Summer holidays self-challenges

kikistextileart

3 years ago

A landscape of mountains. There are branches around the left and right edges of the picture.

Hello, everybody!

I have been very busy during my recent summer holidays, unfortunately not busy felting, so I am a bit behind with my felting experiments and learning right now!

That is because I lately have used my holidays to challenge myself with something different, taking with me only a few of my stash wool and supplies, and focusing on a single idea that I wanted to try and learn better. The fact that I can’t bring with me my usual tools and implements is a challenge in itself: I have to use whatever I can scavenge around, and I feel that it teaches me to be less reliant on my routine and my favourite tools. I do not truly need any of those, I found out that you truly do not need any fancy stuff to felt, it just takes a bit more effort sometimes, and understanding companions that will put up with you grabbing the rolling pin and all the bin plastic bags from the kitchen.

On my first year, I tried to wet felt vessels and pouches.

I had never gone that thick before, and I tried a sander for the occasion: that was a first as well! I managed to felt two vessels, one with a basic truncated-cone resist, and one with a strange resist (a truncated cone with add-ons at the corners, do not ask me why, spur of the moment thing). I understood that you need more than 4 layers: it was a concept that I did not readily welcome, as I realised that I did not have enough wool with me for more trials!

I used my newfound awareness about thickness to wet felt an almost A-4 sized pouch: it was my first one ever, and I was terrified that I would not be able to find the resist of the pocket in the end if I included one, so I just went for the basic shape! I had never done a rectangular shape before, so that was a first also: learning how to make straightish lines and corners! I also understood that it takes a lot of elbow grease and time for a wet felted vessel or bowl, and you need to add quite a bit to your resist size if you work with merino wool and you want your vessel to stand upright in the end!

My first vessel, made on my first Learning Summer Challenge

The inside was white, and I was surprised about how much of the pink wool migrated into the white layers. You can appreciate the thinness of this first vessel from this pic. But it stands upright.

My first wet felted pouch ever! I went for a felted cord to close it, so that the person I gifted it to could close it well both when empty and very full.

The pouch was white inside, and not very thick, partly to keep it soft and partly because I did not have wool enough to make it thicker.

On my second year, I was back on holiday after Covid had forced me to skip a couple of years of travelling: I had to isolate myself for a while before being able to move around, so I practiced patience! That is, laying fine layers of wool: I mean, extra fine layers!

That helped me enormously with layout control, passing time very pleasantly, and also solved my problem of what to gift to my various friends and sisters-in-law: I made a lot of extra-lightweight scarves in merino wool with accents of silk fibers. Everybody was so happy, it was a win-win. Afterwards, I was able to make more uniform felt, and tackle other challenges such as wet felting kids mittens.

Two of my many lightweight scarves in progress on a kitchen table.

Three scarves drying on the garden bench. We had a constant procession of my husband’s relatives coming to wave at us from the other side of the garden and exclaiming over the scarves drying on the bench.

This detail will make apparent the extreme thinness of the scarves.

In this one, I was experimenting with laying the wool in a grid pattern.

This one had silk fabric strips and silk fiber accents helping to hold it together.

The left side scarf was made with the thinnest layer of white merino as background and a thin layer of multicolored sari silk over it: I loved it and gifted it to a very dear friend. The other one is merino with swirls of silk fabric and accents of silk fiber.

This is a second blue one, the difference from the other is in the accents of colour, that in the previous one were red and white silk fiber while in this one were yellow and white.

Here is a detail of this last blue scarf. The white accent was merino, the yellow was silk, and the swirl silk fabric.

I also enrolled in a yearly subscription to Lena Archbold’s online classes (here her website): I was eager to learn a lot from her, although I find her voice and manners the uber-treatment for insomnia! I managed to complete three or four of her online classes and to actually try making 2-3 of her suggested coursework designs, mainly during or right after my holidays (of course), but then did not have time for more. Pity, because I learned quite a lot from her (she also helped me sleep most evenings, that is not to be sneered at). Only a couple of the suggested designs really worked for me, the others that I tried I did not like the results, and I had major failures on a couple of occasions! That was totally my fault, because I tend to , ahem, be creative with instructions sometime. Also because I do not really like her style of fashion, so I often change materials and combinations with supplies I own and like. Anyway, when I had the patience to try again and understand from my previous mistakes, I got very good results. More importantly, I learned some good techniques and tips from her classes.

