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Month: December 2014

Fourth Quarter Challenge – Inukshuk

Fourth Quarter Challenge – Inukshuk

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I have wanted to make a felted Inukshuk for a couple of years now. I really want to make a life sized one but I have not been able to do that yet. So for the 4th Quarter Challenge Land Art, I decided to make a small model instead. If you are a forum member, you will remember that Lyn made a diorama with felted stones and she had a wonderful background for photography. I was planning on stealing that idea but didn’t get it done. So you’ll just have to imagine my Inukshuk in the wild.

Wikipedia defines an Inukshuk as “a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. The inukshuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache. The word inuksuk means ‘something which acts for or performs the function of a person’.”

Carving Foam

I started with blocks of blue insulation foam that you can buy at home improvement stores here in the US. I carved the pieces with a bread knife. I trimmed all the edges off so that they wouldn’t be square and would look more rock like.

Foam Inukshuk

I hadn’t finished carving all the edges when I took this photo.

Felted Inukshuk

I then covered all of my “stones” with grey/brown wool that a friend gave me. I added a few more details with other wool colors. I started the felting in a stocking in the washing machine and then finished felting them all by hand. I was planning on using wire to hold my Inukshuk together but then I started playing with the stones and decided I would keep them as “building blocks”. It’s just fun to play with them and balance them in different formations. I think I might even make some more. I just need to get more foam.

I just noticed a few blue spots that were not covered completely with wool in the photos. Guess I need to do a little needle felting for complete coverage. Thanks for this fun challenge Zed!

 

 

Batts, Bamboo and more…

Batts, Bamboo and more…

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Our Guest Artist/Author today is Cathy Wycliff aka Luvswool

Recently, I received some nifty embellishment fibers from Zed (thanks again!) around the same time my Opulent order of batts was delivered, so I decided to combine two experiments.
One experiment idea was offered by Fiona Duthie on her blog and involved combining batts for color overlap or shadowing. I chose moss, chlorophyll, teal and sand. All were Opulent coopsworth batts except for the teal, which was handmade and provided by Marilyn (Pandagirl). As I recall, the teal was a combo of hand dyed Cheviot, Domestic 56s, merino and mulberry silk. I lifted the edges of each batt and overlapped the next color of batt, then wet-felted to the pre-felt stage.

 

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Next, I added the first set of embellishment fibers, shown up-close in the photo below: bamboo staple, banana, milk fiber and crimped viscose.

 

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I wanted to see which fiber proved to be the shiniest. As I worked the fiber in, I was not paying much attention to the coopsworth batts, which did not provide as much shadowing as I had expected. Could be the unevenness of the batts or unequal distribution of the overlapped batts, or perhaps not enough fulling. All of the embellishments added shine, but I think maybe the crimped viscose turned out best, closely followed by the banana and milk. Although the bamboo staple did not provide much shine, it sparked an idea for a future experiment as an inclusion in nuno-felting.

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I grabbed my next set of Zed’s embellishment fibers, this time using (top to bottom) black bamboo, pale blue acrylic (looks white in photo), black nylon tops and green nylon.

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I placed all of the fibers on Domestic 56’s roving, which I lightly pre-felted. I was pleased with the sample results, especially the grey/black bamboo (top) and the crazy/wild green nylon (bottom).

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I’ll definitely want to use these fibers as embellishments in my upcoming projects!

Thanks Cathy! You had some great discoveries with new fibers!

