked? well, clearly not one thing only, I had to go on trying to the last, but in the end I have a workable box and we are already using it, even though there is no lid yet.

First, I added thick wire to the inside of the box corners, with a few stitches. The felt was not thick enough to insert the wire into it, that would have been better. Sadly, it did not solve the issue totally.

Then, I stitched in place the first box (the thinner one) into the second box, leaving the upper edges open for putting in some padding if required. It was better still, but not there yet.

Lastly, I started looking for padding. Floor underlayer was suggested as good for that job, but when I went to look at my local DIY builders warehouse I did not find the exact type and thickness that I needed, and I came home empty handed. The same research online left me with too many choices, some of them a bit on the expensive side because with a required minimum purchase limit that was also way too high for my storage capability (What, 20 meters rolls minimum?? I do not live in Versailles palace!)

Luckily, as I told you, we were changing some pieces of furniture and it so happens that some had polystyrene sheets in their packaging: initially, I did not want to use that for a few reasons (it breaks easily, it is not going to be washable, it can disperse plastic bits in the environment in time..), but in the end it was there and I could use it instead of chucking it in the garbage bin, so it is kept out of the dump for a little while more. And it was free for me, and readily available.

So, I cut it to size with a knife (bits of polystyrene everywhere, not my idea of fun but the kids where jumping up and down like it was going to be disco party in a minute) and inserted it in the pockets in between the two boxes, and then a quick blanket stitching all around the upper edges did the job. In time I may unstitch it and change the padding, if I will feel so inclined and will have the time.

And here it is, my box done!

(the bottom part, at least)

A felt basket or box without lid, full of miscellaneous objects, on a grey sofa.
That is one side..
A felted basket or box without lid, and full of objects, on a grey sofa.
..and that is the other. Already full of stuff.

Now, for the lid, we will see. Who knows, it might be ready in time for my next blog post..only, don’t hold your breath for it, guinea pigs may be coming and all of that (how did I manage with my lazy excuses before them is a wonder, my friends!)

I hope that you liked my adventures, feel free to leave me a comment, as long as you do not ask me about hand stitching the whole box or preparing resists by hand stitching bubble wrap together, any other thing is totally fine.

Best wishes!

Kiki

@kiki.textile.art

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Watercolor landscape painting
Simple Watercolor Landscapes

Simple Watercolor Landscapes

Comments 30 comments

I have been seeing some abstract watercolor landscape paintings on Instagram and thought I would like to try them. I don’t have a link for you as I seem to have kept scrolling without following or saving the video. If you look up painting watercolor landscapes with a palette knife on either YouTube or Instagram, you should be able to see some videos.

I already had some pieces of watercolor paper cut into small pieces, the largest being 4″ x 6″. These already had a light painting of blue to purple high flow acrylics on them but I decided that would work as the sky for the landscape.  Some of the videos suggest that you use 3-4 colors of watercolor paint but I decided to keep it simple and only use two colors at a time.

Open sketchbook with painted watercolor landscapes

I started with dry paper and the first two colors were Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. I used a small blob of Payne’s Gray straight from the tube onto the edge of a palette knife. I scraped the palette knife across the dry paper for the horizon line. Remember the rule of thirds and avoid putting the horizon right in the center of the paper. I always think of it as having more sky or less sky in the picture. The paint can be kind of messy as you apply it and doesn’t need to be a solid line. I then applied the Burnt Sienna in the same manner but limited it to 3-5 small areas.

Watercolor landscape painting

Then I applied water on a large flat brush above the horizon line. If I got much paint on the brush, I rinsed it between strokes. The paint from the horizon line moves up into the water and spreads by itself. Limit your brush strokes so you don’t overwork it. I pulled the paint up with vertical strokes above the horizon and used quite a lot of water. On some of the paintings, I sprayed water on too. I also took some of the leftover paint on the palette knife (very minimal paint) to make a few tree trunks above the horizon line.

Watercolor landscape painting

Below the horizon line, I used less water on the brush and barely touched the paint moving it more horizontally. Some of the paintings, I moved the paint a bit by dabbing the end of the brush into paint (already on the painting) and applying it into the wet areas.

Watercolor landscape painting

The first four paintings were all done with Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. Try to vary the height of the trees and allow some of the trunks to lean one way or the other. The other thing that I tend to do is space my trees evenly across the landscape. That tends to look very artificial so make your spacing uneven. You can see that I experimented with the amount of paint used and the amount of working back into the wet areas.

