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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.
Mark Making on Felt – Online Class Registration Is Now Open

Mark Making on Felt – Online Class Registration Is Now Open

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Would you like to learn new methods of “mark making” on your felt? Are you looking for ways to create work that is uniquely your own? Are you wondering about surface design on felt? If you are looking for a new learning experience, please join me. Registration is now open for my online classes! The classes are listed below with a link to each class page.  You don’t need to be present at any certain time to participate in a class and you will receive PDF’s to keep with all the relevant information learned in the class.

Screen Printed Felt Journals by Ruth Lane

All four modules of my class, EMBELLISHING FELT WITH SURFACE DESIGN TECHNIQUES – A MIXED MEDIA APPROACH, will begin on July 19th  and end on August 30th. Registration is now open for these online classes. Click on the class link below to register for that particular class.

Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination

Experimental Screen Printing on Felt

Free Motion Machine Stitching on Felt

Printing, Stenciling, and Playing with Thickened Dye on Felt

Click on any of the links above to find out more about the class and to register and join in the fun.

Also, don’t forget about Teri’s concertina hat class or her felt bag class. Registration is open but closes soon on July 16th. So don’t miss out, click on the links above for more information and to register.

 

Our Wet Felting for Beginners class is always available. You can start any time and follow along at your own pace. Register here.

 

Blue green and blue violet leaf imprinted watercolor paper with needle lace glacier lily in yellow and light green.
Call for Entry – The Enticing World of Plants

Call for Entry – The Enticing World of Plants

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The Gail Harker Center for Creative Arts has announced a call for entry for an online auction to support the center. This is the center where I take classes and I highly recommend Gail’s classes. It’s located in La Conner, WA, USA. The fun thing about this auction is that it is online so anyone can participate. You can read more information about the call for entry and the auction here. 

I decided that I would do a combination of paper and stitch for my entries. The entries can be paper, or fabric, or felt or stitching but need to be 5″ x 7″. The theme is “The Enticing World of Plants”.

Light value of blue green and blue violet on watercolor paper.

I already had a large piece of watercolor paper that was painted with a very light value of blue green and blue violet. I thought this would be great for my backgrounds. I had been thinking about trying some leaf printing and thought that would work with the theme.

Blue green and blue violet paint with leaves in place to print watercolor paper.

So I went outside and found some leaves first. This works best with thinner leaves that will stick down to wet paper. Heavy, waxy leaves do not work as well. I got my watercolor paper wet and laid the leaves out. Then I mixed up some stronger paint in the blue green and blue violets and dropped the paint around the leaves. This can be done with watercolor paint (needs to be watery) but I used high flow acrylics for mine. Then the hard part, letting it dry. Once dry, I removed the leaves and cut the paper up into 5″x 7″ sections. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo before I cut it up.

Blue green and blue violet watercolor paper with leaf imprints and design of pomegranate transferred on to the paper with pencil. Holes punched in paper in preparation for stitching.

The next step was to find some plant related designs. I have a stash of designs on tracing paper that I have used in Gail’s classes for years. I don’t throw them away since I can always use them for a project such as this. I transferred the pomegranate design on to the paper with pencil and punched holes about 1/8″ apart for my stitching. I don’t measure the distance between holes but just punch them with an awl or a needle by eye.

Blue green and blue violet leaf imprinted watercolor paper with needle lace water lily in white.

Next up is the stitching. I used hand dyed perle cotton and a tapestry needle to work through the paper. The outlines are done with back stitch and the insides are filled with needle lace. I usually use single Brussels stitch for this as it goes quickly and is easy to fill the small shapes. This design is a water lily stencil that I cut ages ago.

Blue green and blue violet leaf imprinted watercolor paper with needle lace maple leaves in red orange.

This one I followed the shape of the leaf prints for the maple leaf design.

Blue green and blue violet leaf imprinted watercolor paper with needle lace glacier lily in yellow and light green.

This is a design of a glacier lily that I created in Level 3 Art & Design.  If you’re interested in submitting a piece, please read all about it here.

There is also a free open house coming up with stitch demonstrations and plant related artwork by Gail’s students. If you’re in the La Conner, WA area, I hope you can stop by.

