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Author: Shepherdessann

Felted Flower Workshop

Felted Flower Workshop

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You may remember I did a post about dyeing silk hankies for a workshop at Pinhey’s Point.  https://wp.me/p1WEqk-j91  Sunday was the class.

I was set up in what was originally the dining room of the house. It was a bit tight with 10 people around 2 tables,

But everyone did fine. Everyone kept thier elbows down and we had a great time.

First, we did a petunia/morning glory. More in general shape than reality.  This is a nice, simple flower for people who have never felted anything before. Not a great picture, but it was the only one I could find that I had uploaded before. I used to be terrible at naming my pictures. I am much better now. Makes it much easier to find what you’re looking for.

Once everyone had their flower done, we had a break. The museum provided a great snack table for our break. We all felt very spoiled.

Then we moved on to the silk hanky flower.  I explained about what they were and how they were made, and everyone had to pick a colour. It was so hard to choose.

They learned how to make the stems and the stamens for a more complete flower. Here they are doing the dry rolling to compact it before wetting.

Then it got busy, and I was running around the tables helping people. It is always tricky getting the stem and stamen centred on opposite sides. But everyone managed.  The biggest problem was with stems not sticking. We had 3 with stems totally detached and one partial detachment. I think it was a combination of felting the base of the stem too hard at first and pulling it away when moving the stem to a different position to rub the flower. All but one had felting needles at home with instructions on reattaching the stem after it’s dry. I gave a needle to the last person and explained how to use it to fix the small area that was not attached properly.

No more pictures until the end. All in all, a great day. Everyone seemed happy, and there are definitely some new addicts in the making.

 

I have no idea what the white spot is. It is on the original in my phone.

Ann

 

 

 

This and That.

This and That.

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It is almost Fall. You can feel it in the air, and a few trees are starting to change. Usually, we like to hang on to summer as long as possible, but I am happy the dry, searing heat of this summer is finally gone. Yes, I am touching some wood as I say that.  It’s been a busy 2 weeks with school starting and the market picking up. Suddenly, we were out of meat pies, and I had to get baking. That doesn’t leave much time to felt. I did manage to get to the Almont Fibre Festival to help with the demonstration.

I put all my sheep key chains together

I am wondering about putting some wax or something on their ears to make them a little flatter and protect them. My thread wax is too hard. I wondered about some of the solid lip balms. It’s mostly wax. I think that might be too soft. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to use glue because it will make them too hard, or the PVA (school) glue can take up water and get tacky. Any suggestions?

I am packaging them so they stay neat. I had to get bigger bags for them. The ones that came with the card were not big enough. I have a shrink wrap machine that has a hot wire cutter, so I will cut the bags down so they fit properly.

 

While searching for some lost samples, the book resist thing I did about 10 years ago surfaced. The idea I had was to weave the ropes into a basket. But not thinking it through, I made 6 lobes and strings. You need an uneven number for the weaving to work. I took it to a social, thinking I had a good idea of a way to weave it. It didn’t work. Partly, it was not cooperative and partly (mostly?) I was impatient. Anyway, everybody had fun looking at it and playing with it. The general consensus was that it wants to be a jellyfish. So, I need to create some long, wavy, ribbony pieces, and possibly some long curls for the middle to hang down inside the long tentacles. I wonder if it will take me another 10 years. LOL

 

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Sven Came Home

Sven Came Home

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We got the call the other day that our new (baby) ram is ready to come home. We decided to call him Sven. He has grown since April. He now weighs 70 pounds(32 kg).

Here he is with his fellow lambs. He is the one in the back with the white on top of his head. He knows something is up.

HI is still a baby, so he was easily rounded up and carried to the dog crate in the back of the van. He was not impressed with his travel accommodation.

Here he is looking back as we drove away. It made me feel sad.

But that didn’t last long, and he was looking out the front window. He didn’t complain much at all.

And now he is in his new temporary home. He will stay here for a few weeks to settle in, and then we will put him next to the Storm, our current ram, and the ladies to get acquainted.

