Felting and Fiber Studio

Annie (rosiepink)

I made this felted snowy winter trees table centre as my idea for the Q4 challenge which was to create a textile item inspired by the work of Eric Ravilious.  It is approx 60cm / 24″  across.

This turned out to be a double challenge for me as I chose his woodcut work for my inspiration, with a monochrome palette, and as you may know, I usually love love love to use lots of colours.

I just really liked the subject and the way he stylised it. The over sized snow flakes really appealed to me!

I had started off thinking I was going to make a bowl but once I’d felted it I decided I liked it as it was for now.  I may well change that later though.  I did make the centre thicker when laying out the base as I thought it might need the reinforcement if stitched into a bowl due to its size.

The base is made from white Merino wool tops (laid out over a wire ring for wreath making to attempt a decent circle shape!)

Then for the majority of the trees I used some very fragile t-shirt material that I’m really pleased didn’t disintegrate since I couldn’t be bothered to make a sample this time.  I also used some other reclaimed fabrics from other garments and some yarns.

I found it hard to keep the design simple and took it apart a few times after over complicating it (and adding then removing colour!) but got there in the end.  I’m surprised how much I like it as I would not normally have made something in one colour (it’s all shades of blue but does look black in places in the photos).

I noticed I made the branches a bit short since it was more pattern based to make the circle, but in reality they would have been longer and overlapped a bit but I like the way it turned out, and might even go on to make a picture in the same way.

Lyn

My ‘Postcard from Farley Mount’ depicts the folly that’s a monument to a horse. The little landscape is made by wet-felting pre-felts onto two layers of white merino wool tops then lines of needle felting were added afterwards – it’s approx 15 x 13cm / 6”x5”.

I took inspiration for my landscape from the painting ‘Windmill’ by Eric Ravilious – I liked the very simple depiction of the landscape with its one dominating subject.

Farley Mount is a large Country Park of downland and woodland, with a folly stood on one of the highest hills in Hampshire, and was a favourite picnic spot for our family and friends in the 60’s.

The folly is a monument to a horse named ‘Beware Chalk Pit’ and the story is told on a plaque (photo from Wikimedia Commons) – see below the photo for the wording on the plaque.

“Underneath lies buried a horse, the property of Paulet St. John Esq., that in the month of September 1733 leaped into a chalk pit twenty-five feet deep a foxhunting with his master on his back and in October 1734 he won the Hunters Plate on Worthy Downs and was rode by his owner and was entered in the name of “Beware Chalk Pit”.

Picnics were always a time for my mum and auntie to sit and knit and chat while we children just mucked about having fun.

Cars were small in those days – everything you took with you had to be small to fit in the boot (trunk), so our chairs were very low, metal framed, fold-up canvas chairs.

One time my dad and my uncle came back from a short walk and unfolded a couple of canvas chairs to sit on.

Now, these chairs had seen many picnics and the canvas was getting worn so when my very portly uncle flopped his bulk down there was a loud ripping sound.  He had gone through the seat of the chair and through the seam on the seat of his trousers!

There was no sewing kit to hand so a thin metal hairgrip, like this,

was fashioned into a needle, using pliers from dad’s car toolbox, then threaded with knitting yarn so that the seat of uncle’s trousers could be sewn together with great big woollen cross-stitches!

I did try very hard not to laugh 🙂

The final challenge of this year is to make something in the style of, or inspired by, Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) who was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver.

The Tate Gallery wrote of his paintings as being ‘off-kilter with modernist sensibility and clarity’.

(All images shown are in the public domain).

Wiltshire Landscape (1937)

Tea at Furlongs (1939)

Interior at Furlongs (1939)

Train Going over a Bridge at Night (1935)

Beachy Head (1939)

Windmill (1934)

There are many images on the internet of Eric Ravilious’ work so please explore this talented and interesting artist, and perhaps find the inspiration to make your challenge piece.

Hello Summer!  Hello to wearing silly hats and enjoying Annie’s garden!

This quarter’s challenge is to capture the essence of summer in a textile representation.  Realistic or abstract, large or small, practical or not, it’s a free choice.

Summer is a time to sit and enjoy the view;

to feel the sand between your toes;

to walk in the shade of trees in full leaf;

to dine al fresco on a warm evening;

to eat home grown fruit

and to bring summer indoors with garden flowers picked in July.

This little summer study, in felt and machine stitching with a little bit of acrylic paint, was done by Annie back in 2016 and was inspired by the bees buzzing around the chive plants on her patio.

To recap – the challenge is to make a textile piece that says ‘Summer’.  Realistic or abstract, large or small, practical or not, it’s a free choice.

Please post your entries in the Studio Challenges section on the The Felting and Fiber Forum

If you have difficulty posting a photo, please use this form

Commercial birthday cards for anglers always feature pictures of men but I have a female friend who loves fishing and is an avid reader!  So this quarter’s challenge is the ideal time for me to make a feminine fishing card with a small gift of a textile bookmark.

If I’m making something small I always rummage in my scraps box because it will save time and money.

I found this nuno felt scrap (below left) from the making of a picture of a seahorse in 2015 (below right).

Sorry about the dodgy photo of the scrap but without stitching or anything else solid the camera couldn’t focus properly on the net.

I have some yellow heavyweight cotton fabric to back the nuno felt so I cut a piece a little bigger than the nuno felt then pinned the two together.  The cotton backing made stitching on the felt easier and made the back pretty.

I did ‘quilty’ stitching all over the nuno felt – it added interest and made it hardwearing.

I drew a template for the bookmark on an old piece of card.  I placed the template on the nuno felt then marked around it with an air-erasable pen to give me a sewing line.

After machine stitching the outline of the bookmark on the nuno felt, I cut it out very close to the stitching line.  The eye is just a dot from a black laundry marker.

To decorate a white card blank I used ‘Word’ to make a sheet of images to cut out.  The blue and yellow book is made from ‘shapes’ and colour filled then typed words on top (I can’t take credit for the humorous author’s name – it’s been around as long as I have), the shelf of books and fishing rod are free printables and the greeting is just typed above the rod.  I used thin card for printing the shapes.

‘Moby Dick’ has been scanned by Google so I printed off the first two pages to make an insert for the card.  The bookmark sits inside the card as a surprise when the card is opened.

I added some pencil lines to look like book pages and here’s the finished card front.