Mittens that I made following Lena Archbold’s online classes, using a sander as she teaches

On my third year, I managed to scrounge some me time to enroll on Felting&Fiber Studio member Ruth Lane’s great online class on Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques: fabulous!

I managed only the module on Printing, Stenciling, and Playing with Thickened Dye on Felt, as my time is always limited, but it was very inspiring and I had a real learning summer, full of ideas and experiments. It was challenging, because I had to learn a whole new set of creative tools, and I am by no means finished with the learning about it. Still, summer is short and I need to pace my creative work during the year, unfortunately: I am constantly adding to my printing stash the odd interesting surface, waiting for the time to play with dyes in future! I would love to take other Felting and Fiber Studio classes in future: during holidays, of course!

Work in progress of my cut out stencil on mylar sheet for my class with Ruth Lane.

I tried it on paper, as it was my first time and wanted to try the printing paint.

My first burnt stencil, and I still have a bit of work to do on that, as you can see from the printing trials of this.

My experimenting with the burnt stencil was not as successful as I may have desired, as the sheet should have been scraped for residues of plastic around the holes.

The flower on felt is even less defined, not what I was aiming at.

Another cut out stencil that I made for the class.

I got inspired while trying the stencil on paper, it made me think about seaweed, and I added a red and blue fishish shape by scraping paint with random implements.

I ended up making a small sample of seaweed and “fishes” shapes on a leftover piece of blue and white felt that I had left from a bowl…

This is my print trial of a handmade stamp with foam sheets, on paper. I was pretty pleased by the result. I have not tried it on felt, yet.

My experiments with mark making on felt were variously successful, and great fun!

I had so much fun that I am afraid I kept on quite a bit with mark making on felt, trying out different broken kitchen implements, plastic packaging, and various plant parts, even!

I also had some ideas on surface embellishment through stitching and embroidering to try: I wet felted a couple of small key trays in blue to try my hand with.

I tried the circular key tray shape first, using up quite a bit of white locks as embellishment.

The bigger one was actually blue and black.

This is where I tried stitching for embellishment on a small shallow bowl. More challenging, I did not have embroidery floss and embroidery needles, I just made do with darning thread and a random needle found in a drawer.

A work-in-progress pic of the stitching, white on the blue sides of the small bowl.

The finished bowl has been left in my mum’s care for her keys and glasses and small stuff that tends to wander around.

And, lastly, this summer I have been wanting to experiment with differential shrinkage and manipulation.

I only brought white merino wool with me, with a bit of other colours and silk, a small bag of orange locks, and I came back with a good half of what I brought untouched: I had very little time and I managed to complete only one vessel. I really like it though, and I think that I would like to follow through with my other ideas to try. I found the layers felt easier than what I remembered from my first tries without sander (I lately always use my sander when felting thicker felt, but I did not use it in this occasion): maybe I am just becoming better at wet felting or I get less impatient with my rubbing and rolling and fulling. I did not find the manipulation part of the project as exhausting and boring as I was afraid: possibly because I had to complete the job in two times, a week apart, and it felted faster and better because of that?

This is the still wet bowl that I wanted pretty ridged. I used only merino wool on that one. Sorry, I do not have another photo, as I left this vessel with my mum, as she loved it and said that she needed to have around beautiful things: I could sympathise.

It was a bit of a complicated summer for me, and it does not signify that I could not felt as much as I originally planned: I am sure that next year will be different!

I find that summer is a very good time for me to try one or two different things and learn, as bringing only a few supplies forces me to focus only on one aspect of my felt, and I very determinedly embrace the idea of learning something each summer. I tried taking online classes during the year, but it gets too much for me with my family commitments and job commitments, it just does not work well for me.

Do you set aside a time specifically for learning or experimenting too?

Share this: