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Month: December 2024

A Knights Helmet continued

A Knights Helmet continued

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Last time I left you with the main part of the helmet drying.  I also made a nose piece and strapping.

It seems I did not take pictures as I thought I had. I guess I must just think about taking pictures and then when I am busy working it is completely out of my mind. Jan got one of me working. I was using a darker grey to create the look of rivets as I attached the strapping and nose guard. I look so serious.

We did get lots of shots of it finished.  And not so serious

Here are a couple on the hat stand in my studio

I am happy with the way it turned out.  I need to make it look like it lost a battle. I wet it down again and rolled it in a towel to get most of the water out. I scrunched it into a ball and then opened it again. I think it looks like a crumpled helmet.

So then it was off to the guild Sale and Exhibition. I think we put Jan’s part and my part together the morning we opened. I think we were both too busy on set-up night to even think about it. It is all a bit of a blur.

we did a little photo shoot after the sale too it is very hard to get a good shot into the inside of the helmet.

 

I have no idea what to do with it now. What do you do with your projects after the show?

Green nuno felt with stitched flowers with stems added in wool couched stitching.
Painting the Landscape

Painting the Landscape

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The last time I showed you my Indian Paintbrush piece, I was undecided about the way the stems were ending so abruptly on the background. So I left it for awhile before making a decision on what to do.

The first thing I decided to do was add some stems to the blue flowers. I didn’t want the stems to be too visible so I chose a thread that was close to the background color. You can click on the photos to see them enlarged.

Green nuno felt with appliqued Indian Paintbrush and small blue stitched flowers with stems added in wool couched stitching.

It’s probably hard to see here but I did think that the stems helped the piece feel “more grounded”. But the stems of the main flowers still looked like they are not integrating with the background. So I decided to add paint to cover the end up a bit. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo with just the paint over the bottoms of the stems and over the lower third of the piece.

Green nuno felt with appliqued Indian Paintbrush and small blue stitched flowers with stems added in wool couched stitching. Addition of paint and stitched flowers to the stems of the Indian Paintbrush.

I added more blue flowers with stems over the base of the larger flower stems and the stems are looking better. I have decided it’s finished and now need to find a background fabric so I can finish it and get it ready for framing. This one is named “Painting the Landscape”.

The Fourth Corner: Winter.

The Fourth Corner: Winter.

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I have chosen to decorate the last corner of my wool blanket with some winter greenery in recognition of the season and Christmas, and I think some holly and mistletoe is an appropriate choice.

Holly and ivy were used as traditional decorations for the home at Christmas, it was a part of my childhood, and we all loved trying to find the nicest and shapeliest sprigs of each for our Mum. I have carried this on in my own home. I don’t remember seeing any mistletoe growing in the area of my childhood home in Ireland, nor in Yorkshire, where I lived for some time, but there is an abundance of it where I now live in Herefordshire. I did try to grow some last year on the crab apple tree in the garden, but no joy from all the seeds (about 50) stuck to the branches. I may try again early next year.

       

The tree on the left is a large maple and you can see the ‘balls’ of mistletoe around the top very easily. The photo on the right is of a large mistletoe ‘ball’ (different tree), the berries are just about visible. Both trees in the local park.

There is a national mistletoe day, and this year it is on 7 December. Each year there is a mistletoe and holly auction in a town/rural area not far from here (Tenbury Wells), the auction dates this year are 26 November. and 3 December. A Mistletoe Festival is held each year – 7 December this year – when the druidic myths and traditions around mistletoe are celebrated.

A certain amount of mistletoe is harvested for this auction, but future harvests needs to be protected too.  Many people will gather some of their local mistletoe, or buy a bunch from a garden centre. It keeps well, and I generally collect some for my home the week before Christmas

My post is due on 9 December, quite close to Christmas, and around the time when I would be out looking for some greenery to help me with my Christmas decorations. So, a timely post!

I have a holly tree in the garden with lots of berries on it this year, so it is very easy to pop outside to collect a sprig. Mistletoe grows practically on every tree here, unfortunately quite high up on the trees and therefore difficult to reach. But occasionally there will be some that is within reach to snip a piece off.

Once again, I have free machine stitched the holly sprig shape onto the wool blanket, along with the some leaf shapes. Not all holly leaves are sharp and prickly, which is lucky when trying to find a nice sprig. I have also free machine stitched the mistletoe sprig shape.

