Felted Case

Posted on December 15, 2018 by

This week, I made a case for my best friend’s birthday. I made it all in one piece using a resist. I laid out a piece of silk on the resist first so that the back inside had a nice pattern, I also thought this would help strengthen the flap so it doesn’t stretch if it’s opened often. This is the front with the flap open:

And the back with the flap open:

This is how it looked with the flap closed:

I used some dyed silk throwster’s waste and dyed soy staple for the embellishments:

The silk has a paisley design on it, which can still be seen, but close up you can’t tell with the texture:

I always have trouble choosing buttons for cases/purses etc. I’m sure I said this last time, but I really need to make some more buttons out of polymer clay. I bought a bag of green buttons at a hobby fair about a year ago, I thought this one was quite nice, but a bit small:

I liked this ‘fancy’ button, but it’s a bit big and too thick:

This was my favourite and what I ended up using:

I blanket stitched around the button hole and around the opening/flap, but didn’t get chance to photograph it finished. My friend loves it and he’s already using it 🙂

Posted in resists, Wet Felting | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Finished Slippers and Something New

Posted on December 13, 2018 by

I had planed to do a post about The Holiday Card I sent to Ruth  but it hasn’t arrived at her house yet so I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Instead plan B. As promised  some pictures of the finished slippers. I made these for a sample for my slipper class a few weeks ago.

I left the one on the right flat so people could see how it was cut. I will steam or wet it and put it into the correct shape.  The one on the left is how is should look . I plan to make a leather sole for them.

The other thing I did for the class was leave one as it was when the felting was finished to show how the wool migrates through the decoration.

And the other one I shaved with a regular disposable razor to show how you can bring it back up.

And now for my something new. It is something I have  been talking about and thinking about for a while. Can you guess what it is.

How about now

or now

I am sure you know now

A new camera! It was on sale so now was the time. I had to use my phone to take the pictures because it is so new the battery is still charging. Now I need to figure out some good background and lighting I can use for pictures in my windowless studio. I am thinking some sort of shear on a frame to defuse the harsh light and some wight card for bouncing the light. Maybe a big light gray and or white felt sheet for background.

 

Posted in Classes, Design, resists, Uncategorized, Wet Felting | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Snowflake Holiday Cards

Posted on December 11, 2018 by

Every year we have a card exchange on the Felting and Fiber Studio forum. Whoever wants to participate signs up, we choose partners and those partners exchange a hand made card. This year I had two partners as we had an odd number of people, so I made two cards. I like to do more of a winter card rather than a specific holiday card. So this year’s card was all about snow and snowflakes.

 

I started with a piece of felt that I had stamped with the spiral stamp shown above and then drawn on with thickened dye. I attempted to over dye the felt but it wouldn’t take any more dye. The photo on the left shows the back side of this piece of felt. (I forgot to take a photo before I fused the sheer fabric on the front.) I decided that I would stitch snowflakes over the stamped spirals with the lines in between stitched to look like frost or jagged ice. But the color wasn’t too good so I looked in my stash and found some sheer fabric in blues and purples that already had fusible on the back.

So I fused the sheer fabric down. I have started the free motion machine stitching in the photo above. I found the easiest way to stitch the snowflakes  was to get the 6 or 12 radiating lines down first and then add the rest of the structure. You can see that the one on the left that didn’t have the radiating lines turned out really wonky. But this didn’t really matter as it will be covered in the next step. This piece of felt is big enough for two cards so it will be cut down to size in a later step.

Here’s the piece after I stitched all the snowflakes. I was a little sad to cover these up. They do show through but not really giving you the full scope of the stitching.

Then I found some more small bits of sheer fabric that I added over the stitching to give more color.

This is hard to see but there is a very sheer, shiny “fabric” that I stamped with acrylic paint. I am not sure what this fabric is, it looks a little like Lutradur but is more shiny and more open “weave” than the other Lutradur I have. I can’t remember where I got it. That is why I need to use stuff up. It’s bad when you have no idea what the stuff is, where you got it or what it’s original use was. So use stuff up!

I then fused the top layer over the variety of colored sheers and then cut the cards down to size. I machine stitched around the printed snowflake for the top layer and then zig zag stitched around the edges of the card.

I only had brown card blanks and I didn’t like the look of the snowflakes against the brown background. So I used two of my numerous colored papers that worked with the colors in the pieces. I glued the fabric card down to the paper and then fused the paper to the card blanks. I mailed these two cards off to Ann and Diane. Hopefully, they will like them. Unfortunately, there is a postal strike in Canada and it may be a while before the cards arrive.

Do you make your own cards? We’d love to hear about it over on the forum if you do!

 

Posted in Mixed Media | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

British Wool Show 2018

Posted on December 9, 2018 by

I recently attended a wool show in Murton, York UK.  It is a considerably smaller show than Woolfest that I blogged about here a while ago.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/07/18/woolfest-2018/

I attended this show two years ago, but last year it was moved to Thirsk in Yorkshire so I didn’t go as I didn’t think it warranted the travel.  This year it was back close to where I live, so I decided to bowl along.

Looking at the website I think I counted around 50 stalls, including some of the usual fibre providers such as Adelaide Walker and The Threshing Barn.

I took quite a few pics for you all again.  I always asked if I could take a photo, saying it was for a blog for this forum and they all seemed surprised but pleased!