Here he is listening to Storm and the ladies yell greetings from the other side of the barn. This was a couple of weeks ago. He is settling in nicely and no longer thinks my son is going to kill him when he brings him his grain. He will even let him pat him if there is grain on the offering.

Lastly, a couple of close-ups of his wool. I hope to make something nice out of it next year. The sun shot shows you the lovely colour.

Silk Hanky Dyeing

Silk Hanky Dyeing

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I have a Flower Workshop coming up in September at a local museum. Just outside Ottawa, at Pinheys Point. If you’re interested, sign up here.

One of the flowers we make uses a silk hanky. I was running low on most of my colours, so it was time for a dye day.

New undyed silk hankies are hard to get wet. There is still a lot of sericin in the hankies. Particularly in the thicker edges. For those who don’t know, silk hankies are usually made from the cocoons of silk moths that hatch. The cocoons are stretched out into rectangles or caps. The cocoons are held together with sericin, it is like a glue that doesn’t easily dissolve in water.

In order to get them properly wet, I use a little soap in the water and let them soak overnight.

 

 

Here is what I had in my box of hankies

I had quite a few of the pink and grey. It’s not a popular pick for anyone in classes. I don’t know why I think it’s really pretty.  There is quite a bit of magenta the purple, and pink. I will over-dye some of those.

For silk dying, you can use either acid dye, like you use for wool or other animal fibres, or MX dye (fibre reactive dye), like you use for cotton or other plant fibres. I use a variation of low water immersion dying with MX dyes.  The site I like for dye information is Paula Burches’ All about Hand Dying

Then I added colour to the new ones.

This one, I added the kelly green first in a few spots, and then a mix of the amethyst and navy to get a blue-purple.

This one folded the hanky by pinching the middle and folding the edges down. I added the yellow where the point is.  and a little at the bottom. I mixed some red to the peach to get a more burnt orange colour and poured it over the rest. I elevated the pointy end a bit so the red-orange wouldn’t flow over it.

For this one again, an orangy red and ice blue.

And lastly, seafoam and plum blossom. I don’t use seafoam often; I always think it will be an icky pale green colour, but as you see, it is not. I need to find my dye chart and hang it up somewhere. I almost forgot to take a picture of this one.

 

I didn’t take pictures of rinsing.  So you don’t get to see where I forgot to put my gloves on and turned my hands blue. The one thing to note with MX dye is that the colours do not exhaust.

Then it was onto the drying racks.

Have you been dying lately?

 

 

A Sample for my Seat Cushion

A Sample for my Seat Cushion

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I decided to make a sample before plunging into making a seat cushion. I decided this for 2 reasons. First, I am not sure where most of the batts are hiding, so I only had a small batt handy. Second, I needed to do some quick felting for the blog today. The sample fit the bill perfectly.

This is a Swiss Mountain batt. I got it off Etsy a few years ago.

I decided 10 inches by 10 inches is a good size for a sample and makes shrinkage easy to calculate. Please excuse my dirty-looking table; it’s some sort of glue that won’t come off.

The edges a thin, so I folded them down to make it square.

I added a layer going up and down.

Once it was wet down, I folded the thin edge top and bottom to square it to 10 inches. That would have been enough to make a sample, but it would also be very boring.

I got out some balls of my handspun and made a spiral. Who doesn’t like a spiral?

I spent longer than normal rubbing so the yarn would stick without moving too much. My impatience usually results in wobbly lines.

Then, of course, lots of rolling to full it properly.

The finished sample ended up just about  7 by 7 inches

It ended up fairly sturdy. The spiral ended up holding its shape very well. However, it is quite hairy and I think it would be a bit prickly to sit on with thin pants or a dress. Once it is dry, I will try shaving it, but I don’t think it will work. There will still be short, strong fibres on the surface. I may have to try some Blue-faced Leicester or maybe some Corriedale. What’s your favourite strong wool for sturdy applications?

I Need a Seat Cushion.

I Need a Seat Cushion.