                                                       

I have stitched some pre felted leaves to the blanket to add a little extra dimension. I made these some time ago, and these I have hand stitched using a blanket stitch. I compared which shade of red floss is the closest colour for the berries, and then embroidered these in place.

The colour of mistletoe berries are more like small pearls in colour and shape, quite white/opaque, and difficult to show up on the wool cloth; so I have used a pale golden colour floss to embroider these berries so that they can be seen a little easier than a white colour would be.

The blanket will need a little more work I think. I will add a decorative feature to the centre, probably a little more stitching, and then I will find a soft backing to complete, this will make it more comfortable next to the skin.

 

 

Some pre-felt on top of a hessian stabbing mat, with sewn lines made to resemble a postcard
A Christmas card swap, except Jan’s card is still with me

A Christmas card swap, except Jan’s card is still with me

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Firstly, if you’re Jan and don’t want a spoiler about your card, stop reading immediately!

I think I’m jinxed. There, I said it. For last year’s seasonal card swap, I was paired with the lovely Hélène and the card I sent her was returned to me by Irish Customs, who didn’t deign my wares good enough to cross its country’s borders. This year, I am unable to send my finished card to Jan because Royal Mail says no (well, Canada post says no, they’re not accepting any mail until their strike is resolved).

If I take part in next year’s swap, you might want to avoid me as a partner…

This year I decided to take the notion of a postcard rather literally; I wanted something the size and look of one, and so decided to put my sewing machine to use.

Some pre-felt on top of a hessian stabbing mat, with sewn lines made to resemble a postcard

I cut some pre-felt almost to size and marked down the lines typical of a postcard using a heat-erasable pen. See the twisted red wool on the top left corner of the photo? At first I had the idea of felting the lines with it, until I realised it would take me forever and not look half as good as using the sewing machine. I changed tactics.

After sewing those lines I wrote down my seasons greetings. I was ambitious in what I wanted to say, as you’re about to see.

The beginnings of the writing on my wool Christmas card, where I wrote "Dear Jan, Happy..."

Using yarn, I worked with a felting needle and carefully started following the outlines of the words. I immediately realised my “handwriting” wasn’t going to be as small as I intended. Oops. If you look carefully at the picture above, you’ll see the next word I was meant to write was “holidays,” which is larger than the already felted “Happy.”

More words needle felted onto the wool, saying "Dear Jan, Happy Xmas! L xx"

Where did the word “holidays” go? Well, sometimes you have to pick your battles. Let’s pretend this was the plan all along, shall we?

And then, off to the decorating and making it a more seasonal card.

The almost-finished card with a 3D Christmas tree needle felted on the right

There was something missing in the background… so I did the foolish thing of working that part after having the foreground finished. However, I think it was worth it, but you can judge by yourselves.

The same felted card as before but the needle felted Christmas tree has a blue background also in wool felt

Much better, I hope you agree! I particularly like the detail of the present with the bow made from yarn.

Now it was time to cut the card to size and glue it to a real postcard (a blank one made from watercolour paper). I sadly don’t have a good enough photo of the card’s front, so you’ll just have to imagine the above image in the correct size and without the markers that I removed with a steam iron.

Here’s the back of the card:

The back of my card, made of paper. It has some drawn birds, a doodle of a cat in lieu of a stamp and some greetings to Jan

“I hope this card reaches you in time” was written before I knew Canada postal services were not only delaying deliveries but had altogether halted them. Sorry, Jan!

I will have this on its way to you as soon as possible.

(By the way, see the smudge under the flying bird? That wasn’t me being clumsy at all, no siree, that was completely on purpose and represents the movement and plight of the avian creature as it strives to reach its maximum potential. Cough cough…)

Seasons greetings, everyone! Thanks for reading.

 

Dragon hand playing with felted sheep
Collaboration with Ann, Dragon Hand part 1

Collaboration with Ann, Dragon Hand part 1

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Ann’s Dragon hand

I did say I was going to tell you about the dragon hand you may have noticed at least once in a recent post. So no travelogue today as we look back at what Ann got me working on for our Diamond exhibition celebrating our 75th anniversary. It would be part of the exhibition at the guild sale (which Coincided with the exhibition of guild work at the museum in Almonte). I know two shows at once, can be confusing.

