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Month: August 2012

Inspired by Heather :)

Inspired by Heather :)

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So its been way to long since i did any felting , so today I decided to brave all the packing and although I didn’t want to dig to deep I grabbed some wool and started

I’ve been so inspired by Heather lately and her journal covers that I thought that would be a good project to kick me back off

I’ve used some of my gotland fiber, merino, sari silk ribbon, silk waste and silk threads.  This is the first time working this way as Heather has done, an all in one cover so no sewing ends together.  I liked it 🙂  I didn’t work inside out though,  as I really wanted to see what went on the top  .

I made the resist using really thick plastic and also another small strip to add in the centre front to make a pen pocket , I think I was being really clever lol  but hey it worked 🙂

Starting the layout

I’d already added in silk and threads and everything else when i decided to try to make a pen pocket, so i made another smaller bit, added a strip resist ( you can just see it poking out the top)  and placed all back top after moving some of the fibre around and putting everything back so was covered,  i thought myself pretty darn clever with that one 🙂 And it worked perfectly.

Finished book cover and i really like this one, So I made a few mistakes but I’m really happy with the first one, ( notice the  tribute color )  Heathers  favorite color is orange so i couldnt help but add some in 🙂  I also added a leather closure with a toggle button , in orange of course  haha

I forgot that gotland was slightly harder to felt and it took me a long time of rubbing before I was game enough to take out the resist and start fulling,  some of the fibers just didn’t want to stick but I keep going until I knew that it wouldn’t fall apart. I did make the resist slightly too large and it did shrink down a fair bit but not quite enough for the book I wanted, so had to make another one with a smaller reist.

Starting the second one, i was liking it at this stage

and although i running out of light, i was really liking it here, i’ve added another strip for a pen pocket to

now i dont like it so much,  i find the colors to be really insipid and just not me,  my daughter loves it so i guess its hers now 🙂

 and it’s a bit puffy in the corners where it refuse to felt down properly, this ones even been in the drying to help a bit bit its still not quite right,   anyway thankyou for the inspiration Heather, I’ve had a fun afternoon and once I get them just how I like them I’m going to make some for my girls at work for Christmas presents

Question,  when you’ve chosen the note book or journal that you want to use how can I work out measurements with cutting the resist so by the time alls said and done it actually fits the book I want, i did check in ruths book and worked the resist to suit ( thanks ruth )  but i was still either to big or to small in size !!!!

So whats everyone working on right now, don’t forget to put some pics on the forum and in flickr

Happy Felting xo

What To Do With Felted Beads?

What To Do With Felted Beads?

Comments 12 comments

I had a set of felted beads that I had made for demos for the book. Since it’s been over a year since I finished them, I thought it would be  good idea to use them for something. I had some barrette findings on hand so all I needed was a backing piece of felt. I did make one piece of felt at my felting retreat and that was it. I cut the felt up into barrette size pieces but it seemed too soft. So I soaked the backing pieces in half water and half white glue and let them dry.

 

So here they all are. I made 8 different barrettes, all slightly different although they all go together since the beads all matched.

 

This is a closer view of a spiral bead. These are made by layering your different colors of wool and then rolling them down. I also used the end bits as I thought it livened up the design a little.

 

I also had a few round beads. The trick to making these beads is using short fiber merino. It works like a charm and even though it’s a bit expensive, it’s worth the extra money. Short fiber merino felts so easily and doesn’t have a lot of hairiness so you get a nice firm bead in no time.

 

The bull’s eye beads are made by rolling up one color in a snake, then adding different color layers until you have as many colors as you want.

 

You can see that the layer underneath just supports the beads. I glued the beads down with a glue made specifically for fabric. It holds very well, dries clear and doesn’t take long to dry.

 

Here’s the back. I glued the barrette finding down as well. I ordered these online and they are the kind made in France which seem to be very reliable.

Do you make felt beads? If so, what do you make from them? I’d love to hear about different ways you’ve used felt beads and do add some photos to Flickr or in the forum if you have some.

 

Dyeing Some Waste

Dyeing Some Waste

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Dyeing some waste.  Throwsters waste that is and I suppose it must have been trash at some point or they wouldn’t call it that. Throwing is was they call reeling silk for thread and this is the left over little bits.  I have a batch of white and needed some colours for a project.  The pictures of wet silk an bags did not turn out but I have some nice pictures of the end.

I dyed small amounts in plastic sandwich bags. First I placed each blob of waste  in a bag and added some soapy water to get it wet. I let it sit to soak while I got the dye ready. I used MX dye as it would be the fastest and easiest. I poured of the extra water out then poured in the dye,  just enough to get it all wet. I squished it around in the bag to make sure it all got dye.  No worries about felting the silk, a nice change from dyeing wool.  I did the same for all the colours and let them sit for 10 min. I added a solution of PH up and water. Buying the pool chemical is the cheapest way to buy Sodium Carbonate, especially at the end of the season.

