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Month: October 2019

Happy Halloween 2019

Happy Halloween 2019

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This one is a bit twisty but I promise I will get to the felting bit. About 2 weeks ago Ann said to me “you know you have the Halloween blog post?…….”

Oh, how did Ruth know how much I enjoy Halloween? Had she heard rumours that my eldest furry son was named Evil (the good relatively speaking) and his brother was named Barraccus (not Barrabus who is the person that people who read the bible a lot mistake him for. They’re different guys not at all alike. The former, Barraccus, is ether a Greco-Egyptian alchemist or sub general under Hannibal.  The latter, Barrabus, was a murderer).

I miss Evil he was such a good guy he loved asparagus (cooked) and Chives (Raw) and wearing t-shirts but only in the winter. The only potato chip he didn’t like was salt and vinegar (yes he ate the ketchup ones…ick)  He supervised my weaving, claimed the 60inch loom was his but he would let me use it occasionally and was seriously suspicious of my first spinning wheel for years. As a teen cat, he went out to both our neighbours in the townhouses dressed in his dress black floral print puff sleeves, smocked chest, bow and buttons at the back for Halloween but wanted back in as soon as he saw the kids in costume! He looked fabulous and he knew it.

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Even Mr. B has been dressed appropriately for his Halloween walks. Tall, long-legged, long-necked, lab head, sight hound like body and looked absolutely fabulous as a monarch butterfly. (not as the small child that came screaming up to him then yell at him “look he is a ballerina too!!” and turned to show us her wings. (I was unaware that wings indicated a ballerina outfit).  Mr. B also went for Christmas eve walks with a collar of sleigh bells the big ones  (he was almost waist high so he could pull the look off) he sounded like a team of reindeer when he walked.

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Personally, I have a lovely collection of Thor’s hammers to go with my Icelandic Viking outfits. I often wear them without the Viking outfit (but I do remember to wear other clothes. It would be drafty and over educational to only wear Thor’s hammer)

So what should I blog about? This is such a spectacularly wonderful time of the year!  It is religious to many people, it’s a time of seasonal change (we had to wear snowsuits over or under our costumes when I was a child quite a few years). It’s a time that you can be whatever you want no matter how unlikely in real life. Hum, maybe I will take up my first job offer after university and become a pre-press text proofreader!! (I didn’t take the job. I liked the company and realized they didn’t read my resume… Dyslexic, severely dyslexic! all spelling looks just fine to me!)

Think, Think, Think, Think…

Whimsy, mirth, surprise, happy, joy, Halloween! Ok, kids in costume, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, sexy vampires.. hunky werewolves.. no, maybe the wrong direction? there, back up, redirect… Kids, rubber boots, ghosts, wire, dry felting, a piece of blackberry root I was saving, yes got an idea!

 

The blackberry is from the plant I brought from the townhouse to the little house I bought, it was in a pot (the plant not the house) and the next summer escaped into the space between the patio blocks. It was there for about 10 years spreading into the space beside the fence. Eventually, it grew into the neighbours’ barbeque but that is another story. The original root finally died out and I was able to extract it. It has been sitting in one of the portable forest pots for years now waiting for The Project it would be perfect for. I think this is it.

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I see boots in my head, held with wire, then arms outstretched, possibly with another ghost on a wire. Possibly a bag for candy… ok let’s make boots and I have some black floral wire. It doesn’t have a gauge on it but is mildly stiff enough to support the felting. If I run in to trouble I will double it up and that should work.  Boots I need one wire to go through the boot and into the root to hold the figure.  Hmm, what to use for fibre. I need something with shades of white and cream. Ok the understructure will be the combed waste from the Shetland fleece I had been doing. I have a few good handfuls of that and a few more bags still to comb.  (This is the fleece that keeps on giving!)

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I started by making a loose tube with the floral wire sticking out of it. Then made the front of the boot and left the back of that piece very loose so I could attach it to the leg. (note to self – the wire keeps slipping out of the boot, maybe I should have put a bend in it just under the boot so I didn’t have to keep reinserting it).  I used a coarse and medium needle to ruff in the bootish shape then started to solidify it.  (The wire stopped trying to escape by then.)

