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Author: ruthlane

When I discovered felting in 2007, I finally found the creative outlet for which I had been searching. I love that the versatility of fiber allows me to “play” with a wide variety of materials including wool, silk, fabrics, yarns and threads. Creating one of a kind fiber art pieces to share with the world fulfills my creative passion.
Felt and Stitched Moss on Driftwood with Close Up of Tea Bag Leaves
Adding Dried Leaves to Mossy Driftwood

Adding Dried Leaves to Mossy Driftwood

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I have been continuing to add more stitching and other bits to my mossy driftwood. You can see the progression from just felt to adding stitch in these two posts:

Moss on a Piece of Driftwood

Mossy Driftwood Continued

Driftwood covered with green felt and hand and machine stitched areas of moss.

The moss has been getting filled in by hand stitching and adding the machine stitched moss I created. I am trying to decide how much more hand stitched moss to add. I think it needs more “trailing” knots in the “bare” felted areas. But I also need to add lichen in places but I haven’t created the lichen yet. I’m thinking I will try Tyvek lichen.

Leaf shapes created out of tea bags and machine stitching.

The next step was to create dead, desiccated leaves. I found a tutorial for making them out of tea leaves on Youtube.  I had made them out of Lutradur before but not tea bags so I thought I would give it a go. I drink tea every morning so I started saving the old tea bags for this project. In the video, she used some type of stabilizer but I decided to try without one. I layered two flattened tea bags together and just started free motion machine stitching the veins. As you can see, you don’t want to stitch the outer edge of the leaf as it looks more natural without it. Then I cut them to shape with scissors.

Tea bag leaves, machine stitched veins and burned holes/edges.

The next step was to burn the edges and the holes. I found it was easier to get a more natural look when I was looking at photos of dead leaves. That way the leaves don’t all turn out the same. I used a wood burning tool for this operation (the video uses an incense stick). Obviously, you need to be careful when you’re burning things and it is pretty stinky too, you need ventilation. So I took mine to the stove and turned on the overhead fan to draw away the fumes. Plus the stove top is heat proof and won’t be burned or damaged.

Fiber art moss on piece of driftwood with three tea bag dead leaves.

So here’s the full piece with the leaves just placed on it. I will be stitching them down at some point to hold them in place.

Here’s a couple of close ups. You can click on the photos for a bigger view. I am happy with the progress and it is definitely looking very “forest floor”.

 

Handmade book open to page spread with fabric photo of trees in morning light stitched to page and small torn piece of paper below photo with definition of woodland.
Handmade Book Continued

Handmade Book Continued

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About a month ago, I showed you my handmade book that I created at our annual art retreat. I have since then been slowly adding “stuff” to the book. The theme is the forest and I am having fun finding things to add to the book.

Handmade book open to page spread with fabric photo of trees in morning light stitched to page and small torn piece of paper below photo with definition of woodland.

I had this photo of morning light on trees printed on fabric for my class homework but hadn’t used it. I decided to hand stitch it in place on this hand dyed page. I then glued a piece of handmade paper to the page spread and added a definition of woodlands scrap of paper that Paula gave me. She had a bunch of definitions printed out on “old paper” and she kindly gave me the ones relating to the forest. As you can probably tell, I am not starting on page one and working through the book. I am adding things randomly through the book depending on what the page looks like and what I think works best. This way, I’m not stressing about each page being wonderful. I just find something that I like and add it in. So these pages may have more things added as I go along or not.

Handmade book open to inside cover and first page. Specimen label on cover and small piece of handstitched "moss" on first page.

Paula also had some “old” labels and I used the Specimen Book label on the inside cover. And then I took a small piece of machine stitched “moss” that I had made for my moss covered branch and glued it on to the first page.

Handmade book open to page spread with a charcoal sketch of an aspen tree on plaster coated page.

The pages that have been covered with a mixture of plaster and gesso will all end up with some type of drawing or sketch. This Aspen tree sketch was done with a charcoal pencil and then I sprayed the page with a fixative so hopefully the charcoal won’t smear.

