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Month: April 2016

Workshop with Vilte Kazlauskaite in Slovenia

Workshop with Vilte Kazlauskaite in Slovenia

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Our guest artist/author today is Nada Vukadinovic also know as Halay on the Felting and Fiber Forum.  She has generously offered to share her workshop experience learning a Fiber Inlay Technique.

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop in Maribor, Slovenia, given by internationally renowned textile artist and felter, Vilte Kazlauskaite from Lithuania. Her work is fabulous. You can see her creations here: http://vilte.tumblr.com/

She held three workshops, but I was able to attend only one. It was called Fiber Inlay Technique. Quite intriguing, I had no clue what this could mean and I was very excited to learn about it.  I attended only one afternoon workshop. On  the previous day attendants learned something about  fabric manipulation in nuno felt, and the last day was devoted to the creation of a vest.

We were working with two types of silk: ponge and chiffon and were expected to create a piece of work, either a shawl or something similar, a flat piece anyway. I decided to make a square piece which I will probably use for a cushion.

First we were asked to draw a pattern on a piece of paper in the form of a mosaic that we would like to appear on the finished work, e.g. a bird, or something abstract.

I decided to draw something simple.

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We used different sorts of fiber (mulberry silk, viscose, bamboo, and flax.)

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When we were finished laying out fabric and fibers we began rolling and rolling. When we noticed that the wool has penetrated through all the layers of silk, we started kneading the piece and then rolled the project without the rod. The shrinkage percent was from 40-50%.

This is what we got in the end:

 

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Unfortunately, we were working only with white silk and some blue and white fibers, but I imagine it would be interesting to play with different colours, especially different colour fibers.  The fiber I personally used for the first time was flax and  fell in love with it.   I am already planning  to buy some and dye it.

 

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To put fiber inlay technique in a nutshell, it means lots of silk and different fibers. Here are some more photos showing Vilte’s work: beautiful textures.

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And here is some yummy hand dyed silk.

 

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Vilte uses natural dyes only.

It was nice to learn something new. Here in Slovenia we don’t have many opportunities for learning new felting techniques, but the situation seems to be improving. We are planning to invite another master from Ukraine and are getting quite excited about it.

Thank you Nada for sharing this exciting technique with us!

Three Tall Trees

Three Tall Trees

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Today we have a guest post by Karen from Lincs In Stitches.

Three Tall Trees

About eighteen months ago I discovered LINQS, a group of 5 ladies who had thrown down a challenge to anyone residing in Lincolnshire to create art quilts influenced, in any way at all, by the work of the great British artist David Hockney.  Joining this group proved to be a great move for me as I’ve made so many good friends, all with a common interest, and learnt such a lot from being in their company.

Researching Hockney’s work was an eye opener.  Before visiting the Hockney Gallery at Salts Mill the only paintings of his that I was familiar with were the “poolside” ones.  At the Hockney gallery in Saltaire, Lancashire I found myself drawn to his landscape paintings, in particular his depiction of trees.  Some of his work I really liked while other pieces I strongly disliked but the time spent researching his work led me to developing a fascination of my own for trees and woodlands, particularly tree skeletons stripped bare of their leaves in Winter.  Influenced by what I had seen I began photographing trees wherever I went and my Three Tall Trees 30” x 40” quilt is based on a photograph I took while out walking in the woods at Woodhall Spa.

woodhall spaOnce I had worked out my design on paper I set to preparing my fabric for colouring with Procian dye by soaking it in a solution of soda.  Unfortunately I think I must have used too much soda.  Although I covered it before ironing I still managed to burn the entire area of fabric above the tree tops!  My nice crisp, white sky was ruined and my heart sank at the thought of having to start all over again!  I set the fabric to one side, put the kettle on and broke out the cake……feeling happier now I decided, rather than start again, to cut out the woodland, back it with Vilene and make a huge piece of appliqué. Not only did I save myself time and fabric but this also turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it was so much easier to handle under the machine than the whole cloth would have been!

colouring the fabricLayers of organza and netting were used to create shading and depth for the forest and then the background trees were stitched by machine using various coloured threads.  I made a test piece first using free machine embroidery but it wasn’t giving the sharp edged look I wanted so I swapped to using the walking foot instead.

layers of organza and nettingThe textured woodland floor was created with painted muslin, organza and hand stitching.  Vilene has become one of my favourite materials to work with as it won’t fray and can be cut, painted and sewn so easily, I found it was ideal for making the foreground trees which I painted using Inktense blocks and then added some detail with Inktense crayons, blending the colour with water.  Once the the finer tree branches had all been hand sewn the three tall trees were tacked in position.

foreground treesThe final stage was to add a backing and then machine sew through all the layers to quilt the three trees in place.  I figured I didn’t have to do too much more quilting with the backing on as I had done plenty of sewing through the various layers as the piece had progressed.  As far as I was concerned  it was already  “quilted” but I made sure that it had enough quilting across the work to hold the back in place.  It’s now finished and will be going on tour nationally, with the rest of the LINQS “Inspired by Hockney” quilts, starting with the  Springfields Quilt Show in Spalding on June 3rd

finished quiltMany thanks to Karen for writing this post for us.