Next up was to try two new colors. I chose colors from opposite sides of the color wheel so that there was contrast and when they mixed, it would give a neutralized (brown, gray) color. The painting on the right had a few black trunks added after the painting was dry with a black felt tip pen. I used Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Gold Deep in these two paintings. I love how the watercolor painting spreads on the wet paper and how you can add a bit more paint over the “distant” trees to give atmosperhic perspective.

Watercolor landscape painting

Another change of colors to Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and Quinacridone Gold Deep. This produced a much more pine forest type of feel.

Watercolor landscape painting

These were really quick and easy to paint and I love the results. If I tried to paint trees in detail, I would never get this result. Now that I have tried these on paper, I have been sampling ways to get this result on silk and nuno felt. I am trying different methods and have a bunch of samples to show you in my next post.

angled shot to show texture in nuno felt
Nuno Felt Patchwork Cushion and Hydrangea Picture in progress

Nuno Felt Patchwork Cushion and Hydrangea Picture in progress

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Lyn

I wanted a new cushion for my dining chair. I could have stitched one but when Annie showed me a couple of her sample felt patchwork pieces recently …

nuno felt samples

… I decided to adapt her idea to make a cushion cover.

My first job was to spend hours sifting through a couple of cubic metres of open-weave fabric. I made a choice of fabrics … then the next day I changed my mind so I went through the whole lot again to get the selection shown below.

pile of loose-weave fabrics, various colours and patterns, suitable for nuno felting

I made a base of white merino wool fibres then started to randomly place pieces of fabric on it.  I covered about a third of the wool and decided I wasn’t happy with the look so I carefully removed the patches of fabric and I went back to the drawing board for a rethink.

After a bit of pencil chewing I decided on a pattern.  I marked out 25 squares on a large piece of paper then made freehand wavy lines to make the shapes for the patchwork pieces.

pattern for nuno felt pieces

As no two shapes were exactly the same, I numbered them before cutting them out to use as pattern pieces for the fabric, so that they could be correctly placed on the wool fibres.

25 paper pattern pieces

Unfortunately, because the fabrics were all loose weave, pinning was very difficult and cutting out the shapes was like trying to cut water – the fabric went every which way it wanted to.

I became engrossed in the difficult process of placing the pieces of fabric on the wool fibres and forgot to take a photo of that!  I only remembered when I’d already started on the rolling…

felt during the rolling process

… and here it is after fulling, rinsing and drying.

patchwork nuno felt after fulling, rinsing and drying

As the wool shrinks and the fibres wriggle up through the open-weave of the fabrics, a wonderful distorted and crinkly look appears – how much distortion does depend on the type of fabric.

This angled photo shows the crinkly effect quite well.

angled shot to show texture in nuno felt

I made an ‘envelope’ style cushion backing from my ‘regular fabric’ stash in a complementary colour.

envelope style backing for nuno felt cushion cover

And here it is giving comfort from the hard,wooden back of the dining chair.

cushion in a wooden chair

Annie

The hydrangea is one of my favourite blooms, as much for it’s tactile nature as it’s blousy large beautiful heads. If you’ve never shut your eyes and gently petted a giant hydrangea bloom stop reading and mark your calendar for the month they are in show in your part of the world, and definitely do it!

Hydrangea heads different colours

I’ve been meaning to create a picture in paint or fibres featuring hydrangeas for a long time, so I’m going to have a go, fingers crossed.

I would like it to be fairly abstract, definitely not too real, or too twee, but I really don’t know what I’ll get until I start working. I find it hard to work to a fixed creative outcome, I prefer to see what happens!

I’ve only got as far as sifting out some fabrics and yarns – and honestly this is a lengthy part of the process because I have accumulated far too much stuff over the years!

selection of open weave fabrics

selection of yarns

I remembered I made one small hydrangea sample a while ago that I’ve dug out for inspiration.

sample of felted hydrangea

close up of sample hydrangea head

I’ve also just been laying out another sample to try out various fabrics and ideas but haven’t got very far yet.

another sample of hydrangea colours

Unfortunately all of the real hydrangea heads are brown (or have been pruned off!) at the moment so I’ve only got photos and imagination to work from, so no still life opportunities around this time of year. I suspect I won’t be too true to colour as I rarely am, but as long as they are roughly identifiable that’s good enough for me!

I’m just getting going so have not achieved much in time for our blog post unfortunately, so it’s a good job mum made her beautiful cushion so there is something finished to see.

Annoyingly life admin has been getting in the way of crafting time recently but I’m chomping at the bit and trying to squeeze in what I can, and hoping for a few quieter weeks now so I can get more done. Did I just say that out loud? Uh oh!

