Hello!
This post will be about a few different projects that I am into: as they are all small and easy projects, maybe you will get inspired to try out your own version of them as well.
I am participating to an Art Trail in my area, it is a big event in our neck of woods: it is my second time and I think that I have a better feel for what I need to prepare for it. That is, small usable felt things, that can be added to what I have left from last year, that I can easily bring to our venue by public transport (I do not have a car, I live in Greater London, UK and using public transport is a sensible choice to avoid traffic and steep charges) and that I can sell for a reasonable price. As it is not a Fine Art Only event, but more of a festival celebrating the creativity of all the people living in our Borough, any craft is encouraged and stalls can also sport a mixture of fine art and craft as mine will be.
Last year I sold a few of my wet felted earrings, so this year I spent a bit of time in making a few more but with needle felting: it was very quick, I enjoyed the needle felting practice, and I feel that I can keep to a low price for them.
Here are the pairs that I have made so far (the flowers on the top rows and the blue hearts) with the ones that I have left from last year:
I also wanted to bring the blue loop scarf and the yellow lightweight scarf that were shown in previous posts, as loop scarves were admired last year (though I did not sell them very well, but who knows, maybe this year I will) and I will add to them this new lightweight scarf that I made with the recycled banana yarn used as yarn for decoration:
It was pretty awkward to pair a very small amount of wool with the chunky yarn, it was really an experiment. I thought that maybe the yarn could give the wool a little bit more structure, but I am wary that the yarn will actually be a weak point of stress for the wool, and pull the wool apart quicker. Anyway, it was more work than I expected, as the wool was so thin that the yarn was not well felt in in places, so I had to needle felt the yarn in after drying it, and then cut all the hairy wool sticking out from the places that I had needle felted. I will maybe not do it in the same way another time: I could either go for a thicker wool layout or maybe sandwich the yarn in between two lightweight layers of wool.
I also am trying out an idea that I have seen from a British artist and crafter on Instagram, Maxine Smith @tillyteadance. She makes those lovely bookmarks in her very colourful style with a mix of wetfelting and machine stitching, with hand embroidered or needle felted details. You can have a glimpse at the process in her posts: she seems to make a full rectangle of wet felted and machine stitched background, then cuts all the bookmarks from that single rectangles with a rotary cutter, adds some details and finishes each bookmark by stitching all the edges.
I thought that I could try my hand at it, and see if it makes the bookmark making more time effective for commercial purposes. And, to be honest, it seemed like fun. My brother had this game when we were little: a lot of scenes on paper strips that you could combine to make an always different composition that told an always changing story. Here, I was picturing something like that, but made of felt.
Of course, I do not have a sewing machine, so my stitching was going to be very limited. I am also much less of a figurative artist than Maxine Smith is, and much less of a cheerful disposition. Here is what I made, with merino wool and a few scraps of a pale blue scarf (possibly silk, I do not know, it was a charity shop find):
Then I had to make each one meaningful with some stitching (as less as possible) and have them tell a different story each. I also was keen on keeping them as abstract as possible, because I love that opening up of possible meanings.
Here are the stitched bookmarks as of now:
I have to hand stitch all the edges now, but I need to go and buy some good thread in the right colour at my local shop. I would like it to be pale blue or something like that, and I do not have embroidery thread in that colour.
An issue that I have with them is that they are not stiff. The ones that Maxine Smith shows are properly stiff: I think that part of it is due to the extensive machine stitching, part to the fact that, on second watching, I noticed that she made thicker felt to begin with. I have no idea if she puts some stiff backing or if she uses a PVA glue bath to increase stiffness. Now, I am thinking about what I can do to increase my bookmark stiffness without spending too much time on them. My friends say that they are fine as thickness goes, and I believe a bulkier bookmark is not super easy to use inside a book, so I am not inclined to add felt to them on their back. I maybe will try with the PVA glue bath. Some of my friends also do not see why they should be stiffer, so there you go, I could leave them as they are, and simply display them on a paper backing with a couple of temporary stitches to keep them upright. What do you think?
I have made a couple more small abstract landscapes in unusual colours, similar to those that I have shown in my last post, and I have not added stitched details to them, yet:
Which details would you think for them? I am very undecided.
Another thing that I am preparing is my contribution to the fundraiser for the charity Ealing Food Bank in this edition of the Art Trail. Last year, the artists from the Art Trail were encouraged to donate a small piece on the theme “Home” to be exhibited at a special venue and sold for a homeless charity: it went very well, so this year we are doing it again, for a different charity. The theme this year is “Food for Thought”, of course, but the requirements for entry are the same: it must be a square piece 20cm by 20 cm (about 7.8 inches), and they are going to give us the canvas, if needed.
They are going to provide us the canvas later on, but I have the advantage that I can complete my piece with no canvas at all, and then just stitch my work on the canvas when I will have it.
I started with the idea of a still life with fruits and vegetables on it: I do not know, I think about still lifes a lot these days (see my last post). I was not feeling like making it in wet felt, I do not know, it did not feel like the right thing, I wanted more of a sculptural piece and I went for needle felting.
Firstly, I prepared a wet felted background with some “wool for felting” that I had as a gift from a friend: I have no idea which kind of wool that is, so I seldom use it, but for this it seemed perfect, as it is very natural (I do not think that it is dyed) and in different gradation of natural whites and browns.
Then, I decided that I needed a real life reference, so I got out some peppers, an apple and a small bowl. I experimented with adding some green vegetables like cucumber or lettuce, but it was not working well, too big maybe. I wanted some green grapes to drape over the peppers and apple, but I had none in the fridge, so I just simulated it with a small vessel that has long curly locks hanging from it.
Well, then I started making the shapes in core wool, thinking that I was going to cover them with dyed Merino afterwards.
Going on with the shapes, I wanted to better visualise how they were going to fit with each other, so I placed them on the background and then loosely needle felted them one to the other.
The grapes were a bit more time consuming, but when I saw the whole together I started thinking that I liked the whole as it was, white and almost ghostly. I feel that it is clear what the shapes are, even without colour, when seen in person. The photos get a bit confusing, to be honest.
So, in the end, I needle felted it all to the background and I will call it something like “I miss you”, because it made me think about a friend who recently passed away: she was a keen grower of vegetables in her allotment, and also still lifes are supposed to hint about life and death, and she passed away way too young, way too early, a typical theme for still lifes.
Another friend gave me the idea of felting coasters: it is maybe weird, but I am not one of the tons of people using coasters, so I had never really thought about making some, but it is actually quite fast and fun to make them, and it probably makes a lot of commercial sense (we will see if they sell well..).
Here are two sets of four coasters that I made recently:
I will go on making a few more pieces for the Art Trail event, there is still time until September, and I hope to finish the ones that need a bit of working on, but this is it for now: I hope that you like what I have made so far.
Kiki
@kiki.textile.art