New Nuno

New Nuno

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I blended some fine 18.5 micron Merino recently to make a scarf for my Dad for Christmas. I used what was left of a blue/purple/green blend I’d made for another scarf, and ran it through the drum carder with more green. This is one of the batts:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI had to go into town on Wednesday, so I wanted to try out a scarf I’d bought from a shop there when I last went, so I could see if it was worth getting more, since they were only £1 each. The batts I made for my Dad’s scarf were the perfect colour so I ‘borrowed’ some of them to try a piece out:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s probably just over a third of the size of a full scarf, or a full sized small collar:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt made a really nice texture, which is a shame because the shop had shut down recently 🙁

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd, of course, a supermacro:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThose of you who go on the forum will have seen this piece, it’s a sample I made using some georgette fabric I got from Abakhan last time:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI knew from other similar fabrics I’ve used that it would only attach loosely, the weave isn’t particularly open, and one part of the bottom edge didn’t attach at all. Even though I was fairly certain it would felt like it did, I like to just try a sample on top without wisps etc at first to get a good idea of how it felts, sometimes fabrics like this attach well around the edge if they are quite frayed.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI haven’t decided what I’ll use it for yet, but I did make it big enough to make a coin/zipper purse out of, I thought that might look nice.

More Tea Cozies.

More Tea Cozies.

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As promised I will show you the finished tea cozies.

This one is reversible so you can have it red for Christmas if you like. there is no reason you couldn’t put a design on the “inside” if you liked. I just didn’t think about it until after. This one would fit most medium sized tea pots.

tea cozy orange tea cozy orange other side

This one I made so you don’t have to take it off to pour your tea. It is much more fiddly and I finished the edges with blanket stich. I also have to put a button and loop for under the handle. With felt having no stretch it won’t go over the handle other wise. I made this one thinner too. It was mostly because I wasn’t sure it was going to work and hate wasting wool on something that doesn’t work.

tea cozy black

Then I made one for my french press. I didn’t want the coffee drinkers to feel left out. It will be good to have as the only time we use a french press is when the power is out.

coffie cozy

Do you use tea cozies? I only use them when the power is out. The rest of the time my teapot sits on the stove.

 

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

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Between football season, getting ready for the holidays at the store, falling down on the ice and hurting my shoulder, working up an online class and Thanksgiving, I haven’t been able to do any felting. But I’ve been adding to my sketchbook fairly regularly. I make a lot of background pages and then keep adding to them as I’m inspired. If I have left over paint or ink, I will add it to pages in my sketchbook, then I’ll add other layers as I go along. Sometimes it is hard to determine when a page is finished. Some turn out better than others, but it’s good for me to not to be “too perfect” and just let the page develop.

Sketchbook Spread

This one has quite a few layers on it. The last layer is the dark blue. I used one of my sweaters as inspiration to make the organic/leafy shapes. The hardest part was figuring out whether I was coloring in the negative spaces or not. But it all worked out in the end.

Be Bold Sketchbook Page

I made the majority of this page quite a while ago but it still needed something. I added the quote from George Bernard Shaw and the “Be Bold” and now it’s done.

Leaf Prints

This was playing around with my watercolor crayons and seeing if I could make leaf prints. The easiest way to do this was to get a little paint off the crayon, brush it on the backside of the leaf and then print. It didn’t take much paint for it to work.

Ginkgo Leaf Page

The ginkgo leaf page was printed with the large leaf several months ago. I added the other bits by printing out a few things from the internet, adding gel pen and more watercolors. Sorry the photos are a bit dark but I am doing this at the last minute and it’s dark outside.

Islands Page

I think this piece was printed first and then I used gel pens to add highlights. The brown paper had been in with my paper scraps for sometime, that’s why I can’t remember how it was done. I don’t keep very good track of what I do, I really just play around.

Iris Page

This one has some watercolor crayon that I sprayed with water and let drip down the page. Then I printed a line of bubble wrap bubbles and added the stenciled iris. The leaves and stem are cut from green paper. This one feels like it needs a bit more but I’m not sure what.

Added Gel Pen

This page had two layers of screen print. Then I outlined the blue with an orange metallic gel pen. It gives a cool reflective edge. So that’s what I have been doing in my sketchbook over the last several weeks. Sometimes these ideas get put into fiber in some way and sometimes they don’t. But it’s a fun way to try out color schemes and ideas.

Gwen Lowery Solstice Party Invite Card 2

If you’re going to be in the Seattle area on December 21st, please check out the Winter Solstice Open House being put on by Gwen Lowery. I donated a piece to be sold. You can click on the photo above for all the details.