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Month: January 2013

Getting Ready to Get Some Felting Done.

Getting Ready to Get Some Felting Done.

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We cleaned the house for Christmas. It’s always nice if the guests can get in without tripping over something. What that means is everything ended up in my studio space. Most of it is supposed to be there. Wool follows me home so I can work on things while making dinner and watching TV.  While I had a mess anyway, I switched out a dresser/cupboard thing that wasn’t working for one with lots of draws.

full tablefull table 2

As you can see there was lots of stuff.  Here it is all put away.

clean table all sorted

The table is clear and everything is neat and tidy in this corner for now. . The lampshade is one of the things on my to do soon list and the empty boxes are for sorting the next area that you can see just beyond the table. That’s supposed to be my sewing area. Before and after pictures to come.

The other thing that is going on here is early lambing. Here are twins wearing fashionable pink wool jackets because it was -23c the morning they were born. One has ended up in the house on a bottle but the other is doing fine with mom.

lambs in jackets

Temperatures are back to normal, -10ish during the day so things are better. We still have to keep an eye on the sheep and we always put the moms and babes in their own pen for a few days so we can make sure everything is going well before they go to a group pen of moms and lambs.

Making Space for Creativity – Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge

Making Space for Creativity – Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge

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How did the first week of 2013 work out creatively for you? Did you manage to spend at least 5 minutes a day doing something creative? Did you think about where your time goes and where you could fit in more time for fiber? What did you find held you back? Do you have a dedicated space to work? Many times, it is hard to find a spot that you can be creative but I think you can make space if you really put your mind to it.

aspen applique

When I first started doing fiber art, I didn’t have a dedicated space to work. It is hard to work on things when you always have to clean up when you need to leave the project. I started using one of our two guest bedrooms. For the longest time, the bed stayed in the room taking up tons of space. We don’t have that many guests and usually only one bedroom is needed at one time. Over the past 5 years, we only used two bedrooms at once 3 times for a couple of days. So I decided to move the bed out of the room. We store it in a finished portion of our garage and if we need the bed, we bring it back in and set it up. Because we only have to do it every couple of years, it isn’t bad. But I love the extra space it gives me. I can leave projects out that I’m working on without worries.

beaded edge

Do you have a dedicated space to work? Is there a room in your house that doesn’t really get used that much? I keep thinking I should convert our dining room into a dye/paint studio. We never use it and it ends up just being a dumping ground. I’m not sure my husband would go along with this idea so I haven’t brought it up. I already take over half the kitchen most of the time. Perhaps there is a space in your home that you could convert into a mini studio such as a closet or a corner of a room. There are many magazines out now that show various studios and storage solutions. You can also search online for ideas about how to fit a studio into a small space.

applique page

Even if you don’t have a space to use, you can always create a box or container that will hold your supplies. Keep them all together and use a TV table or temporary table to work. Then when you’re finished, you can put everything back in the container and have everything ready to go for your next creative opportunity. So don’t despair if you feel you don’t have space to work. I know that people living in small apartments find ways and space to work in so you can as well.

Have you been creative this past week? What are you plans for next week. I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing. Leave a comment here or join us in the forum to join the discussion. If you didn’t read about the challenge, here’s the post that will bring you up to speed. We’d love to have you join us! The photos are all projects I worked on this week.

2012 4th Quarter Weather Challenge

2012 4th Quarter Weather Challenge

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I didn’t get a chance to felt my pieces for Karen’s 2012 4th Quarter Weather Challenge until New Year’s day, but I have been thinking about it since she posted it. I like to take pictures of the sky and clouds anyway, but I started looking at them and thinking how I could try to capture them in felt. I also started to make up some blends of wool and fibres to capture the colours and tones.

I didn’t want to try to recreate any of the photos, just try to capture the feeling of the ever changing sky and clouds. This first piece is based on some of the sunsets here recently, they haven’t been as deep or spectacular as usual, probably because it’s been wet, dark and warm instead of bright and cold, but sometimes there’s a little hint of peachey copper.

weather challenge (5)This is a close up of the coppery silk throwster’s waste

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis next piece is based on the thick white and grey cloudy days; billowing, rolling clouds, subtley changing as they grow and float past. It is made from lots of different natural white and light grey wools blended with flax, soy fibre and bamboo for soft golden highlights. The locks are Gotland and Mohair and Bluefaced Leicester.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI love days when we get huge swirling black and grey clouds, constantly changing as they storm through the sky. These next two pieces are part of a larger one inspired by dark, cloudy days. I used carded Gotland wool for the background and laid raw Gotland locks in shades from light grey to black on top for the rolling clouds.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis last piece wasn’t based on a photo I took or anything I saw out of the window, but it was inspired by many photos of the effects of the torrential rain we’ve had in the UK over the past 3 months (or last 9 really). A lot of the photos haven’t been pretty; muddy brown water waist deep, roads and pavements broken, whole rows of houses collapsed…but there have beeen some spectacular ones of stormy, cloudy skies and stormy seas, raging rivers, and some great ones of large stormy clouds in bright blue skies reflected on miles of  flooded fields. I wish I’d downloaded the photos, but I’m not sure I could post them without infringeing copyright. This last piece is probably my favourite.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf you’d like to see some of my sky photos, they’re in a set on flickr

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Looking Forward into 2013

Looking Forward into 2013

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Like last year I chose not to make a resolution per say but to choose a word.  I could easily make the usual resolutions that would be good for me like loosing weight and getting more aerobic exercise. Although these would be good things to do I know they are not likely to get done. I like to eat and I hate exercise.  A resolution to make myself miserable is not one I want to make.

