Printing and Stenciling on Felt Part 2
The first thing I did this week was felt the three feathers onto a another larger piece of prefelt. I didn’t loose a lot of color, but some of the definition was lost especially on the yellow. I will probably embellish this at a later time.
I also made four large merino felt pieces to use stamps and found objects on. I made several stamps and cut out a couple of stencils from Mylar. Here are some of the found objects.
I don’t know what the orange thing is, but I bought it Kohls on clearance a while back. There’s a scraper, bottle top, leaf stamp, tupperware lid, a piece of what I think was a vegetable tray liner, a felt ornament I glued onto a ceramic tile and a reverse stamp I had made out of clay a long time ago. I won’t show the other stamps since its proprietary to Ruth’s class material.
I started with lighter colors like yellow and continued to try new stamps and objects with different colors and thicknesses. I really had difficulty getting good prints. Its probably the operator and not the materials or classwork.
I had made one stamp with shapes another with leaves. I basically painted the dyes on to get a decent print with some texture. you can see them in teal and blue.
I used a commercial bird stencil with black and green dyes on the purple prefelt I had made.
It was unknown fiber and would stick to the stencil brush or foam brush. You can see the fiber standing up in the second pic.
Then I had made a mylar stencil of a cat and stenciled that on a piece I had done last week. I will felt that and the birds later.
We were also encouraged to try printing on paper. I have a bunch of handmade paper from my papermaking days, so I tried the felt snowflake again and got a good print, then went around the edges using up the dye and giving it a bit of texture for a background.
I set all the pieces except for the large piece and the paper. I also included the flower piece from last week. Surprisingly it bled and I couldn’t wash it out.
I was very disappointed in this since it looked so nice before setting the dye. I’m not sure what to do to fix it.
16 thoughts on “Printing and Stenciling on Felt Part 2”
I like the poppy. It looks like a watercolour.
Thanks Janet! I’m just disappointed it bled so much.
Nice work Marilyn. I think it is the nature of prefelt not operator error. I like the birds and the snow flake. I think the fethers will look great once you stitch them to give them definition. It’s odd about the flowers, how one bled and the other didn’t. Maybe some dye remover would work?
Thanks Ann! What could I use as a dye remover? I’ll have to look around I probably have some somewhere. I did rinse it and washed it with synthropol. But no change.
I will have to look for the bottle I had. It was a jell. you could even use it on a stamp to sort of reverse dye. I thought Dharma sold it but I don’t see it.
Thanks for checking Ann. I’m sure I can find something at Michael’s. I’ll check online.
What a lot of work you did, stenciling on felt! It’s very involved, but as Ann said, it just may be in the nature of prefelt to resist the paint. Or perhaps you need to tweak the paint mix? I don’t know, as I have very little experience with stencils–and then, only acrylics on fabric and canvas.
We have all had that experience of getting frustrated with artwork and crafts. Sometimes things just don’t work. And then we try again!
Thanks Cathy! It was thickened dye – thick and thin. I haven’t tried paint yet. I imagine that will be a whole different experience. I’ll definitely keep trying.
How odd that only one of the red flowers bled. I love the snowflake and birds and I think the feathers will be great after a bit of embellishing. It’s fun experimenting and you never know what you find out that you may want to use later on in a project.
Thanks Lyn! It really is odd since I let it dry for about a week then set the color. That also was th only red in the bundle I did together. I will see how it is after being felted then decide what I can do with it. Yes, the birds should work well if the unknown fiber behaves when I felt it, Well, that’s what experimenting is all about, surprises!
Great job Marilyn. I have found that printing on felt is the hardest to get a good print. Stenciling is much easier. Not sure why the red dye ran only in that spot. You could use discharge paste (dye remover) but I’m not sure how much it would help. I have never found that it works well on felt. My other suggestion would be to over dye with a light color, perhaps green or blue and then the lighter red would fade more into the background.
Thanks Ruth! Overdying sounds like a good suggestion. It was weird that spot ran especially since it was totally dry. I’m sure with practice I can get a better print with the stamps. We’ll see when I have an opportunity to try again.
Wow, after enlarging the photos I was surprised at how clear an outline you can get printing onto felt. The feathers and birds are lovely and make great subjects for stitching. I also like your flowers and I think, rather than trying to get rid of the red, I would be inclined to add more colour to the background, merging the red into pale green and then allow my stitching to clearly define the flower petals and stems…..just thinking out loud.
Thanks Karen! That sounds like a good idea. Perhaps a watercolor kind of background. It will definitely need stitching.
Marilyn, The ‘bleeding’ effect looks great to me! I see beauty. There are no mistakes.
dorene
Thanks Dorene! That’s a great way to look at it and what art is all about. The viewer finding beauty.