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I rolled the other end of the wire into a small loop. Then folded the one booted wire in half, bent the knee and added the other boot. I measured from the top of the body to about the knees to get arm length. ( I know that’s a bit long but I have to put in shoulder width and fold over the hands, so with that should shorten it closer to right.) The cut piece was bent into a loop with a twisted tail to become the head shape. Then I lay down some of the combing waste under where the chest and upper shoulders would be laying in the Arms/shoulders and head/ neck on top.

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 I added another layer of comb waste and started to felt (coarse needle) quickly getting the general body shape.   I built up adding more wool to build up the underbody shape adding the head/neck.  I also wrapped the arms and lightly felted into place.

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Next I turned to her accoutrements. I had first envisioned one ghost on a string (wire) floating above her.  I bent the wire over leaving a space between the parallel portions. Wrapped the fibre around then folded over the top. Then focused on the area between the parallel sections of the wire. I working towards a ghost head-like shape while keeping the tips of the locks as the trailing wisps of the ghost.  As much as I had liked my vision with one ghost I thought it looked lonely and needed friends so I made 2 more.

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Now on to the basket. This, I created flat.
It looked like the shape of an “H” until I joined the ends and used the uprights of the H to make the basket handle. Sorry I was getting very distractedly into the felting and was forgetting to take pictures!

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Next, I added another wrapping to the arms and tried out the basket. Behind her on the foam is the beginnings of her skirt. I lightly felted some of the teased apart locks to make the back underlayer of her costume. The locks did a great job of being ghostly-wispy.

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As I added the beginning of her costume I realized I needed to cover her legs a bit. I had originally envisioned her showing the wire in her legs but I thought bloomers would be the better option. I teased out the locks pre lightly felted them and then used them to hide the wire leaving the tips loose at the top of the boots.

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I continued to add layers as I went around her body with the bottom of her costume.

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Next, I added teased apart locks lightly felted into a mildly triangular shape over the shoulders as a capelet, covering the arms.  I worked out the width I needed to make a hood and fitted it to slide over the head. I firmed up the face edge and did a bit more fitting at the back of the head again leaving the tips of the locks loose. This blended visually with the pieces of shoulder cape to look like one garment.

OH NO I attached her to the blackberry root but she immediately tipped over…… oh yeah, I wasn’t going to add quite so much wool….change of plan! Add more wire to the front leg to give extra support  I was able to move the pantaloons out of the way and then back over the added wire. I balanced her on her balloon wires but she was still a bit precarious.

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Problem she was still pretty unstable on only 2 points of contact. I took her back boot and a pin and repositioned her with a pin through her boot. This gave her less etherealness but also less likely to fall over.

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I have to find a new idea for a base but the garden kneeling pad foam is working at the moment. I just don’t like her walking on water so I may make a cover for a piece of foam that looks more like land. In the meantime I’m pleased and am already thinking of other faceless ghost kids or maybe vampires or werewolves….

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I hope you will all enjoy your all hallows eve and that many of your pumpkins are felted (but not your Candy!)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finishing Hats and Scarves.

Finishing Hats and Scarves.

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Did you think I had forgotten it was my time to post again? I didn’t I have been running around like crazy getting things ready for the Guilds Sale and Exhibition that starts Saturday. But as I am co-chair of the committee running it I have lots to do and set up is Friday at 4:00. And of course, as per my usual operations, I am not ready to be in the show yet either. Not to worry its only Tuesday, Lots of time… Right?

So, yesterday I was working on hats. I had pinned them to dry 2 days before. This one is black, with a blue silk cap stretch over ti. I am really happy with how the silk looks. I will try to get a picture of it off the block but no time right now.

This is the redo of  the one that was shapped oddly at the midway point.

I shaped and pinned and after it was dry tried fiddling with the curls. I didn’t like them. I decided they needed to be curling the other way and be tighter.

I wet them down and rolled them up again in the other direction and on smaller little crat tubes. They need to dry again.

Lastly was the purple one. I cut the elongated edge into strips and wove it together again and pinned it in place to dry.

Yesterday while waiting in the car I trimmed it and sewed it into place. Not the best background for a picture but it was better than my messy computer desk.

All in all I am quite happy with them. Next time I hope to have pictures with no pins for you to see. I will probably have to take them at the show. Where did the time go?