 

 

Needle-felt Brooches and a Print Exhibition

Needle-felt Brooches and a Print Exhibition

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Since my last blog in November I’ve been very busy, though not necessarily making felt. I did, however, have a week’s exhibition with two friends in a local gallery the second week in December, and this afternoon I’ve dropped off 12 pictures for an open-call print exhibition, so that’s what I’m going to talk about today. 

Sitting in the gallery, I had time to do a little needle felting – I generally prefer wet felting but needle felting is better suited to gallery-sitting.  My friend Lynzi (yep, same name but different spelling) asked if I’d make two small brooches for her to give to her mother for Christmas. Lynzi liked some earrings I’d made previously …..

….. so asked me to make a mussel shell and a starfish brooch. I’d not needle felted a brooch before but didn’t think it would be very different from an earring so I set about it.

The trickiest thing was that she wanted them very small: she suggested between 2 & 4 cm. The smallest mussel shell earrings I’ve ever made were about 5.5cm and the star fish – which was a one-off – was considerably larger.  I didn’t think 2cm was practical, not least of all because of the size of the pin needed to attach the brooches, so we agreed on approximately 4cm. The mussel shell was relatively straightforward.  For earrings I make them curved like shells. For a brooch, I just made the back solid rather than curved and was sure to felt it very firmly so I could sew the fastening pin securely onto it. 

I had to adapt the starfish design as the centre of the starfish – which had to conceal the brooch pin – had to be a larger part of the overall design than it was for the earring.  I started off using a small star-shaped cookie-cutter to help me get an even star shape.  I concentrated on working the length of the arms and the centre of the starfish, so that when I stopped using the cookie-cutter I could work into the sides of the arms to make it less like a star and more like a starfish.

Here are the end results.

Mussel shell and starfish brooches
Brooches with a coin for scale

Lynzi was delighted and I’m looking forward to hearing what her Mum thought.

Now here we are in 2026 and I’ve had to put in quite a lot of studio time this week to create work for a print exhibition. Another local gallery (The Horsebridge Community Arts Centre in Whitstable) had an open-call for a print exhibition. The only requirement was that pieces had to have some element of hand printing. I wondered if my felt pictures with a printed tree would meet the criteria so had a chat with the organiser.  She said ‘yes’ so I decided to enter some.  The deal is that you pay per piece for a framed, wall hung item and you can put up to 5 unframed items per wall piece into a browser.  The gallery takes 10% commission on sales of the framed pieces (which you’ve also paid to submit) and 35% commission on the unframed, browser pieces (which you haven’t paid to submit). I opted for 2 framed and 10 for the browser.

These were the framed pictures I already had

And two unframed pictures presented with a card back and mount. 

So, I just needed to make 8 more unframed pictures this week to fill my quota for the wall and browser.  That didn’t seem too unreasonable when I decided to do it, but it has felt a bit less sensible given the time I’ve had available. It’s also quite cold here (for England). My studio is in an old industrial building (it used to be a bottle capping factory for Shepherd Neame, the oldest brewery in the UK). It has very little heating, so I had to decamp to my house part way through the week when my hands just could not cope with any more freezing water.

The unframed pictures have a mount with an aperture of 20 x 20 cm (about 8 x 8 inches) so the felt is about 24 cm square.  I thought the best idea was to make 4 pictures in one sheet and cut them apart during the fulling process. By ‘best’ I mean most efficient while still being a size I could handle on my felting table. I drew myself a little sketch to help me decide where to put the silk

Option 1 would mean the nuno felted area was the same in all 4 pictures so it was an easy decision to go for option 2.

I spent quite a long time sifting through my embarrassingly large collection of second hand silk scarves to select the pieces I wanted to use. 

I was keen on a grey leopard print scarf with a white background but it had stripes of more and less dense silk running across it. I thought I should just check that the dense section would felt OK so I did a very scrappy little sample. If you’re wondering why I got so little shrinkage, the felted scrap started off considerably bigger than the non-felted one.

It’s not easy to see here – more visible on the finished picture – but the more dense stripes produced a little more ruching.

It all seemed to felt fine so above you can see the first batch part way through the fulling stage.

Below is the layout for the second batch of pictures

I put a stripe of second hand wool (usually tapestry wool) along the top of the silk section. For the brightly coloured marbled scarf I auditioned a few different colours (red, yellow, dark brown, green)

And went with the green

So, here is the first group of 4 pictures with their printed trees

And here’s the second group of 4

I took the photos very hastily today and not in very good light: they are not as grey as some of the images suggest.