I made a solution and poured in enough to cover the silk. I let it sit for about half an hour then drained and rinsed the silk. Here is what it looks like drying on my front porch.

Throwsters Waste Drying

Not so great looking. I had squeezed all the extra water out of them. However after they were dry I fluffed them up and they look like this.

Fluffed up
Second Half All Fluffed Up

As you can see fluffed up they barely fit on the same drying rack in 2 batches. My project didn’t work out, the waste I used  on the surface sank into the courser wool I was using and disappeared so I have nothing to show you right now. I am planing to use some more on hats so I will do a post with them later.

 

And the Winner is… Plus Felting Around the Web

And the Winner is… Plus Felting Around the Web

Comments 6 comments

I know you’ve all been waiting on pins and needles to see who won the book give away for The Complete Photo Guide to Felting. I used a random number generator. There were 58 entries and the number chosen was 49. That number corresponded to Linda Whitmore’s comment. Linda, please e-mail me your snail mail address to info at purplepomegranate dot com (I spelled it all out to avoid spammers, but write it like a regular e-mail address). Linda, I need to hear from you within 48 hours. If I haven’t gotten your response by that time, I will re-draw for another winner. I want to get the book in the mail to you by Monday at the latest. Thanks to everyone who entered the give away. I wish I had 58 books to give away so each of you could have one. It’s nice to hear from everyone, I hope you’ll comment on our regular posts more often too. 🙂

And just to make this post a bit more interesting, I have included some fun stuff I’ve found around the web in the last couple of weeks.

Tutorial for adding eyes and ears (needle felting) by krex

Information from Diane about Wool Moths

GalaFilc’s Sunflower Scarf and Bag

Bure Bure’s Felt Derby Style Shoes

Ikonium Studio’s Student Work

Jane’s Felted Geodes

Jana’s Resist Dyeing

Claire Moynihan’s Bug Balls

Plastic Utensil Sculptures by Carlos Bonil

Yarn Bombed Airplane

Oganising and waiting

Oganising and waiting

Comments 8 comments

Well as most of you know I’ve been packing up the house in readiness for new flooring, ( polished concrete ) thought I’d take some pics of what I’ve been packing away and if anyone ever hears me say I need more wool, you’d better shoot me  lol

But ooops , to late,  because  I’m waiting for another order  of  wooly cupcakes from etsy, another pound of delicious fibre and color , I really do need it though !!!!!

I’ve already packed up some boxes and put them away so this is the rest of my stash that was easy to photograph.   Its all on my second floor landing just waiting to be re-organised properly and ready to use

The clear tub in front is mainly full of ufo’s,  I have no idea what I’m going to do with most of them, Maybe some  cutting up and see where it takes me.  I was amazed at what I found !

I cant wait to get everything back in its right place and get to work.

This is also a couple of paverpol people ready to come to life, the big one is rather large and he will eventually hang from my front balcony.  I have been working on a complete step by step for one of these paverpollies so as soon as its finished I’ll be posting a tutorial ! Making these are so much fun, messy but fun 🙂

We also thought we may as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone and apart from the floors where also finally getting a new kitchen,  we went to Ikea the other day and chose what we wanted, we fell in love with just the right one for us so when that’s installed I’ll be taking more pics,  completely different to what we went there for but that’s the most exciting part I guess, and extremely brave lol    so as soon as the kitchen’s in then the floors will get polished, we all decided it was easier once the new kitchen was in rather that the other way around and at least then that can be fully organized without have the rest of the house plus the contents of  the kitchen all upstairs.

  so 2-3 weeks and all this can go back in my room  WoooooHoooooooo

I think I’ll have to do some felting way before that though as its already been quite a while and I miss not doing anything except sorting

Thats it until the next episode !

 In the meantime the dead line is almost up and this is the last chance to win  Ruth’s book in her giveaway so make sure you leave a comment and enter to win this Fab book

http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2012/08/16/win-the-complete-photo-guide-to-felting/

Happy Felting Everyone

Developing a Wholesale Catalog

Developing a Wholesale Catalog

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If you plan on selling on a wholesale basis, you will need to develop a catalog. Unlike buyers at retail shows, wholesale buyers expect to be given written information about your products as they won’t be taking any of your products back from the show. They will be placing an order to be sent at a later date.