 

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 3

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 3

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Here’s the next edition of my progress on the fabric collage landscape I have been working on.

In the photos from left to right, I worked on texturing the middle ground green area. I used a mixture of chopped up pieces of fabric, thread and yarn. I worked small areas at a time since the fabric mixture was easily shifted around as I machine stitched it. Using a wooden skewer to hold things in place definitely helps and protects wayward fingers. Once the green was all stitched in place, I noticed that the water on the left didn’t look exactly right. The portion of water going into the distance towards the left should have been shadowed by the hill behind it and not had any pink reflection. I needed to fix that.

So I covered that piece of water on the left with more of the blue green water fabric, stitched it down and then stitched along the edge of the shore and into the pink reflection to integrate it into the area better.  I also added a few more fingers of purple sheer fabric into the water on the left in front of the peninsula. Then on to more stitching details along the shoreline.

You probably can’t see a lot of difference in the photo on the left but I added black stitching along the shore line to give a bit of shadow at the water’s edge. Then in the right photo, I used a dark green thread to add some details including tree shadows into the water and little “island” bits and tree shapes on the peninsula portions.

Next I checked the green foreground again to see if I needed to fix anything else in the completed parts before I started the foreground. Another water error was definitely in evidence. Water should look like it is lying horizontally to the horizon line. My water was falling down the front because of the pink lines that were diagonal instead of horizontal. My stitching lines should have been more horizontal as well but they didn’t show as much as those pink fingers. Those needed fixing!

I used some scraps of the red sheer fabric and filled in the areas so the diagonal pink fingers were disguised. This looked much better and I was satisfied with the background and mid ground so now to move on to the foreground. Stay tuned for the next edition!

Botanical Printing Fun

Botanical Printing Fun

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Autumn has definitely arrived in my little corner of the world, the trees are turning breath-taking shades of red, gold and orange and starting to fall to the ground.

This week I met with two friends who I normally meet every couple of months for a felting play-date but we couldn’t pass up the perfect opportunity to use the abundance of natural materials at our feet and have a go a botanical printing. Not something any of us are experts in but its always fun to try new things isn’t it?

I have been playing with botanical printing for a couple of years now, so I already had a selection of materials to hand (rusty water, logwood extract, a tea urn and fish kettle for steaming etc) but Janine and Nancy also brought materials (red onion skins, another fish kettle, hot plate etc) with them, along with the all important vegetation and mordanted fabrics.

After looking through some of my previous attempts we settled on a logwood carrier blanket for the first attempt. The leaves were dipped in iron water before laying on our fabric, covering with the logwood-soaked carrier blanket and steaming. These were our results…

Janine’s dye blanket was smaller than the fabric she was printing, I love how her leaf prints appear to be breaking free from their logwood “frame”:

unmordanted habouti silk

I loved the greens Nancy achieved with jasmine and rose leaves:

Alum-mordanted cotton

This was my silk scarf part way through the reveal…. logwood blanket with leaves still stuck to it on the left, printed scarf on the right. I was a little disappointed with the eucalyptus leaf in the top centre of the picture, I have previously achieved some lovely orange prints from this tree but not today.

Left: carrier blanket and leaves, right: alum-mordanted habouti silk

My silk scarf revealed….

Alum-mordanted habouti silk

Never one to make life simple, I added a previously printed nunofelt scarf to the other side of my logwood blanket. I was reprinting it because I did not like the original, insipid print, but I like the over-print even less! 🙁

unmordant nunofelt (chiffon and merino)

Now it is dry it arguably looks even worse! Not to my taste at all. Yuk!

Next we tried a dye bath (as opposed to steaming our bundles), we mixed a sweet-smelling concoction of eucalyptus bark and red onion skins:

I thought most of the leaf print results from this batch were a little disappointing (only the cotinus appeared to work) although we did get some nice shibori style stripes. The colour difference between the alum-mordanted and unmordanted silk was striking, mordanting really does yield brighter colours.

We sprinkled dried safflower petals among the iron-dipped leaves before bundling and simmering for 90 minutes.