Handmade book open to page spread with lattice type handmade paper and feathers woven into paper.

I collect a lot of “stuff” when I walk through the woods around my house. I have a lot of turkey feathers but they were a bit too big so I used these smaller orange veined feathers to weave into the page of hand made paper. I’m not sure what bird these are from but they are much more rare to find on the ground than the turkey feathers.

Handmade book open to page spread with a torn edged photo of chickadee artwork pasted on dictionary page.

 

I wanted to try a photo transfer on some pages. I thought this would work on the regular paper of the old dictionary page. So I tried to transfer a photo of this painting that I did of a chickadee. The transfer did not work out so I ended up printing the chickadee on to regular copy paper, tearing it out and gluing it on to the page.

Handmade book open to page spread with transfer of a photo of a sketch of an Oregon grape leaf.

Here’s another attempt at a photo transfer on to a watercolor paper page. It worked slightly better but came out very lightly. I used a black marker to outline the Oregon grape leaf but decided to just leave the lighter colors as they were from the transfer. I am not trying for “perfection” in this book. It’s about collecting “stuff” about the forest in one book. The rocks on the page in the photo above are just there to hold the page in place so I could take a photo. But perhaps I need a sketch of the rocks added in? I’ll keep that in mind for another page idea.

I’m enjoying this process of working randomly in the book. It’s a storage vessel for all my forest “finds”.

Close up of machine stitched threads on top of felted driftwood.
Mossy Driftwood Continued

Mossy Driftwood Continued

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Last time I posted, I showed you a piece of driftwood that I had covered in green felt to represent moss. It definitely needed more work to achieve the natural look that I desired.

I took a small pair of sharp scissors and cut out some holes as well as making the ends not so uniform and straight. I then decided to use the left over cut out pieces as padding for stitching. I added the left over pieces in a couple of places and hand stitched them down.

I then decided to try adding more texture with needle felting. I had a pile of little wet felted scraps which you can see on the left and I needle felted those down. Then I added some wool from my carded batts that I had left over after wet felting. I needled those down but not too firmly. I still wanted the texture of moss, which you can see in the right photo.

Driftwood covered with green felt, stitched layers of felt added, needle felted layers added

Here’s what it looked like after I finished the lower layered bits. I left hanging threads as this will be the “grassy” looking bits sticking up between the moss.

Work bench covered with variety of green thread and driftwood covered with felt.

Next was looking for different green threads. Here’s what I came up with. You can also just see on the left side that I found some of my photos of moss and printed those out for reference.

Close up of French Knots stitched on green felt covering driftwood.

I then started adding some hand stitching. These are “wonky” French knots with hand dyed lace weight wool thread. This is going to take a while. I have another “slow” stitch project on my hands.

Next up was to try some machine stitching. I made a sandwich of the threads on the left between two layers of water soluble fabric. I then machine stitched a random branching pattern. The photo on the right shows the result after washing out the soluble fabric.

Close up of machine stitched threads on top of felted driftwood.

Here’s a small piece of the machine stitched moss by the French knot section. I haven’t stitched it in place as I think I will do more of the hand stitching first. I’m loving all the different greens as that is definitely what you find in nature. I will keep you updated on my progress.

Piece of driftwood, one end covered with felted green wool.
Moss on a Piece of Driftwood

Moss on a Piece of Driftwood

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I have had this idea on my to do list for a while so I was glad to give it a try. I have seen several different ideas of felting on a stick or piece of driftwood and wanted to give it a try. Then I am planning on adding further embroidery to give the “moss” more details.

Piece of driftwood behind pile of green wool bits

I have a bunch of driftwood from my friend Deb so this is another way to use it. I pulled a bunch of different green wool from my stash and mixed it by hand. I suppose since this is all made from my stash, this qualifies for the 4th quarter challenge too!

Hand carded green wool

I then used my hand carders to card the colors together but I didn’t want it to be a solid green. I just did a rough card to mix the greens slightly.