I have been working with a program here in Montana called MAP (Montana Artrepreneur Program). The program focuses on developing a critical mass of market-ready artists through the work of cohorts (groups) of artists. In addition to paving the way for these artists to gain “market ready” status and move their work into larger, national markets, this program allows for small, regional pockets of artists to eventually grow into a network. Recently, I worked with Kris Kramer, a MAP participant, on developing a catalog, order form and terms for wholesale markets.

The Silver Pendant Catalog pdf

Kris is a jewelry artist whose pieces are 99.9% pure silver. You can see her work at her website. She has kindly agreed to letting me show you her catalog and wholesale information here so you can see an example of a wholesale packet that would be appropriate to give to a wholesale buyer. Just click on the PDF links to see her forms. Kris spent numerous hours working on her forms and made many different attempts before deciding on the best layout. Each person’s catalog and order form will be different but all should include certain items. You need good color photographs of the items you are selling. If a wholesale buyer takes your information but has no photos to remember your work, they may not return to place an order. When I am at a wholesale show, I cruise the entire show the first day and pick up catalogs of interesting work. If I’m not interested in a particular artist’s work, I won’t ask for a catalog. Then at the end of the day, I go through all the catalogs I’ve picked up and decide what to order the next day. Without photos, it is really hard to remember all the different artists I have visited. Photos are a must, in my opinion.

The Silver Pendant Order Form 2012 pdf

Other items that should be included in a catalog are wholesale prices of each item. It works best to have a price sheet separate from your photos because if the store or gallery wants to show a customer more of your work that perhaps they didn’t order or have run out of, they don’t want their customer seeing wholesale pricing. Your order form and price sheet can be one and the same. It should include a list of items which should note if there are different color options, size options etc. Your name or company name with contact information should be prominent at the top of the sheet. Include a snail mail address, telephone and any other way that buyers can contact you to place an order. You should either have a separate sheet with your terms or it can be included on the order form. Terms are how the buyer pays for the products such as credit card, net 30 or proforma as well as minimum order and reorder amounts, return policy and how shipping charges are figured. Many artists request to have the first order be paid by credit card and then offer net 30 terms with credit references.  Net 30 means that you will send the order but won’t get paid until 30 days after the ship date or invoice date. Most wholesale buyers expect net 30 terms. Proforma means that the buyer will send a check and once the check clears, the products are shipped.

The Silver Pendant Terms pdf

Try to keep your wholesale information concise and as short as possible. Buyers do not want to have to page through multiple pages and your items should be organized so they are easy to find. If you have lots of items, listing what page the photo of the item is in the catalog on the price sheet is very helpful. It is also good to offer a package deal. Make a couple of packages of your products, one at your minimum opening order and one about twice that much. This makes ordering simple for the buyer. So if you have 6 products that you are selling, the package might include 10 of a lower end product and 2-3 of each of your other products. This gives a the buyer a nice set of your work to sell without having to pick out individual items.

Selling on a wholesale basis takes work to get started but many artists like the freedom of only having to do 1-2 shows per year and then being able to work in their studio the rest of the time filling orders. Again, as I have said, you need to have the production of your items worked out so that is feasible to sell wholesale. One of a kind products that take many hours to make generally are not suitable for selling on wholesale basis.

Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have and let me know what else you would like to learn about marketing your work.

Colourful Sheep

Colourful Sheep

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Just a quit little post to show you the sheep I have been working on for my Christmas sales. They do stand up so you can use them as a decoration but they will all have a pin on one side so you can wear them.

Colourful Sheep

They are made with a combination of wet felting and needle felting. The ears are cut from a wet felted piece of fabric and I wet felt the snakes I cut for the legs.  The body and head are needle felted. The ears, eyes and all the curls are added with needle felting.  I hand dyed the curls. They are Border Leicester or Blue Faced Leicester I can’t remember.

Win The Complete Photo Guide to Felting

Win The Complete Photo Guide to Felting

Comments 64 comments

I’m hosting a give away of an autographed book to thank all you faithful readers for your support. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment. I would really appreciate it if you would spread the word about the give away by posting about it on your blog, Facebook or some other online forum. But you don’t have to jump through any hoops to win. Just leave a comment.

I will randomly draw a name a week from today on August 23rd so check back then to see if you’re the winner. There are no restrictions on where you’re from either. I’ll send the book to anywhere in the world. You’ll need to get me your snail mail address so if I don’t here back from the winner within 48 hours, I will draw another winner.

Even if you already have the book, don’t feel shy about entering. You could always donate it to your local library or give it as a gift. Also, if you’ve read the book, I’d really appreciate it if you would post a review on Amazon or other book sites.