Alum mordanted silk
Unmordanted silk
Alum mordanted cotton
Alum-mordanted cotton, washed and dried

Nancy had better luck with a second piece of cotton in her bundle:

Alum mordanted cotton

Finally we tried soaking our fabric in tea and using an iron-soaked carrier blanket, the tea gives a gentle yellow-brown colour but where the iron reaches the tea, it turns almost black:

I was quite surprised by how much the colour of the leaf contributed to the colour of the print, in previous tests I found the orange and red leaves gave yellow and brown prints, just like the yellow leaves…. this really is a craft that relies on serendipity! 

unmordanted chiffon/merino nunofelt

Another surprise was the beauty of the iron carrier blankets, they really stole the show!

top: nuno felt scarf with leaves, bottom: iron carrier blanket
Janine’s Acer on the iron blanket
Nancy’s Geranium leaf on iron blanket

Nancy also had a promising looking result from a heuchera leaf

But when the leaf was removed the print underneath was a little disappointing…

Our final bundles of the day were arguably the best. Janine and I used some large fatsia leaves and I included some wisteria that Janine had brought, this gave one of the most beautiful greens I have ever achieved from a botanical print. We dipped the leaves in iron water and used a logwood carrier blanket again.

My alum-mordanted habouti silk scarf

While I love the white silhouette effect of the large fatsia leaf on my scarf, I am in awe of the detailed print Janine achieved from hers…

Janine’s unmordanted habouti silk scarf
Nancy’s print on heavy slub silk

Feeling inspired by the wonderful greens Nancy’s jasmine had given, I carried on after they left, pruning my poor garden far more than it really needed 🙂 However, while the maple and liquid amber leaves printed beautifully, my jasmine wasn’t as pretty as Nancy’s:

Alum mordanted silk

I included a nunofelted scarf on the other side of this dye blanket too and was pleased with the colours from the sycamore and oak leaves, I think the yellows work beautifully next to the blue-grey background:

unmordanted nunofelt

I also put another bundle in the red onion and eucalyptus bark dye pot, but this time it was simmered for 2 hours, and I think the leaf prints were much improved from the extra 30 minutes of cooking:

Alum-mordanted habouti silk

Thinking of having a go yourself? You should, its a lot of fun if you like unwrapping presents! You can never really know what you will get 🙂

All but one of the scarves / fabrics in this post were steamed or simmered for 90 minutes, however, I found simmering in the dye bath yielded better results if they were left in for at least 2 hours. I know some botanical printers steam for a lot longer or leave their bundles to cool overnight before unwrapping, but I never have the patience to do that! 🙂

All the leaves were placed with the veins facing the fabric to be printed, in theory the stomata (the holes that the leaf “breathes” through) on the leaf underside should give a better print as there is more opportunity for the tannins to be released, but the prints on the iron blanket (they are printed from the top of the leaf) were equally stunning, I will leave it to you to experiment with that and see which works best.

In most cases (not when the iron blanket was used) we dipped the leaves in iron water before laying on the fabric.

All fabrics were gently washed after printing to remove the iron and organic material.

October Workshop Peg Doll Looms

October Workshop Peg Doll Looms

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We do not sell or know of a supplier who sells the peg doll looms. Sorry we can’t be of more assistance.

October Workshop Peg Doll Looms

How did I ever manage to get anything done when I was working?

I have been working on importing and exporting File maker databases for the 2020 workshop and the guild library. I did 2 options for the workshop flyer for Elizabeth, our workshop coordinator, to choose from and will restart the workshop 2020 catalogue in the requested sort order after I have written my blog post. There was much fussing but with a bit of help I got the files exported in a format for the guild website and handed that part of the job off to the rest of the workshop team. <deep breath> I need to celebrate! Isn’t there a workshop coming up I really wanted to take when we were working on the catalogue last year? Yes! It was #1949 Peg Doll Loom Weaving with Mariann Hegedus as the instructor. Oh no! It’s about to run and we don’t have enough students! Quick, bug Elizabeth and Kelly and post it on the Facebook page! Yes, we now have enough students!

 

On Saturday I arrived early like usual and discovered a line of people blocking the door to go into the building! Oh, there is a huge fabric sale happening and they have leather hides and scraps!  Oh well, maybe I can make a quick run in at lunch. (i was able to get a bag of scraps of leather before the sale closed). now on to what i was actually there for.