Then on to wrapping the wool around the end of the stick. I wrapped it diagonally with one layer, tacked it down with a bit of quick needle felting and then wrapped another layer in the opposite diagonal direction. I then began squeezing and rolling the stick around on a ridged surface before I wet it down getting some air out of the wool. I think if I had wet the stick first, that might have helped with wrapping the wool a bit tighter around the stick. I’ll try to keep that in my brain if I do this again.

Piece of driftwood, one end covered with felted green wool.

Then I wet felted the wool by rubbing and then rolling the stick wrapped in a towel. I also did a bit of “bashing” the stick but had to be careful not to break off any of the wood bits.  This is how it looks now. I am planning on adding a variety of hand stitching to give more texture. I also might cut back the felt in some areas to allow the wood to show through. I haven’t tried stitching on this type of surface so it might be a bit of challenge. But I’ll just give it a go and see how it turns out. Do you have any suggestions for particular stitches or how best to handle the stitching? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

Handmade Book

Handmade Book

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I told you in my last post that I had created a handmade book from deconstructed screen printed fabric and paper at our retreat. We followed this free tutorial by Jeanne Oliver. She has lots of free content on her site and some wonderful online classes. This is the book I created.

Here’s the book from the front. I used hemp canvas fabric that I had screen printed. The cover was constructed from the hemp canvas, book board and deconstructed screen printed paper.

 

The book was bound with pamphlet stitch and copper wire. I have created many books with pamphlet stitch but had never used wire. It was a bit tricky but I like the result, plus it’s very sturdy.

Here are the inside front cover (L) and inside back cover (R). I really love the organic feel of the screen printing. I made three signatures and used plaster on canvas pages plus additional pages of various papers and a bit of fabric. The main pages were created with canvas, plaster and gesso.

I didn’t take photos of all the page spreads but wanted to show a range of what was included in the book. The brown paper on the left is a “faux rice paper” that I made with tissue paper, walnut ink and matte medium. The photo on the right shows the inside of the copper wire binding.

These next photos shows a variety of papers that I used in addition to the plaster and canvas pages. Some were painted, some eco printed and I used some specialty rice papers as well.

Here are a few more page spreads. Besides paper, I also added in some hand dyed canvas as well. The book is fun in itself and could probably be left as is. But I want to make it into a book about the forest with sketches, additional ephemera related to trees and whatever else reminds me of the forest. So I will be working on this slowly and adding bits and pieces to it over time.

These are a few of the types of things that I might add. Paula kindly gave me the pieces with definitions and the labels. She has loads of ephemera and is very generous. Thanks Paula! You could easily make this type of book with felt as the cover fabric. I would love to see your results if you give it a try. You can submit photos of your work here and we will post them.

Deconstructed Screen Printing Session

Deconstructed Screen Printing Session

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My local group had our annual retreat in early September. We go out to a lovely lodge on Little Bitterroot Lake and spend a couple of days creating and playing with art stuff. This photo is from sometime in the past. Sadly, this year, the air was full of smoke and you could barely see the mountains across the water. This year, our activities included deconstructed screen printing, making a book and creating some “faux” rice paper.

These are a few of the paper prints that I created. Deconstructed screen printing is done with a previously prepared screen in which the thickened dye has been left to dry. Then you use more thickened dye or plain print paste to release the dried dye from the screen. It is a serendipitous process and you are never sure what you will get in the final prints. I teach this process on felt in my online class.

I usually use fairly thick paper so that I can wash out the thickener that is left on the paper. That way I can do other processes on top of the paper without it running. These are similar to some of the papers that I used in my recent collage challenge.

One of the fun things about the paper is that you can end up using either side. The photo on the left shows the front side of the printed paper and the right photo is the back side.

Here are some of the fabric pieces that I printed. If you click on the individual photos, you can see what type of fabric I used. The little scraps on the top left photo are what was left over after I used a piece of printed hemp canvas for the cover of my book.