Good Luck! Drawing Completed – Winner is Linda Whitmore

Works In Progress

Works In Progress

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I feel like I’ve been working on a production line recently, making lots of pieces of felt that will eventually be made into something. Some of the pieces were made with specific things in mind, some were just for the fun of it or to try things out. I never really enjoy making felt during the summer when it’s hot, so around about this time of year I start working through my stacks of felt, working out what I want to use them for, or having an idea and searching through to find the perfect piece. After measuring, cutting, pinning and sewing, I then have a nice pile ready to making a start on stitching and adding buttons etc.

One piece of felt that I found when I was searching through, was a sample I’d made using silk throwster’s waste, rainbow trilobal nylon and nylon fibre that I’d dyed. It wasn’t a pretty piece, but then it was only a sample 🙂 The first piece I started to make out of it is a pouch just the right size for holding a pack of cards, small notepad and a pencil-perfect for train journeys with young kids. There’s silk throwster’s waste on the left and dyed nylon on the right.

The second piece I started to make is a camera case. This has silk fibres at the top and rainbow trilobal nylon at the bottom.

Both the camera case and card pouch are lined with cotton fabrics. The 3rd piece is a pouch for earbuds. The front has trilobal nylon and the back has silk fibres. All 3 of these pieces have a loop of elastic on the top for using with a button to keep them closed.

These next two pieces are a camera case and an ipod case, made from a nuno felted piece using muslin. I added machine stitching in an uneven zig-zag pattern to the felt for the camera case, just for a little extra thickness. I’d made this for my new camera, but I’m torn between this and the one above. These pieces are the only ones I’ve finished with blanket stitches so far.

These last two pieces are coin pouches. I first made one of these a couple of years ago because I was tired of reaching into my back pocket and trying to find coins, but getting a handful of keys instead.

Now all I have to do is find a few films to watch while I get started on blanket stitching the edges of all of these! Do you have a particular way of working? Do you like to streamline your process, work on a few items at once or maybe complete a project before starting another one?

Where have i been

Where have i been

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Hello Everyone

I thought it was about time I explained my absence and whats been happening in my life over  the last few months.

I started out with my Father In-law very sick in hospital for a month and everyone thinking that he wasn’t going to come out,  we spent lots of time with him and at his house getting it ready for him to come home.  And im happy to say he’s well again, home and at 86yrs young he’s back at work lol  loves his job and not quite ready to finish up yet.

Then we had a huge storm which caused this flood in our house and imagine all this water inside as well as outside, they say we had a months worth of rain in one afternoon.

I had to call the ses for help and they promptly dug up our back yard to fill sand bags to put at all the openings in the hope of stopping the water. It did work but omg what a mess, this pic was taken a few hours after the storm and most of the water had gone

Then both hubby and I ended up with a very bad flu, I think that was because we waddled in this water and a deluge of rain for hours, freezing cold and soaking wet and we were pretty sick.  In fact that nasty flu founds it way to so many people down here, it wasn’t nice and to top that off we then had a strain of gastro that wasnt nice either  lol

Were healthy though now and I personally plan on staying that way.

The insurance is just coming through and now were in the middle of packing up the whole downstairs of our house ( huge task ) in order to have new flooring, were going for polished concrete this time and in case we ever flood again then it’s a matter of mopping up instead of ripping up floating  floors and vinyl. Its all being done at the one time so nothing can stay in the house downstairs.  My craft room is also downstairs to but I saved just about everything ! and now its being packed away till the floors are done and I’m so looking forward to re- organizing my room again and starting fresh.  It’ll be like a brand new room so no excuse for me not to have it organized properly and get to work.

I had to stop everything and then I think we get ourselves into a mind meltdown and find it hard to come back from. I’m very happy to say that im getting back into the right frame of mind and cant wait to start working with some wool again.

Ruths new book came and Its fantastic,  im enjoying reading through it and very eager to get my room all set back up and unpack supplies. I really needed the inspiration so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect !!!!!!

I have so much to catch up on and looking forward to seeing what everyone has been doing while I’ve been gone.  I’ve  had trouble signing back into my blog and this blog so I haven’t been able to leave comments, sorry for that. Now that I’m back in and reading zed’s challenge for the quarter made me happy ( being an aussie girl) but I wont be able to do anything so I immediately thought of this needle felted piece I did some time ago call Outback Australia, I don’t have this anymore and this is the only decent pic I do have. Sorry if you’ve all seen this before but !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I’ll leave you with a pic of the one little person who keeps  us all going with her happy little smile and squeals of delight. At 7 months old now my Granddaughter Charlie is the happiest little  girl ever and as you can guess shes a very healthy little bub to xo

Thanks everyone and i’ll see you on the forum xo