I’ve presented them with a back board and white mount and dropped them off at the gallery this afternoon. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow so, that’s pretty good for me. I have marked ‘last minute’ tendencies.

I print the images with a heat press – the kind of thing you might use for printing and image on a t-shirt. As I was heating it up anyway, I pulled together some pieces of felt that were test pieces or offcuts, cut them into small pieces and printed on those too. I will make these into cards.

Well, that’s me for now. Wishing everyone a joyful, healthy and creative 2026.

Guild program: how you started, first pieces & tips

Guild program: how you started, first pieces & tips

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Welcome to 2026, I hope it will be a better year than 2025 was.

So far this year, I have been busy with the local guild (grant reports data from the library), and considering projects for the new year (including cottage) and shopping options. I will also have to put in an order for more needles soon.

At this time of year, Guild activities, including programs and workshops, can be thwarted by weather or the fear of weather. With presenters thin on the ground for January, the program team had a creative solution for a last-minute program topic. We would interview ourselves and find out a bit more about each other. They had 3 questions to answer.

  1. What was the first fibre pursuit you learned, and who taught you? (Feel free to ignore sewing.)
  2. What was the first full piece you wove, felted, or used your own handspun for? (Bonus points: bring it to show off if you still have it.) Or feel free to tell us about the first-ever piece you made using your very first fibre art.
  3. What is the (or a) most useful fibre-arts related tip that you learned directly from another practitioner?

The weather on Monday had been lightly snowing when I left home, pretty decorative light snow… it kept snowing…… all day. I was alone working on the library until another guild member dropped in to consult the library around 11, but left by 12:30.  I was starting to fear that I might be the only one attending the meeting. Much later than usual, we had others brave the snow. There were so few of us that we had the meeting in the studio, rather than the Unitarians’ room. I am sure we were doing quality over quantity! (Those who stayed home were smarter, since it was a slippery, slow, snow-filled drive home.)

It was an interesting meeting. If you are in a guild and need an emergency fill-in for a meeting, with a few tweaks to the questions, this may be helpful for your group, too. I will show you what my answers were.

jan sitting beind a table dislaying both 2 and 3D needle felting 1) 07-12-2025 Jan Demo, Glengarry Museum

Answers to January program questions (Jan Scott).

  1. What was the first fibre pursuit you learned, and who taught you? (Feel free to ignore sewing.)

– We will not discuss my attempts trying to learn to knit. Mom was patent but it did not go well. My talents then were more in the acquisition of frogs, turtles and snakes, none of which she let me keep.

– ~1982, I started to seriously pursue my interest in fibre/textiles with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). My goal was to weave, then sew (post-weaving) by hand, my own Icelandic Viking clothing.

– ~1989 I joined the guild, became the librarian and then took my first weaving lessons with Donna Gerrarden in Cumberland (in 1989 or 1990). She had the guild’s old 100-inch loom and the guild table looms in her massive basement.

– One of my strongest memories about learning to weave was not just the magic as cloth formed from mere threads at the fell line, but the sound the heddles made as they jingled at every bump driving back and forth to Cumberland.

 

  1. What was the first full piece you wove, felted, or used your own handspun for? (Bonus points: bring it to show off if you still have it.) Or feel free to tell us about the first-ever piece you made using your very first fibre art.
  • Weaving:

– Donna taught me the 4-day beginner weaving workshop, then immediately continued with the 2-day Intermediate Weaving workshop. She then set me off to weave on my own. My first piece was not well met by some of the older weavers in the guild. I was still allergic to wool, so I had woven in cotton. I wanted a drapy hand to the fabric, not a stiff coverlet. I was attracted to pattern but was not sure I wanted the full intensity of that pattern. So I wove, I think it was called Ancient Rose, an overshot pattern, with a light and dark blue cotton, the pattern weft being slub. I set it at 12 EPI, not 24. I was fascinated by the pattern emerging and disappearing as the slub appeared and disappeared. It was exactly the drapy, shawl-like cloth I wanted. (It did not look like a stiff colonial coverlet that overshot is usually used to weave).

overshot pattern, woven in cotton using a slub cotton as the patttern yarn, fabric is draped over wiker basket. there is a black and teal felt hat sitting beside the basket. 2.1) The sample piece was used as a basket cover for demos, one of my felt hats to the Left of the basket

 

  • Spinning:

– My first spinning was at an SCA event (war in Pennsylvania). I was still allergic to wool, so I was handed a drop spindle and a handful of cotton. I was not told this might be harder to spin, just “here, spin this”. I had to put a “bit more twist” than the students with wool. I spun it just fine; it was fun, but cotton was not a fibre I wanted to use to make that Viking outfit. When I eventually lost most of my wool reaction, I discovered that “a bit more twist” is very hard to stop doing!