These prints are all on silk. The left side is silk habotai, the middle is silk organza and the right side photo is the silk organza layered over the habotai. You could print on many types of silk and this would be a great way to create your own fabric for using in nuno felting.

I will be using these for my upcoming classes that I am taking as backgrounds for stitching, in collages and wherever else suits my fancy.

Next time, I will show you the book that I created while at the retreat. It’s not entirely finished but you will be able to see the deconstructed screen printed canvas as the cover and a piece of printed paper as the inside covers.

Learn a New Felting Skill! Or Develop Your Art and Design Knowledge!

Learn a New Felting Skill! Or Develop Your Art and Design Knowledge!

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Teri Berry has two online classes that start in a couple of weeks. Registration opens today so you can sign up now. Choose between learning how to make a felted concertina hat or a more complex felt bag.

The Felted Concertina Hat class teaches you the basic skills of making a concertina type felt hat. Then the course progresses into further variations of creating felt hats and Teri helps your ideas transform into hats that fit well and develop your own style. Read more about the class and register here. 

Here are just a few of the hats created by students in Teri’s class. You can see more here.

Felted Bags online class will teach you how to use multiple resists, introduction of nuno felting into bag making, and learn how to make a closure entirely from wool. You will progress on to how to add internal pockets, a magnetic clasp, adjustable shoulder straps and take shaping the bag to the next level so the bag has a flat bottom and stands up on its own. Again, Teri will assist you in designing your own bag style and moving your skill level forward in felt making. Register now for the Felted Bags online class.

As always, our Wet Felting for Beginners online class is available. For more information about this class, click here. Learn the basics of wet felting, how to use embellishments, all about shrinkage and even how to blend wool by hand. So if you’re curious about wet felting, this is the course to get you started.

© Ruth Lane

Whenever I post or talk to people about Gail Harker’s classes that I have taken, I get inquiries about whether or not her classes are available online. In the past, I have replied that most of the classes were not available entirely online. However, that has changed. Many of the classes I have taken are available to people who don’t live close enough to Washington state to attend in person classes. (I receive no remuneration for sharing information about Gail’s courses.)

Online Art and Design (previously known as Level 3) is now being offered in a four module format. Each module has 8 to 12 sessions. The sessions include online lessons as well as individual online tutorials with Gail. The first two modules are now available and classes will start in December. Click here for information about the first module. The second module is also being offered for students who have completed module one.

© Ruth Lane

There is so much information in Gail’s art and design classes. Take a look at the course brochures (links at the end of this post) for a comprehensive explanation of the classes. I never took any art classes in school and was woefully short on art related knowledge when I first dipped my hands into the fiber art world. After taking Level 3 Art & Design, I was much more confident in my design skills and abilities to create my own compositions. I not only learned many techniques to express my creativity but also how to “see” as an artist does and to evaluate different compositions to understand what made the design more interesting, what needed to be edited and what additions a composition needed.

I can remember many times when if someone asked me if I could draw, I would say “No, I can’t draw, I’m not very creative.” Since taking Gail’s classes, I don’t hesitate to draw or paint or sketch or just try a new technique. I do something creative nearly every day and I am delighted to be taking Level 4 classes.

If you are interested in developing your own art and design skills, I would definitely recommend these classes. They are well worth the investment in yourself and in your growth as a creative person.

 

Course Brochure: Level 1 Art & Design

Course Brochure: Level 2 Art & Design

 

Late Bloomers Finished?

Late Bloomers Finished?

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I had showed you this background a couple of post ago and was planning on free motion machine stitching a meadow scene.

I started with some background grasses in a couple of rows. If I do this again, I think I would stitch only one row and make the grasses longer.

Then I began couching down some different yarns with machine stitching.

I decided I should go ahead and stitch in the main focal flowers now so I wouldn’t fill up their space with grass. I couched down the green yarn for stems and then stitched heavily over a piece of purple felt for the flowers.

I decided the piece needed some more skinnier lines and some darker values. So I stitched the weedy bits in dark brown. These would have been easier if they were stitched before the larger grasses.