This year I chose  two words that go together. Explore and Perseverance.

Explore

I want to do more “art”. I want to do this with felt. I love to make scarves and hats and other useful things but I would like to make things that are just to look at. Thread painting and free motion embroidery are one of the ways I plan to do this. I love the way stitching looks on felt. So I want to explore some of the possibilities of this to make pictures to hang on the wall and maybe later to wear. This is where perseverance comes in . It will take much effort in my busy life to do this. Not only to find time for felting but to find time to do felt that doesn’t  have a material end. I find it hard to make things that won’t generate income.  I want an end product some one might want to buy. I am getting better at doing things for my sanity with no “real” benefit. I anticipate much self talk about not thinking about the end product but enjoying learning how and being creative. You  know, all that stuff about it’s the journey and not the destination.

persevere

I am sure I will be distracted along the way but that’s OK. I am an older ADD person. I am from the generation where they told you to smarten up and buckle down and your just not trying. It’s taken a long time to come to terms with. This is the way I am and it is a good way to be. I have insatiable curiosity so I like to look down all the side streets( allies, paths, through the door, over the fence….)  along the way. It takes longer to get to the end of the road but it is a much more satisfying trip.

From Here to There
From Here to There

I hope you find what you are looking for this coming year and I hope you enjoy hearing about how we are getting along and what we are doing through this Blog and our Forum.

A Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge

A Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge

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I have been thinking about what I would choose for the first quarter studio challenge for quite a while. I’ve waffled around with the idea, wasn’t sure I could do it and wondered if anyone else would even want to try. But what the heck… This idea is a bit different from our previous challenges but I hope you will all be inspired to give it a go. Since it is a new year and we’re all thinking about new beginnings and what our plans are for the year, I thought this challenge would be a little bit of a push to emphasize your creative side. I challenge you to do something creative every day and get your daily dose of “fiber”. I’m sure I just heard a loud groan from the audience but this doesn’t mean that you have to felt a seamless garment every day. All it means is that you make creativity a habit and do something every day, even if it’s only 5 minutes. I have actually been doing this for quite a while now. I work on something related to my fiber art every day even if it’s only for a few moments. I haven’t actually tried to document this in the past, but for the next three months, that’s what I’m going to do. I will be blogging daily on my personal blog about what creative thing I’ve done that day. Once a week, I’ll do an update here and give you some ideas of what you could do for the rest of the week if you need a bit of inspiration.

Fiber Tools and Goodies

I know that this challenge sounds a bit daunting but it actually isn’t that hard to do. I lead a busy life just like everyone else but there is a lot of time that gets wasted if you aren’t paying attention. Just a small amount of planning and preparation allows you to be ready to be creative at the drop of a hat. For example, I always have a small stitch project in a plastic bag ready to work on. The bag holds the base fabric marked with the design (if there is one), my needle case with scissors and the matching threads. I take it with me in my bag and if I have to wait or I have a spare moment, I stitch for a bit. You could do the same with small needle felting projects, beading, knitting or if you use a journal or a sketchbook, you could draw or write your fiber art to do list for the week.

project bag

I’m sure that it would be very easy to come up with many excuses why you couldn’t possibly do this challenge. ‘I don’t have time’, ‘I’m too busy’, ‘I have family responsibilities’, blah, blah, blah… Really? Do you want to be creative? Do you want to make more art? What is stopping you? Give yourself permission to do this and give it priority over things like watching TV, cruising the internet and seeing what’s new on Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter and even doing housework. Life will go on even if the house isn’t perfectly clean, ask me how I know! Let your family know that you need this time to yourself, set boundaries and then reinforce that this small amount of time that you are setting aside is for you. Then do it, be creative and make some art, even if it’s bad art. Just do it. Every. Day.

Some people say it takes 21 days to form a habit, other studies indicate it takes longer than that, perhaps greater than 60 days. But I think if we can do this for the first three months of 2013, we might have developed the habit of being creative every day and getting our daily dose of “fiber”. It really isn’t a chore, it’s what we like to do. You certainly don’t have to blog about what you do everyday. But I’d love to hear what creative activity you do each day so please leave comments here, post photos on our Flickr group and join us in the forum where I’ll start a topic about the challenge.

This first week of 2013 why don’t you take a few minutes and look at what you do during the day. How do you manage your time? What do you spend your time doing? Are there times during your day that seem to be wasted? Can you schedule a time that could be spent being creative? Grab a notebook and write down your thoughts about being creative and how you can make time for creativity. What are the impediments to spending more time playing with fiber (or whatever creative thing that you do)? Write about them. Take 5 minutes every day to do this and we’ll count that as your daily dose of fiber. Or if you want, just dive in and start the creative habit.

Now we all know that life happens and sometimes things don’t work out as planned. That’s OK. Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day. Put a favorite art related book or magazine by your bed and read that for a few moments before you go to sleep. Then the next day, you can get back on track. Adding more creativity shouldn’t be a huge pressure and chore, it should be fun. Once you get started, you’ll be surprised how much you can get done. I get asked frequently how I manage to get so much artwork  done and the answer is “5 minutes here and 5 minutes there”, it all adds up.

So are you up for the challenge? Get your daily dose of fiber with me, it will be fun, I promise 🙂

Oh and by the way, Happy New Year from all of us here at The Felting and Fiber Studio. All the best for 2013!