 

  • Felting:

– I did my first felting with Maggie Glossip in the early part of the 90’s. It was a small vessel project using a resist in wet felting, then needle felting embellishments on it. I was not as fond of the wetness of wet felting, but the concept was intriguing. I did enjoy the dry felting, but it took a while until I got to try it again.

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2.2–2.4) wet felted Vessel with Needle felted decorations

  • Others Fiber Arts:

– I have also tried my hand at dyeing, basketry, fibre prep, tapestry, kumihimo, and historical sewing.

 

  1. What is the (or a) most useful fibre-arts related tip that you learned directly from another practitioner?

 

  • Weaving:

– Jack Lane –was a fabulous weaver of tartan coverlets in 3 matching panels. He taught me how to lash on to the front beam rather than tie. And the secret of lay in 3 picks, then beat to start off. Jack was very generous with his knowledge and time to all guild members.

teaching a weaving tecneek to make a folded hem match the patern on both sides3.1) Jack Lain teaching how to weave a reversing border for a folded hem.

large overshot coverlet held up as jack discusses it3.2) Jack showing one of his Overshot coverlets (he also did tartan coverlets, three panels wide)

 

  • Spinning:

– The most memorable suggestion for spinning came from a twist workshop on art yarn with Esther Rodgers. At one point, we were making beehives in our yarn, and she went around the class enthusiastically declaring, “Shove it up the Orifice!!!” You just don’t hear that every day.

teaching stting behind spinning wheel with students sitting and standing around her. 3.3) 08-23-2014 Twist Saturday Art Yarn with Esther Rodgers

close up of hand pushing wool towords orifice3.4) art yarn with Esther close up

 

  • Felting:

– Sara Razzulie – online purveyor of info on (mostly sculptural) needle felting and on-line felt-along-s. “Try it”. At the start of the pandemic, I was perfectly happy to stay at home and putter in the garden, watch YouTube and listen to audiobooks. But I also enjoyed the online camaraderie of every live felt-along, including the mermaid Sara made. She did it over quite a few weeks and included wet felting for the tail’s top layer. I like the concept, but wanted a mer-man, so I scaled up her measurements from her mer-woman. Then scaled them down to make Mer-kids. I had to make my own guesses for the mer-pets, “Try it”. I made samples of wire gauges and types to better understand my options. I am still working on my Mer-project, but some parts of the family and pets are done and they had lots of fun playing at the Almonte textile museum during the guild exhibit.

sara teaching in front of displaty of her work, small image box in bottom right shows one of her Mer-maids3.5) Sarafina Fiber Art, Mermaid Felt Along 1: Armature, May 9, 2020, keeping us sane during the pandemic.

the mer-made Sara created during the felt along 3.6) The mermaid she made during the felt along.

– Ann McElroy – water can be used carefully so wet felting isn’t as horrible and can be fun, if your vary carful. (though I do feel safer when supervised by Ann)

teacher leaning over table with student sitting across from her3.7) Ann McElroy teaching wet felting

water has been added to wool on top of resist. 2 photos: top shows wet wool with rubbing tool under plastic. below felt is rapped up in towls to be rolled.3.8- 3.9) careful use of water in wet felting

 

It was interesting to hear the answers from others. Here are a couple of shots from the meeting. I think there were 15 people who made it through the snow (a couple took over an hour to get in, much, much longer than usual). During the program, we took turns between the Zoom participants and those in the studio. I had Rachel of the Program Team read my answers since I had already written and printed them out.

14 people at guild studio sitting infront of guild library cabinets they are watching and listening to the meeting which isbeing brodcast over zoom.4.1) OVWSG January Meeting, the Zoom attendees outnumbered the in-person people

one of the people participateing in the questions, with guild President lauffig in the backgrond on line participation showing an example of knitting with her first hand spun yarn4.2-4.3) participating  in the studio and online

 

If you don’t have a local fibre arts guild near you, maybe you can start a group, a get-together at the local library, fibre store, or felt in? It is really nice to have others who get equally excited about fibre and felting!

Now I have to get back to work, I have a workshop on needle felted landscape on Saturday (my calendar was sure it was originally on the following Saturday). Have Fun and Keep Felting!!