 

Artwork Taken to 4 Ravens Gallery and a Start to a New Piece

Artwork Taken to 4 Ravens Gallery and a Start to a New Piece

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Lots of people have asked to see my artwork again after it’s framed. I got three pieces back from the framers and took my work down to 4 Ravens Gallery  in Missoula, Montana yesterday.

Framed textile artwork depicting a landscape with sunlight streaming between two tree trunks on to foreground of rocks and flowers.

Sunlit Dance 14″ x 16″

Textile artwork felted landscape depicting an autumn tree.

Autumn Symphony 14″ x 16″

Textile artwork depicting a felted tree trunk with a branch, leaves and lichen.

Hanging On 14″ x 28″

If you are interested in any of these pieces, please contact 4 Ravens Gallery directly.

Now on to the next piece! I found another piece of hand dyed silk in my stash and it’s ready for nuno felting.

Green hand dyed silk with orange highlights.

Here’s the piece of silk. I have decided to try another floral based piece. I haven’t created one of those for a while, so ‘gasp’, no trees. The bits of orange remind me of Indian Paintbrush so I think I will see what I can come up with based on those as the main wild flower.

I went searching through the wool that my friend Paula gave me and found this lovely white merino that seems to be about 18-21  micron. I have run out of prefelt but this will work great for nuno felting.

Nuno felted green silk with highlights of orange.

Here is the piece after I have felted it. Now on to designing the flowers and background.

 

 

 

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched on to hand dyed green background fabric and laced on to matte board.
Felt Tree Trunk Piece Completed

Felt Tree Trunk Piece Completed

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After by last post about creating a tree trunk, I was working on making the leaves a bit more pink. I think it’s a little hard to tell from these photos, but I added pink with colored pencil.

The photo on the left shows the leaves before adding color. The photo on the right is after I colored them with a pink colored pencil. It is much more evident in person that the color is different.

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched in place.

Then I needed to add the branch and leaves. I hand stitched them in place and the leaves are not directly tacked down to the bark. They are attached to their respective branches so they can be moved to different positions or even flutter a bit in the breeze.

Next was to stitch the lichen in place. Again, it is hand stitched down. I orginally had a lot more lichen on the bark but decided I didn’t want to overwhelm the beautiful colors that were already in the bark.

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched on to hand dyed green background fabric and laced on to matte board.

Then to decide how to finish and frame. I hand dyed the background fabric and hand stitched the bark in place. Then I laced the green fabric around a piece of matte board so it’s ready to frame. This piece is 14″ x 28″. I have decided to call it “Hanging On”. Next up is to take my recent pieces to the framers and get them all framed. I will share the framed pieces once they’re finished.

Five leaves made from painted tea bags and free motion machine stitching that have been burnt with a soldering iron.
Creating a Branch, Leaves and Lichen for a Felt Tree Trunk

Creating a Branch, Leaves and Lichen for a Felt Tree Trunk

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In my last post, I showed you the beginnings of a tree trunk that I have been creating. Next up was to make a branch, leaves and lichen for the trunk.

Felted fringe cut from a scarf above felt tree branch made from similar fringe.

The branch was made from the fringe that I cut off when I felted the tree trunk. There is extra fringe at the top of the photo above and the branch that I created from a similar piece of scarf below. I did a bit of twisting, tacking it down with a felting needle and then wet felted the branch.

Interfacing and nylon organza painted purple.

I painted some lightweight interfacing and some nylon organza to make the lichen. It was fun to make lichen in purple!

Here’s the set up that I use for burning synthetic fabric. It gives off bad odors so I put a piece of glass on my stovetop, turn on the fan in the vent hood and burn with a soldering iron first. Once I get the shapes, then I use a heat gun to further shrink and change the shape of the fabric. It shrinks the fabric down, so you need to burn out more pieces than you think you need. (Make sure to be very careful with the soldering iron and keep it away from your fingertips. You also might want to wear a mask.)

Here’s the burnt interfacing on the left and the result after heating with the heat gun on the right. I usually tear these pieces up into smaller sections as that looks more like the way lichen grows on tree trunks. Do you like the little dog at the bottom? Totally unplanned.

Here’s the nylon organza. I do both the interfacing and the organza because they each give a different texture. That way when mixed together, it looks more like real lichen.