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Mariann had brought the little Peg Doll looms in for show and tell and their cute shape piqued my interest. She had brought them back from a visit to Hungary. She said they were used to weave sleeves and had examples of dolls and puppets she had woven on them.

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She had a book with good pictures but unfortunately it’s in Hungarian. I did an online search to find more info but I mostly found Peg looms which are not like the peg doll looms. I did find 3 books; two of which might be the same (I don’t read Hungarian and I suspect  that one is the hardcover and one the paperback version?)  The book with the green cover is the one she showed us. Even not being able to read the language it was still educational to look at. There were a lot of more advanced techniques to try with this loom.

  6-8 szövés kereten szádfán karmantyúfán

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The concept we were working with was not too taxing in one way; how can you screw up under then over then under than over….(plain weave).  Let me tell you we found a lot of ways to mess that up! But the light bulb eventually went on for all of us.

This loom allows for plain weave, weft face or tapestry and all the two harness finger manipulations. I started to think about Butinay!!! Maybe the next work will have some!

If you sew the bottom (or top) end together you get a pouch. If you add a circular base of fabric or leather you get a cylinder that would be good to put a spindle or other small equipment in.

Warping is not too difficult. Keeping the tension snug and even is important. You wind your warp around the pegs up and down until you have gone around twice. (You can change colours as you go.) Each peg has 2 loops on it so that would be pairs of threads. The exception is the first peg, which needs to have 3 threads in one group.  This gives an odd number so you can create a continuous plan woven cloth as you weave.

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Now wind a butterfly and starting at the bottom weave every second thread.

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(This is a very old needle felted sheep I made years ago standing with the new loom and second weaving.)

I suspect I may have not interpreted the instructions as spoken.  When I took the weaving off I stated to loosen my first row of weaving! ( I thought about this and decided to modify the instructions for my second attempt. – third row I used a crochet hook between the loops and created a loop which I went through capturing the first and second row before going on to the next bit of weaving. Let that try to unravel!!)

 

I was admiring the bands of what looked like inkle banding in one of her samples. So I tried it. It looks complicated but it was achieved by alternating a gray row with a blue row, then compacting the weft to make it weft faced.

 

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One of my classmates finished her bag during the workshop I decided to purchase the loom (she had a couple more of the smaller ones available for sale) so I could make my bag taller in hopes of having it fit a spindle. As you can see, the top comes off the loom.

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Here is the second one that was completed. I gave a piece of the leather scraps I had purchased at the fabric sale (yes, I made it in time to buy a bag of leather scraps)

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I kept going, adding a fringe and switching to a long needle that is either an upholstery needle or a dollmaking needle (I’m not sure which) but now it is a peg doll loom needle. So I have plain weave and various stiffnesses of compacted weft face weaving. I also added a fringe. When I took off the weaving, the bottom (which suddenly became the top) started to unravel. I fixed that inappropriate behavior by a quick overhand blanket stich and then tightened up the plain weave so I could put a lacing cord through and use a edging stitch to stabilize the lower side of the lacing spaces. I think the purple cord will work better or I may make a blue and grey kumohimo band to use as a tie. I have decided on the grey leather to make a circular base .

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I had enough fun that I bought the loom and started a second project immediately. There has been a bit of chatting amongst a few of the guild members who are curious with this cute little loom and we have a few ideas on modifications to allow taller bags to be woven. I will let you know if anything develops from this curiosity.

Now I have to get back to the Guild catalogue and I accidentally seemed to have driven to Carleton Place winding up at the wool growers Co-op after visiting a Friend in Kempville. It was a wonderful visit and now I have a car that smells of wool and 4 more fleeces to wash before the snow flies, and more bulbs to plant and the guild Sale Ann is running to help with. Maybe it’s time for bed.  I have so much to do tomorrow!

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 The two coarse fleeces I took which are actually nice and soft.

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Some of the fleece that is coming in to be sorted

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Some of the fine grey and dark brown I didn’t buy but I did buy a light and medium grey!

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This is the rest of the Not-White fine bin. I will tell you more about this wonderful source of fiber another day right now it’s time to sleep.

 

Finished Scarves

Finished Scarves

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I managed to finish the 2 scarves I was working on,  They are now dry and ironed.

This is the white one. It is nuno felt down the middle. I had wanted to put black locks on the ruffles but what I thought were black locks are purple and they bled when I tested one.  So not going on a white scarf.