During the summer, Ann asked if I could make a dragon hand for a project for the diamond exhibition.  We met at the guild social, I brought jute covered wire, its unlabeled but is either 14 or 12 gauge, and made an amateur for her.  She considered it, then asked if it could be a  bit bigger. Ok, on that! Mark 2 dragon hand was bigger and could thus hold more diamonds.  She deemed it worthy, so unlike Goldilocks, I got it right in 2 tries!

You have seen me playing with wire armatures before, so if you had questions or want more info on armatures and wire gages look back through the blog posts. What i want to show you today is something I haven’t seen anyone else try.  Ann’s Specification was dragon hand, with poses-able fingers, and claws, that could hold the diamonds Ann was making.

Early this year, April I think, I had been surfing around the internet, on the other side of the planet, and doing a bit of on-line-shopping. While looking for other things I spotted claw tips!!, well the seller did not realize they were selling claw tips, but I knew they were as soon as i spotted them! I ordered 100 in Bronze and 100 in gun-mettle (sort of a charcoal blue/ gray) then later, in October, I made another order of 100 silver.

You can buy a few of a stud, an assortment of various studs or a pack of 100 studs. I figured 5 toed dragon or 4 and a heal claw, with 4 legs per dragon and maybe tail or spine spikes. That would mean the minimum per dragon would be 20 claw tips and however many spiny or tail spikes.  I could probably get a maximum of 4 dragons per 100 spikes. I could not decide between the bronze or the Gunmettel black so, as i said, got them both.

1.1-1.3)  Aliexpress vender was Sunfordfashion Store

I was going to make some samples but by august Ann asked if I could make her a dragon hand. Ah ha! I have just the thing I want to try out!

3 plastic bags of 100 each studs 2.1) 3 bags of studs in Gun-mettle black, Bronze and silver

Lets have a  closer look at the claw tips. its mettle and made of two parts; a screw back and the talon, where the screw inserts.

3.1-3.3) Close up of stud and backing

Now that you have seen them don’t you just think they would make the most perfect claw tips?

Do you recognize what they were originally designed for? Let me give you a hint; punk jackets? Stud collars? Ok maybe not something everyone looks at and goes OOOH those are cool.  I never had a leather jacket with studs or a spike collar, but the jacket still sounds cool. Originally they were screwed through the leather (or Pleather) from the back.

The studs come in lots of shapes, sizes and colours. so this might make a useful option for other projects.

studs come in lots of shapes here are depicted quite a few of the options 4.1) Various available shapes for studs.

I should show you an example of the expected use of these lovely studs

example of studded jacket with a few diferent types of spikes.4.2) I think this was listed as an jacket available on etsy. I guess the shoulder spikes would keep your purse from falling off. (Added design feature?)

Now that you have seen what the expected use for the studs, i suspect you can already see where I was going with this. I made the armature so that each toe ended in a loop. let me see if I can find the a bit too small armature to show you. I think I saw it in the bedroom, I have no idea why it was there. No its likely off with Miss Mer somewhere else in the house now.

When I created the armature, i arranged a loop at the end of each toe. Through which I put the claw shaped stud. around the space between the screw and the claw, I wound floral wire.  I then wound the floral wier ends up the dragon finger to both keep the claw affixed and give the aluminum some added strength.

5.1-5.4 shows the claws inserted into the wire loop then used steel floral weir to keep it secure.

Its not the pettiest of armatures but it worked. If or when I do this again. I would add a drop of crazy glue and give it one more twist to tighten with a screwdriver.

Last online shopping with Ann, I tried World of Wool’s “Carded Core Wool Sliver”. The previous shopping spree had provide carding wast core wool. Its sort of clumps, that may have tried to escape the carder or maybe refused to leave? It works a charm after a quick few passes on the hand carders. (for that, I actually used the full size wool carders not the pet brushes.)

world of wool core carded roving.6.1 this is one of the two options from world of wool for core wool

The jute cover on the wire made it easy to warp fiber over the armature, well easier than a bare weir armature.

adding core wool from the ankle to the mid forarm.6.2 adding core wool from ankle to mid forarm

As I added fiber I considered joints, tendons  and tried to figure out the anatomical important bits for a dragon. Ann had oked 4 claws rather than my original 5 clawed idea.

adding core wool over toes, note jute rapped wieir alows for good adhesion of wool to covered wier.6.3 working wool down fingers

I started to create a webbing between the fingers to make up the palm.

6.4-6.6 adding the webbing between the toes

I had considered the need for a tendon for the heal claw and started to block it in.