Next up was to create the leaves. I used tea bag papers that I painted. I wanted a soft peach-pink color but ended up with more of an orange color. Oh well, I kept going. The top right shows the tea bag papers layered with two papers and then free motion machine stitched to make veins. Then I cut out the leaves to the correct shape and then used a soldering iron to burn bits away and make little holes. Now they look like fall leaves.

But I was still unhappy with the color. I definitely wanted them less orange and more pink. So I took some leftover tea bag paper and tried several different media to see what I liked best. I ended up using the pink colored pencil. Now to stitch it all together and see if it needs anything else, but you will have to wait until June for that post.

 

Striped felt background with tryout of branch, leaf and lichen.
Creating Felt Artwork from my Fiber Stash

Creating Felt Artwork from my Fiber Stash

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On to a new piece and the thoughts of what should I create? I like to look through my stash and see what I have to use up. I was gifted with a large amount of wool and other finished fiber pieces when my friend Paula stopped felting. What can I find for my next piece?

Dyed silk and striped cobweb scarf

I looked through my bag of dyed silk pieces and also a bag of felted pieces that need to be re-used or cut up or whatever else comes to mind. So I found these two pieces. The stripey piece is a cobweb scarf with a fringe of felted cords. The silk is a piece that I dyed many moons ago.

One layer of striped scarf showing minimal felting and holes.

As you can see in this photo, the scarf was very lightly felted and had lots of holes in it. I thought that the scarf was more like prefelt than completely fulled. So I decided to cut it into three pieces and layer them together so the felt would be more solid. I left the fringe off and thought I could use it later. I then added the piece of silk to one side as I thought the combination of the two would give an interesting surface to work on.

Nunofelted wool and silk (whites, browns and yellows) with silk side on top.

So I felted them together and the silk was barely attached after much work. Hmm… Plus you can’t see the stripes from the wool through the silk since it didn’t penetrate very well.  What to do?

Felted three layers of striped scarf.

I turned the piece over and liked the back side much better. It looks like a tree trunk to me! I pulled the silk off the back which came right off and decided to work on the plain felt instead. I’m sure I will be able to use the silk piece for something else in the future.

Multicolored striped felt with fiber branch and tea bag leaves placed on top.

So thinking tree trunk, I thought perhaps the cut off fringe could be made into a branch. I have rolled the fringe and edge up a bit and I’m trying it out on the tree trunk. The branch of leaves to the left is one that I made last year with wrapping yarn around wire and stitching and burning tea bag leaves.

Striped felt background with tryout of branch, leaf and lichen.

I had a few bits of “lichen” that I made from painted interfacing so I added those into the tryout. So now I have a direction to go with this piece. Next up will be painting the tea bag paper and interfacing so I can make more leaves and lichen. I think I will jazz up the color a little bit since the tree trunk is so colorful. I’ll let you know how that goes in my next post.

 

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.
Red Tree Landscape Completed

Red Tree Landscape Completed

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Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.

When I last posted about my red tree landscape, this is what it looked like. On to adding machine stitching. My goal was not to add “too much” stitching, just a few branches,  darker shadows and some highlights.

Wet felted landscape, tree branches added with machine stitching.

First up was adding a few more branches to the tree. I was happy with that, so on I went.

Wet felted landscape, dark brown added into shadows with machine stitching.

Since I had the dark brown thread already in the machine, I decided to add some into the bushes and greenery to make some branches and shadows. Here is where I started going wrong. I need to remember next time, not to make a “solid” line fully across the piece. I needed to leave more gaps in between the dark brown areas.

Wet felted landscape, more dark brown added with machine stitching.

Then I added even more brown stitching into the green bushes on the right. This was definitely overkill and I wasn’t really happy with the result. But I kept going.

Wet felted landscape, grey green added into foreground with machine stitching.

I decided to add some grey green into the foreground so I would have some line added but not as dark as the brown. Again, I should allow some spaces in between instead of one complete line. It’s not a straight line but it does need some breaks.

Wet felted landscape, light green added into foreground with machine stitching.

Next I decided to add light green into the foreground lighter bushes. I did a better job breaking these up a little bit instead of going all the way across the bush.

Wet felted landscape in closer view showing machine stitching.

Here’s a close up and you can see the areas that I was not happy with, the dark brown over the light green bush and some of the dark brown under the red bushes. So I started unpicking stitches. This was painful since I had stitched pretty densely in areas and back over some areas. This was the reason for less stitching, I did okay, but still could have done better with less stitching.