Here’s a close up of the end with the white locks. They are Bluefaced Leicester locks.

Here is the red one. No close-up, it just bounced a red blur into the camera.

They are a bit of a nuisance to iron. you have to do the edges one at a time, separately from the center. It looks like this when you are ironing.

This is what they look like rolled up, like fancy dumb bells. It does keep the ruffle snice though.

I did mange to get 3 more done this week. I finished them today. They are hanging in the bathroom drying so no pictures yet.  I did start a new one and forgot to take a picture of it until I was wetting it down.

and a close up of the lace and the end. This fabric came from an odd-looking little poncho. I can’t remember where I got it but it must have been part of an outfit. You can see the silk fibres I added to the edge in the first picture. The second picture is when it was flipped over so I could neaten up the edges. the finished edge of the fabric will look really nice sticking over the end I think.

More pictures next week and I hope, at least one finished hat. Hats are tomorrow’s job.

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Fabric Collage Landscape Part 2

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 2

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Continuing on with the saga of the fabric collage landscape, I am steadily working my way down the piece.

I added texture to the mountains including threads, yarns and bits of cheesecloth.

I then stitched the bits down with free motion machine stitching. The trickiest part here is keeping everything in place but I just didn’t worry if things shifted. I kept going and moved things back as needed and just got it all stitched down.

I decided the grey cheesecloth was a bit much on the central mountain and added more brown cheesecloth on top. Then I stitched that in place.

Then I discovered that I didn’t like how the orange cloud and the distant mountain were so much alike. I tried stitching some darker thread on the mountain first and that helped.

But I thought it still needed a bit more attention in this area, so I added more blue stitching into the sky. I didn’t want to eliminate the orange, I just wanted more distinction between the sky and the mountain.

Next up, the central mountain needed a bit more detail. So I stitched some vertical dark lines in place. The trick is to add enough detail to get the impression you want but not to over do the distant mountains. The detail needs to be less here than in the foreground of the picture. (I just noticed that I must have stitched this part before I stitched the sky but you get the idea, I hope.)

 

Next up, I put the green mid ground in place and worked on the water. The sunset reflection had felt a little dark so I place a piece of light blue fabric in that portion instead of the blue green going all the way across. I then added a blue purple sheer fabric covered with a red sheer fabric. I messed around with the edges to make them look more natural. You can see here on the left if you look closely that there is a straight line going down the right side of the sunset reflection, that is where the blue green fabric butts up against the light blue fabric. I cut that edge in V’s so that wouldn’t catch my eye so much. I also played around with foreground fabric to see how it would eventually look with more green added at the bottom of the picture.

I then stitched the water into place. I wanted the water to have minimal stitching and texture so it would appear flat against the rest of the textured landscape.

Then I added the green mid ground pieces and fused them down with the iron.  You will notice that there is some white in one of the green mid ground pieces. The original photo that I was inspired by had snow in the mountains. In the end, I decided not to have snow in my picture so that will be covered up soon.

Next time I will show you texturing the green mid ground and some changes I ended up making to the water. Luckily, this is a forgiving process so mistakes can be covered up pretty easily.

Roots and Leaves

Roots and Leaves

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In my last post, Work in Progress, I wrote about the A4 challenge I was working on with my local group at Waltham. I was well underway with my planning but, as often happens once I start on a piece, part of my plan changed. I decided not to use the felted backgrounds I’d originally made and instead I created the forest floor using painted and heat distressed Lutradur hand stitched to a cotton background. I used 70gsm Lutradur from Spunart and painted it with tones of green, yellow and grey Inktense. By applying the heat tool you can make wonderful lace effects which are very effective when they are layered.

Once all the elements were ready to be assembled, i.e. the pebbles, greenery and leaves, I positioned the roots in order to decide where everything else would fit. The easiest option for assembling would have been to use glue but, as Waltham is predominantly a “stitch” group, I went with the more time consuming method and hand stitched it all in place. The final stage was to attach it to a canvas to make it more robust for transporting and hanging.

Roots

I’m really pleased with the finished piece, which I’ve called Roots, and looking forward to showing it at The Big Textile Show at the end of this month.

