Finished Pieces
I’m still going through some unfinished projects at the moment, mostly blanket stitching, hand-sewing buttonholes and fighting with my machine 🙂 I used one of the pieces of felt I’d made for the Australia Challenge to make a glasses case. I lined it with some orange cotton fabric and stitched around the edge with the machine before blanket stitching. Side one:
Earlier this year, when I made my coppery bronze felt, I had some pieces of commercial art yarn left over. I made a couple of small pieces of felt to use the pieces up. One of them just had pieces as embellishment just below the top layer of merino and they extended out of the sides. For texture on the top of the other piece, I made twists of merino and yarn. The felt pieces didn’t look big enough or thick enough to make anything practical out of them, they weren’t even the same size, so I thought it wouldn’t be a waste to sew them together to make a funky camera case. It turned out better than I expected really 🙂
I used the piece made with twists as the back as it was smaller.
I did manage to finish off another small coin purse that I started a while ago, another one made from felt and silk paper. I kept the natural edges for the front flap:
I was glad the felt piece was big enough to use the same felt for the inside pockets, I know only a little part of the back one is seen, but I think it’d look wrong with a plain piece.
In case you haven’t noticed, we now have a ‘Community‘ section to the website. If you hover over the tab, you can see from the drop down menu that we have pages for the Studio Challenges where you can find links to the original challenges, and also gallery sub pages to see all the art work created for the challenges from everyone who took part. If we’ve missed you off, we do apologise, there were quite a lot of posts here and on the forum to go through to find them. Send us a message via the Contact Us page if you want us to add your entry. There are also pages for finding links to interviews with guest artists and suppliers and also articles by guest writers. We have a really great article coming up this week from Terriea Kwong showing us how she gets her excellent results using plants for eco printing.
15 thoughts on “Finished Pieces”
Excellent Zed. I have to practice the blanket stitch, it’s been a long time since I did that. All the new pieces are beautiful. I especially like how you used all this little extra pieces for the funky camera case. It’s also great that you added the Community Page. Thanks for sharing and all your work to make the forum easy to navigate.
Thanks, Marilyn 🙂
I probably learn more from trying things out with leftovers so as not to waste them, than things I think about for a while 🙂
I really love these.
Thanks, Judy 🙂
The Australian piece makes a good glasses case and having orange for a lining is perfect as it completes the warm feel.
I love those commercial art yarns and have to be super-strong and resist buying them whenever I see them! They so pretty and and extending them outside the edge of the felt as you have done gives a feathery look – very tactile.
My fave is the coin purse – those colours were made for each other (very neatly made-up too) .
Thanks, Lyn 🙂
I have boxes of those commercial art yarns and still find it hard to resist buying more!
The felt I made with silk paper that I used for the coin purse is one of the nicest ones I’ve made I think 🙂
I love this felt made from silk paper. But do you buy the paper or make it? LizSeville
Thanks, Liz 🙂
I made the paper myself. I used an old thick paper bag, then some scrap cotton fabric, put a bit of spray starch on the cotton, added silk fibres, carefully sprayed again, then sprayed more, then added more silk fibres, lots more spraying. Then put another piece of scrap cotton fabric, another thick paper bag, then set it with an iron. It’s messy but fun 🙂 I keep meaning to try it with wallpaper paste, it seems that would give more control.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedster01/sets/72157629693987950/detail
Ah, not the easy way out then! But amazing.
The hardest part is stopping the spray from blowing the fibres away! 🙂
Liz, Zed’s process works well for making silk paper. I tried it without the cotton, just silk alone. I also tried it using textile medium which is a little stiffer but also works well. The only thing I noticed is that after it sits for a while the humidity makes it start fuzzing a bit. Maybe it just needs more spray or medium, but since I plan to use it for felting I wasn’t too worried. Again, Zed your work is inspiring. This process is also quick and fun.
I thought the eyelash yarn one was feathers at first. i wondered what you were thinking. LOL It is very cool.
Thanks, Ann 🙂
Great pieces Zed! Love the funky one with the art yarns. I have a bunch of those too. I’ll have to get them out and add a few to the yurt 😉
Thanks, Ruth 🙂
Ha, I think you’d need art ‘rope’ for them to show up.