Second Quarter Challenge 2016

Second Quarter Challenge 2016

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For the second quarter challenge I want you to reuse your off cuts, recycle your discard bin and UFO’  and  reshape things that have been hanging around to long. I have some examples below that I hope spark some ideas.

My of cuts tend to be the trimmings form either from the edge where I open something up to get the resist out or a circle cut to get the resist out.  When ever I have a long thin piece  I roll it into a snakes. I have lots of them now. I am not sure what I will do with them all. My plan is to use them for texture by putting them between layers of wool. I just haven’t done it yet. Know I have a push to give it a go.

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This is a pin I bought ( I can’t remember from who) but I though I might be able to make some of my own design with some fancy knots maybe. I liked the pin part. I don’t really like the little pin backs  you get in the craft store.

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You can make an interesting necklace with some off cuts. this one was made with rug hooking scraps.

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The discard bin is where I go when I want to make some pictures. Very few discards ever get properly fulled because I can see they are going wrong or that I don’t like them and stop. These are great for cutting up into shapes for making a picture. If you have larger pieces they can be used a back grounds. If it’s been fulled a little much you can fluff up some of the fibers by giving it a going over with a stiff brush.  I find hand carders a bit to aggressive. A nail Brush or scrub brush often works well.  With some off cuts that are to small or odd shaped I use them as the middle for felted balls.

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These two are made from scraps. I plan to do some embroidery. I made another very simple one to try machine embroidery on but It seems to be missing. I probably put it somewhere safe. This is a nice little bag Zed sent me made up al lots of small pieces sewn together.

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There are different ways to  reshape things that maybe have been hanging around to long.  Scarves can be cut up and sewn in to other things like small bags, purses, book covers. I have cut them into thinner strips and use them for hat bands in the past. These to fit an iPad and an e-reader.

05 scarfes turned into bags for ipads and e-readers

These 2 are belt pouches.

06 belt pouches.

Hats can be reshaped. Everyone who saw this hat liked it but it was such a tall hat it didn’t really look good on. I reshaped it into a fedora shape.

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Here is another that needs a hat band I think. I don’t have the before shot, sorry. It really nice in person the wool I used has other colours giving it lots of depth.

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I hope you take up the challenge and get out your UFOs, discards and scraps to show us what you can do with them to give them another life. Post them over at the Forum in the second quarter challenge thread.

 

 

Module 1 of Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques - A Mixed Media Approach, Online Course by Ruth Lane
Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination Online Class Begins April 29th

Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination Online Class Begins April 29th

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I am offering my online class Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination beginning April 29th.

Module 1 of Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques - A Mixed Media Approach, Online Course by Ruth Lane

The class is 4 weeks plus an extra two weeks of instructor support. You can sign up for the class and see all the pertinent information here.  The fee for the class is $45 which includes weekly PDF’s and videos.

Stitching on Nuno Felt

You can use stencils or silk screens to make paper fabric laminated pieces to be added into felting with the nuno felting process. I like to add stitching to my finished pieces. The piece above has had machine stitching added.

hand stitched cracked paint nuno web

This is one of the samples that I made in the class videos. I cut it into pieces and added hand stitching to this piece.

Nuno Felted Paper Fabric Lamination Post Card

This is a Christmas post card that I made using this technique and sent off in our annual Christmas exchange on the forum a couple of years ago. If you’d like to learn this technique, sign up for the class now.

aa wet felting FOR BEGINNERS 3 PART COURSE

For those of you just joining us, don’t forget that the Wet Felting for Beginners course is available at any time. Just sign up and you’ll get unlimited access to this course.

 

 

 

A Different Easter Basket

A Different Easter Basket

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We were recently in California for our Granddaughter Lisa’s first birthday.  I had intended to make an Easter basket before we left but it didn’t happen.  So, when I returned home I decided to make more of a bowl using the colors from her party.

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I made a batt using a light turquoise with touches of pink, purple and blue.

20160320_154113 Then I embellished the bowl with pink and gold mohair yarn and mulberry silk. (She likes bling.)

I used a resist thinking I could stretch it out on a ball to smooth, but it was a bit too small for the balls I had.  I tried blowing up a punch ball, but that didn’t work either.

So, I ended up stuffing it with plastic bags and it turned out nicely shaped.

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I was pleased with it when it was dry.

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Here is a closeup.

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Lisa’s favorite snack is what her parents call “puffs.”  Those nuggets that melt in the   babies mouth.  So, I stocked up, stuffed some in plastic eggs and sent the rest in the package along with a stuffed bunny.

20160322_113655When she gets a little older, I’ll make her a proper basket.

The basket arrived in time, I’m just a little late posting. She did enjoy her puffs and playing with the bunny and eggs.