I was hoping to show you Jacky and Caroles finished A4’s but unfortunately life’s got in the way for both of them! Neither ladies have managed to do anymore to their work as yet so instead here are some images from a recent workshop I attended with Textile Artist Jan Dowson.

Jan’s Workshop Sample

Jan was teaching a technique made popular by Susan Lenz. Susan layers polyester velvet onto polyester felt, free motion stitches with 100% cotton thread and then hits it with the heat gun……what’s not to like!! This was right up my street but rather than using square shapes as Susan does I used a leaf theme for my overall design. I’m now waiting for my order of polyester felt to arrive so I can make a larger piece…..

Adding free motion stitch to my leaf design.
The stitching is easier to see from the back
Ready for turning up the heat!
The finished piece.
A cheap alternative to wool combs

A cheap alternative to wool combs

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A cheap alternative to wool combs

Have you looked with horror at the price of wool combs?  Have you longed for a fine worsted preparation to inspire your felting creativity? If a fine pair of English 5 pitch are not in your budget or the husband-frightening tines of a Viking comb are out of reach and you’re longing for a small pair of Louet combs but they are priced just a bit too high for easy acquisition, may I make an odd suggestion?

1 1 Mini-Wool Combs for sale at local fiberfest summer 2019

Have you seen an implement called a Bee Uncapping Comb? I had a spectacular AH HA! moment in one of the aisles in Princess Auto (a local automotive and stuff store carrying a lot of stuff from China). The AH HA! was so loud and spectacular I am sure the entire aisle I was in lit up and glowed! I was standing in front of white Beekeeping outfits, gloves and these spectacular red plastic handled metal combs!! OOOOOOH!! Coool!!! The angle of the handle inclines inferiorly so using them as a pair like normal combs is not quite as comfortable as I would like. But they work very well used individually like a flick carder (another piece of handy equipment that is a bit pricey for its size.  I got mine second hand and put it away in a very safe place…..somewhere in the living room I think… possibly towards the window? No I cant find it.  It is obviously too safe a place.)

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3-1.jpg(Note the difference in price from picture #1 and picture #3)45

3-5  Bee keeping supplys at Princess Auto

Being that the handle is plastic I may be able to persuade it to be in a more horizontal aspect. I deviate and will explain. During my secondary education (at Sheriden College and U of Toronto – that surprised you!) I was involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). It’s a historical reenactment group that does among a lot of other arts-related endeavours, medieval combat. Many of my friends aspired to metal armour but being on a student budget many had various forms of PVC plastic. One friend carefully cooked his plastic armour pieces in his mothers’ oven to soften them. Then using oven mits and towels self-moulded them to the right shapes to make Visby plate armor. It was a bit smelly but the plastic bent. I am suspecting if I find a particularly sunny day I may be able to leave the combs on the car’s dash and gently persuade them to be straighter. I suspect that will have to wait til next summer since the sun is abandoning us now (was it something we said?).

Those few of you who have not had such strong longings for a set of combs may wonder why you, as a felter, may want such a tool? Its all about Fibre prep.

Fibre prep;

This can be an important component of felting. Although you can now reasonably easily buy prepared fibre in Roving, top or batts of various sizes, sometimes you want to use a less processed fibre source.

  • This could be because of cost (free fleece given to you is a lot cheaper than buying prepared fibre but it will cost you in time.)

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7-8  the Icelandic fleece that was actually a very long Shetland from the Wool growers Co-Op

  • This could be because you want to make just the right colour or fibre blend or combination. (remember nature is never a flat colour)

And you know that different fibre prep tools will give you different preparations or effects.

Carding = Woolen. Carders will give you a loftier yarn if you spin and a less aligned roving to work from if you felt. This may be helpful when you want to work on a sculptural project but may not be quite as smooth to lay out for a wet felted vessel. But the disorganization of the fibres does promote felting.