6.7  adding tendon to back toe

I had been over at Elizabeth’s, helping her set up the first draft of the Guild workshop schedule. That done it was back to my messy computer desk. please ignore the messy desk, i do as long as i can.

6.8-6.9 adding more structure to the foot

i had a lot of fun adding more anatomical features.

7.1-7.2  adding more structure to the foot and ankle

I was pleased with the shape and covered the hand in black. No matter what colour diamonds Ann made, everything goes with black!

As I said earlier, someone else may have thought of studs as claws, and I just haven’t seen it. I hope this will spark an idea and send you careening off in some new and exciting wet or dry felting direction.

NOTE: my main suggestion is that next time, I think I would add a drop of crazy glue with the floral wire and screw. it should  keep the claw tips from any rotation (one tip has loosened a bit and rotates out of perfect alignment, but it hasn’t let go!)

Aug.19th social I took the claw in to get Ann’s Ok.

Ann and the dragon hand gently playing with one of the sheep8.1-8.2) Ann playing with the dragon hand

Dragon was showing interest in her sheep……  the shepherdess looks nerves but Dragon was very careful.

Ann asseses the dragon hand8.3)   08-19-2024 progress to this point shape is good, claws look grate, needs more detail than flat black.

she liked it, but wanted more detail.   Ok I can do that, but first I need to photograph the set up for the Guild show in Almonte (which you have already seen!) and there is still guild sale and library work to do, and I have to get the Mer’s ready for the Almonte show too. We will continue with the dragon hand next post.

Some Past Holiday Exchange Cards

Some Past Holiday Exchange Cards

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Hi All It seems I forgot I had to post today so I am late. I am reposting a post showing some of the past Holiday Exchange Cards that we have done. I did remove the links to sign up for this exchange.

Hi all,  for those who may not know we also run an interactive forum for felting and fiber folks. It’s a great place to share your work, ask questions and help each other out. http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/

Each year we have a holiday exchange. You make a small felted postcard or similar size card with some felt on it.

Here’s the timeline:

October 4-Nov 9: people sign up

November 10 partners are announced.

November: Make your card, contact your partner for an address

December 1: Mail your card

Here are some of the cards from our past exchange, there has been lots of variety.

 

   

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Background of light blue grey nuno felt with tree appliqued in place covered with gold cut purl stem stitched garlands.
Holiday Card Exchange

Holiday Card Exchange

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For the studio holiday card exchange, I had Tesi’s name. I was in a bit of a hurry to get it finished so I chose a simple design, a holiday decorated tree.

Pieces of nuno felt, screen printed felt and stitched felt chosen to create holiday card.

Looking through my stash, I found a couple pieces of nuno felt, a screen printed piece of felt in green and a tree trunk that was already stitched! I love when a plan comes together this easily re-using bits and pieces from my horde of “stuff”.

Background of light blue grey nuno felt with screen printed felt tree shape and stitched felt trunk with wool "snow" at bottom.

This was the beginnings of the idea. I had some “wads’ of white wool that I thought I could use for snow and the background looks kinda snowy.

Background of light blue grey nuno felt with tree shape appliqued in place and red nuno felt "ball ornaments" appliqued in place.

So I stitched down the tree and added some circles from the multicolored nuno felt. Then I wanted to add a garland. As I was looking at what I had, I remembered my goldwork supplies. That would definitely add sparkle!

Background of light blue grey nuno felt with tree shape and ball ornaments appliqued in place. Addition of yellow felt padding stitched at top of tree.

So I added some yellow felt padding at the top of the tree to give a raised effect. Then I could cover it with cut purl.

Background of light blue grey nuno felt with tree appliqued in place covered with gold cut purl stem stitched garlands.

I used Gilt Bright Check Purl for the garland stitched down in “stem” stitch. The photos aren’t the best as the felt and the shiny gold make the camera confused and unfocused.

Background of light blue grey nuno felt with tree appliqued in place covered with gold cut purl stem stitched garlands and gold cut purl tree topper.

Now on to the tree topper. The hardest part in “cut purl work” is getting the sizes correct so that they fit correctly over the padding. I used Gilt Rough Purl for the tree topper. I decided against using the snow at the bottom of the tree as originally planned. I thought it was unnecessary.  I glued the entire thing down to a blank greeting card and sent it off to Tesi in the mail and it arrived safely. Yay!