First off let me show you this very distinctive lady – she had felted horns on her head in the form of a headband and when I started chatting I realised her rather fetching bright red specs were indeed one round one, and one square!!  I think she looked fab!

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Someone who does not take herself too seriously I would imagine, especially when you learn that her site is called Felting Bonkers!  Here is some of the work on her stall, some of it was hers and some belonged to two other ladies.  I loved this fox and rabbit.

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Then I just meandered around taking pics for you all.  There were some nice wall hangings.

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Plenty of purchasing opportunities.

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Only a few livestock at this show.

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I liked these pom poms in a milk churn.

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I left with a few goodies, well you have to really don’t you?! I think I did the whole show in an hour, compared to Woolfest in about 6-7 hours, but it is nice to support the smaller shows too, because if we don’t, we run the risk of losing them.

Which and where are your favourite shows?

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Another 4th Quarter Challenge Sample

Posted on December 7, 2018 by

Sorry for the late posting, like Ann last week I lost track of the days and missed getting some photos in the brief window of time we call ‘day’ here at this time of year! I managed to get some decent ones today, though it ended up being one of those days where every time you try to do something, another thing comes up! I had another idea for combining wool tubes and fabric which I wanted to try, so did that this week. I wanted to see the effect of wrapping fabric around wool tubes and then felting. I thought it’d be a good way to see the results if I used the same colour wool for the tubes as my base colour. Green always works well on camera, so I used that. I planned on using a few different fabrics in white, but only had cotton gauze and synthetic chiffon on hand, here’s the finished piece:

I did think some pieces would be very flat, but it turned out they all kept a fair bit of dimension:

I think this piece of synthetic chiffon had the most dimension/texture:

It was the only chiffon piece which I wrapped around the wool along its length, it uncurled along one edge, this is the edge still rolled under:

The other strips of chiffon were wrapped around the wool-wrapped kebab skewers diagonally:

This is one of the gauze wrapped pieces which I wrapped diagonally, above:

And from the side:

And this is one I wrapped horizontally along its length:

I think if I want to use this idea to better effect, I should maybe try a sample using more, and less wool in the centre. I can see it being usefull with less wool for getting a defined shape/line with little texture, or using more wool for creating a more 3D piece. Maybe a sample with narrower strips of fabric wound around would be good too.

Posted in Challenges | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Felted slipper class

Posted on December 5, 2018 by

This last Saturday I taught a slipper class to 6 lovely ladies. I gave them a choice of templates, so there were different types of slippers being made at the same time. We used the one that looks like bunny ears, the one with little pointy the ears on the sides, boots and some pointy ones.  They used Corriedale wool for the slippers. I prefer something like Fin wool but it is hard to get it in colours and everyone wants colours. So Corriedale is a good compromise. After everyone made templates it was onto laying out the wool.

Then on to rubbing rolling

Once everything was hanging together well, it was time to take the resists out. You might remember Christine made one of the pixie hats in the hat workshop a few weeks ago. Hat Class. Hat Class She is planning for curly toes.

 

And on to fulling. There is scrunching and throwing of course and we had a washboard and a car mat to help with the shrinking.  Sorry I have no pictures of that.

You can custom fit your slipper right on your food of course.  You can really see how much it has changed compared to the one that hasn’t been fulled yet.

This one was almost done.

Judy’s are the only ones managed to get a picture of at the end of class.  She put a little of all the embellishment fibers on them to see how they felted.  She still wants to a just the top at the opening. She is going to make insoles and add a leather sole.

I am adding this in. Judy had some felt insoles and she needled some special supports for her feet onto it and fit them into her new slippers.

And Christine’s curly toes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Classes, Design, resists, Uncategorized, Wet Felting | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Online Class Schedule for 2019

Posted on December 3, 2018 by

I have updated the online class schedule for 2019. Please take a look under the tab online classes at the top of this page to see the schedule. If you are interested in taking any classes in 2019, please fill out the contact us form and tell us which classes you want to take and the class date. We will then add you to the email notification list to be notified when the class registration opens.

Online Course Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques - A Mixed Media Approach by Ruth Lane

If you are interested in surface design on felt with a mixed media approach, take a look at my classes Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques – A Mixed Media Approach which are presented in four modules. You can take them all or select just one or two. Each class is separate and since all the classes are online, you don’t have to travel and you can work at your own pace. I will be offering two sessions of these classes in 2019.

If you would like to learn more advanced felting techniques such as using multiple resists, shaping, adding straps and closures, making internal compartments, creating a hat for the correct head size, using a hat block and much more. Take a look at Teri Berry’s two online class offerings: Felted Concertina Hats and Felted Bags. Teri will take your felting skills to a new level so that you will be confident in designing and creating your own felt hats and bags. Teri is offering 2 sessions of the hat making course and 1 session of the bag course during 2019. Please fill out the contact us form if you’re interested so you can get on the email notification list.

Our Wet Felting for Beginners online course is always available. If you are just starting out and need to learn the basics, this is a great place to start. Perhaps you want to put this class on your holiday wish list! Just sign up at the link above to learn the basics of wet felting, shrinkage and information about a variety of fibers that work for felting.

We do have some other online classes in the works but I don’t have any firm details yet. But we are working on nuno felting, felt scarves and perhaps even some needle felted pictures. What would you like to learn about in the felting and fiber arena? Let us know and we’ll see if we can create an online class that fills that need.

Posted in Online Classes | Tagged , | 3 Comments