9    9 One of a number of similar Dog brushes that work similar to a Carder

Combing = Worsted.  Whereas combing gives you a more aligned fibre preperation. The yarn made from Combed top would be yarn for men’s suiting material, smooth and with less pilling. Combed top is easy to pull out fine whisps for layout of wet felting or for picture felting but when laid in thicker layers may be harder to persuade to felt together with other thick layers. (this could be an affect you want but usually isn’t)

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Fleece,  teased locks,  combed fiber

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10-12 fiber prep with Commercial  Combs

 

The Tools

Carders come in a couple grades of carding cloth. The fine cloth is for cotton and other very short stapled fibre. These tend to be longer in size than the carders for wool which have a medium or coarse cloth for use with fine and medium wool. Carders are used as a set of two. They transfer the fibre from one card to the next bringing the fibres into a sort of alignment. Carders can create small batts, rolags or a semiworsted preparation. They are good for colour blending a reasonable amount of a colour. It you need more of a colour a drum carder may be more effective. If you want a smaller amount then the small pet combs/brushes that look like carders may be for you.

You can find Carders at auctions (often very beat up and only one is for sale) or you can by them second hand from spinners (usually the complete pair and in better shape) or you can by them from a modern manufacturer. Unfortunately this can be pricey.  There are also the pet combs/brushes which used to be available at Dollerama but have not been available for months. I have spotted them at Walmart but for more money.

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13-17 Colour blending with Carders

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18-19 Semi-Worsted

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20-26 A punnie from a cotton carder using chopsticks

Combs are used with longer wools and other longstaple fibres. There are many types of combs, having one or more rows of teeth (Pitch); some are very long and sharp like my single pitch Viking combs. Some have two rows like my Alvan Ramer Combs which are bigger than the Vikings and heavier. English combs are large weapon-looking implements of fibre subjugation. They can have more rows or pitches of teeth.

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27-29  Colour blending locks with combs

30.jpg  30 trying the Bee Comb – not as ergonomic when used with 2 combs. Wrist is straight when used individually.

When you have aligned the fibres, you can then draft from the combs or use a diz to make top. This will be easy to pull wisps from to lay out your wet or dry felting.

Flax has a similar multi-rowed teethed implement called a Hackle. (Fibre people have the coolest vocabulary) it is even more viscous looking but we will not get into that today.

I have been using them with the very long Shetland fleece I was gifted this summer at a demo then subjected you to the trials of skirting and washing it. I am getting fluffy clouds of combed fiber carefully stored in zip lock bags. Most will go to spinning a warp for my Medieval Icelandic blanket project but I am going to save as bit with witch to felt. I have been using the comb-waste for core wool for a little sheep.

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31-32 Long Shetland fleece being combed

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33-35 Using the comb wast as core wool for sculpture of sheep (grate not to have wast)

I have also been combing some died locks I purchased this summer to create the beginnings of a Van Gogh-ish night sky. At least I think it is a night sky. It may become something else by the time I finish it!

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36-40 Opening locks with Bee Comb made a very animated sky

If I have piqued your curiosity, you may be able to find a couple Bee Uncapping Combs at Princess Auto or on line at a real Beekeepers supply store.   I hope this will give you another possible tool to expand your fiber prep and thus your felting fun!

Some works in progress

Some works in progress

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Sorry to say I forgot it was my turn to blog today. It has been a hectic week with our last Farmers’ Market on the 12th. We make twice as much on the last day. However, I did manage to get a little felting in earlier in the week.

I use the dryer to do much of the rolling. It is an old gas dryer that is not hooked up to gas. we can’t get gas where we live.  but it is great for doing the rolling and it just needs a regular plug and not one of the big ones that electric dryers have.

I started a hat. It looks a little odd at the moment. This is its 3rd time through. I cut out the resist and then rearranged the hat and stuck it back in to make sure the 2 sides wouldn’t stick as it’s not felted enough yet.

When I put the hat in the first time I laid out this red nuno ruffle scarf. That takes longer than the 15 min the hat is rolling but I hate doing nothing while it tumbles around so I start something new and when it’s ready to go in I pull the hat out turn and flip it and roll it back up and both go in.

While that was happening I laid out a white one. I added some curls to one end. I fiddled with the picture a little trying to get the white curs against my white table to show better.

When it was ready I took out the other 2, rearranged them and all 3 went back in.

All that was on Tuesday. Having forgotten it was my day to blog I just ran over to my studio and took some pictures for you. The hat is ready to move onto handwork and shaping. The red scarf will get one more go around and the white one will have 2 more turns in the dryer.

And lastly, Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian readers. I hope you had a great Turkey Day.