Wet felted landscape with machine stitching completed.

Here it is with the stitching and unstitching complete. I considered taking out some of the dark brown on the right side by the further green bushes but decided to just leave it. Hopefully, it just gives it a bit more distance. The lesson for this one was that even less than I think, is enough stitching!

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.

Here’s the piece after stitching it down to brown “matting” fabric. I still need to lace it over matt board but it’s pinned and ready to be laced. Then it will go in the pile of pieces that need to go to the framer.

I haven’t come up with a satisfactory name for this one yet. Do you have any ideas?

 

Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.
Wool Landscape with a Red Tree

Wool Landscape with a Red Tree

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After finishing my embroidered tree, I needed a new idea for my next gallery piece. I took a look through my pile of sketchbooks and found a few options that might work for a wool “painting”.

Watercolor painting of tree with red leaves on a hill.

I decided to use this watercolor painting for inspiration. Now to find the right colors to create this idea in wool.

Work table with variety of wool colors and hand carders ready to mix wool colors.

 

Here’s my work table with my wool choices ready to mix. I used the hand carders to mix up some “variegated” colors. I find that using a dyed wool that is solid really doesn’t look much like nature, especially the greens. The solid colors look really flat. Most of the wool I am using here is short fiber merino and it mixes very easily. I don’t card it completely so I have a mix of two to three colors in each little batt.

Piles of arded wool after color mixing.

Here’s the colors I mixed up. I was thinking of using some orange locks on the tree but ended up not using them. The brown is pre yarn that I will use for the tree trunk. The plan is to do the majority of the scene with the wool and then add a few free motion machine stitched details.

Colored wool laid out in landscape with red leafed tree.

Here’s the scene after laying out the wool. I can see why some people like to just cover this with glass and be done. It has such a wonderful texture and looks like real foliage.

Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.

 

Here is the piece after wet felting. The felting definitely flattens the scene. Now to decide where to add the stitch details. And not to over-do it. I always feel like I do a bit too much stitching on pieces. I’m planning on just adding some branches to the tree and a few light and dark highlights. But that’s for my next post.

Blue green nuno felted background with hand stitched tree and leaves.
Embroidered Tree Completed

Embroidered Tree Completed

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Although a number of people didn’t think I needed any leaves on my embroidered tree, I decided to go ahead with the leaves.

Blue green nuno felted background with stitched tree and half of the leaves stitched.

I used a lighter value yellow green to contrast a bit with the blue green background. The thread is a #8 hand dyed perle cotton. I’m not sure that you can see the variations in the thread color as it is subtle but it’s not a solid color. I used a solid fishbone stitch to create the leaves. I decided not to mark the leaf shape on the background fabric, thus there are some that are a bit wonky, but that doesn’t bother me.

Blue green nuno felted background with close up of stitched tree and leaves.

Here’s a closer look at the stitching.

Blue green nuno felted background with hand stitched tree and leaves.

And here’s the piece after the stitching is finished. If you can see, the width of the fabric shrunk a bit with the stitching. The piece of fabric was barely wide enough to make a cover for my tablet to begin with and now I decided it wasn’t going to work to make a cover. So my first quarter challenge effort was a bit of a fail.

Blue green nuno felted background with stitched tree in black frame.

But never fear, the piece fit into a frame that I already had so it was a good use of stuff lying around the studio. I realize that I could have made a cover for the tablet and added the tree to the front but I wasn’t sure I would use the cover and the framed piece can always go to one of the galleries.

Registration Opens for Hanging Felted Spiral Online Class

Registration Opens for Hanging Felted Spiral Online Class

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Helene is teaching another session of her Hanging Felted Spiral online class and you can register now.

This is a four week online course and you don’t have to be present at any certain time. You will have access to videos and Helene’s support throughout the four weeks and will be able to download the PDF’s for future reference.

 

Have you wanted to learn more about sculptural felt? This is a great way to learn about how to layout fiber for more elasticity, how to use a book resist with multiple “leaves” and Helene’s ideas on how to further these ideas into future projects.

Here are a few of Helene’s students own spirals. Aren’t they fantastic out in nature?

Jump into spring and learn to make a spiral with Helene. Online class starts on April 12th. Learn more about the class and register here.