I then added some dark green weedy bits to the left hand side and couched some lighter green yarn down across the foreground. As you can see, I started looking at the piece in a “frame” since that was how it would be presented. What else did I need?

I decided the flowers needed some leaves so I used more of the same green yarn and pulled it apart a bit to get more width for the leaves. Was it finished? There was something bothering me on the right hand side. Do you see the brown grasses forming an ellipse? It seemed to draw my eye too much. So a bit of unstitching was necessary.

Now here it is after a bit of grass removal. Is it finished? I will leave it hanging on my design board for a few days to decide. I think I will add a bit of darkness to a couple of stems just right of center. Probably with a marker or a bit of paint.

What do you think? Is it finished?

100 Day Collage Challenge

100 Day Collage Challenge

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My local art group doesn’t meet over the summer but we decided to do a collage challenge. The challenge was to create a collage every day using at most 3 pieces of paper and to only take 12 minutes to create the collage. I started the challenge on May 24th and reached my goal of 100 days on September 5th. The hardest issue I had with the challenge was the time restraint. Even with choosing my paper in advance, I had a hard time completing a collage in 12 minutes. So I ignored the time limit but tried to keep it under 30 minutes. No waffling around on how it went together.

Today, I’m showing you some of my favorite collages. There were some that turned out good and others, not so good. But it was a great way to work on color studies, composition and to do something creative to start out my day. If you would like to see all 100 collages, you can check them out on my Instagram account here:

Ruth Lane Instagram

In case you’re wondering, I have a huge plastic tub filled with paper that has been gelli printed, screen printed, hand painted, printed with block prints and whatever other techniques I have done in the past. So I have a wonderful source of papers to use for collage. If you are thinking of trying this challenge, you can use whatever paper sources you have. Many artists use magazine photos, open source online photos, wrapping papers, or whatever they have on hand.

So here are a few of my favorites. You can click on the photos to enlarge if you’d like to see them closer. I had a great time searching through my papers and creating a different collage every day.

Have you tried this type of daily challenge? We’d love to see your results and hear about the challenge. Let me know if you’d like to write a post about a challenge you have participated in.

And speaking of challenges, our third quarter challenge using botanicals as a theme is over at the end of this month. I think a few of my collages meet the guidelines! If you have something botanical to share for the challenge, please submit your photo here.

Small Autumn Meadow Piece

Small Autumn Meadow Piece

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I have been thinking about creating a meadow themed landscape for a while so I decided to do a smaller piece (about 8″ x 10″) to try out some different ideas.

I found a nice background from my stash, that is nuno felted and has an upper plain felt portion. The only problem was it wasn’t 8″ wide. I want to be able to frame this piece with a standard frame so that it doesn’t have to have a custom frame. Looking through my boxes of felt pieces, I found the upper darker blue piece that would add enough to the total to get to 8″ in height. I think it is a screen printed piece but I really can’t remember. Some of the stuff in my stash is really old and needs to be used up.

Now to connect them together. The simplest plan was to needle felt them together. I made the light blue felt uneven by cutting it as I didn’t want to see a straight line working it’s way through. Then I needle felted the two together and this is the result.

Next, I looked through my many boxes of yarn bits. These are the ones that I decided to try. I want the scene to look like autumn grasses and seed heads. Some of the choices didn’t get used but now I needed to sample them and see how I wanted the stitching to look.

Luckily, I have more of the nuno background to use as a sample. This piece is about 3″ x 6″ as I only wanted to try out the different colors and practice a little free motion machine embroidery before I started on the main piece. I did put a thin interfacing on the back to stabilize the felt. I like most of these ideas for grasses and seed heads except for the one that looks almost white. I think I will skip using that one. The purple one on the far end is a small piece of purple felt that I stitched down with a lighter thread color. I’m only going to have a few flowers that are still blooming in this piece. The tentative name at this point is “Late Bloomers”. Hopefully, I will finish this before my next post.

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