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Last time, at the end of my post, I said my next project needs to be a seat cushion. I have a plastic roller chair for my studio. It is pretty comfortable as these chairs go. However, after spending a long time in it, taking pictures for the book resist workshop, I decided it needs some padding.

I thought about just felting a thick piece of felt, but I don’t think it is that easy to get really thick felt.   But what about 2 flat pieces? Then sew it together with some wool stuffed between. That would mean I have to find the one bobbin I have for my sewing machine ( after uncovering the machine). Then I thought, just do it over a resist. Then it’s twice as thick, and I can still stuff it with some wool. I would need to wash some wool for stuffing, but I could do that.

I think the resist is the best one. Have you made felt seat pads or cushions?

I can calculate shrinkage easily enough. I know it means I have to make a sample. I am always advising others to make samples; I guess I should listen to myself and not skip it.  I have some Swiss Mountain Sheep batts that should work well for a cushion.

I need to design a picture or motif for the top of the cushion, or maybe both sides. I don’t want a boring cushion. I am thinking that on one side, I could use the wet wool outline technique I learned from Ildie here on the blog/ I could probably do my farm logo. Here is one of Ildie’s posts https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/08/22/modern-art-wallhanging/. I did a mirror cover for my car in this style.

After shaving

My logo and farm name are not that exciting, so I will need to do something more interesting on the other side.

Maybe a mountain scene on the other side? But in real or bold colours, subtle or bold lines. I can’t make up my mind.

Maybe a bigger version of this Monet-inspired fish pond I did.

I have been working on the online Book Resist workshop. I have all the pictures taken and edited. I added them to the instructions, and now I need to fiddle with the layout.  I do have someone taking a look at it to find the glaring mistakes. After a while, it sort of all blurs together. In-person workshops are so much easier. I had planned the workshop as a 3-part workshop. Each part is self-contained, so I will do the first part as a workshop this fall and get the other two parts done for the spring, and then expand it.

finished my fairy tail spinning….almost

finished my fairy tail spinning….almost

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A short spinning post today. We have a social on Mondays at our guild. When I am there, I help Jan with the Library. We are going through our archive book boxes and deciding what to keep and what to sell. A big Job. Once that is done, I spin on my spindle. I am not a production spinner. I like to slowly spin small quantities of fibre; I just enjoy spinning and chatting.

I got a sample bag of fibre from World of Wool. It was called Fairytail, 67% merino; 33% stellina. It is a lovely fibre with sparkle. I know it is almost as bad as glitter for getting everywhere, but I can’t resist sparkle. Sadly, they have discontinued this group or fibre. The Stlina is much more expensive than angelina or trilobal nylon, so I imagine it was not as popular. However, it is soft and spins wonderfully.

There were 8 colours. The yellow disappeared, but I did get a picture of it spun.

The teal red is still a single and I will probably ply it on Monday. The last one is the problem child. I did try to spin this, but it just ends up dull and muddy. There are just too many opposing colours in it. The stripes are too small to let you separate them out, so it will have to be used for something else.

I have managed to do some more work on my workshop. I have discovered a mistake in my instructions. It makes me grateful for my computer and word processing. I can easily go through the document and change it. I am old enough to remember retyping things because of a small mistake.  And not being able to use white-out because it would look bad.

Felted Cat Cave, a quick how to -revisited.

Felted Cat Cave, a quick how to -revisited.

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I am supposed to have the summer off. So far, I don’t seem to have stopped running. So I have nothing new to tell you about. So I am going to share this with you again. I hope you enjoy it again if you have already seen it.  I am at a Demo today. I plan to take lots of pictures and blog about it on July 23. It sounds so far away, but I am sure it will be here the day after tomorrow.

I have been wanting to make a cat cave for some time now. I decided it needed to be bright. I picked some Blue Faced Leicester wool so it would be strong and dyed it chartreuse. Then I picked some purple and magenta for the spikes.

Spikes and Wool

I wanted an oval cat cave. I used my oval hat form to get the shape and gradually sized it up.

Drawing the Resist

I laid out 4 layers of wool for strength and even shrinkage. I put the first side aside, and after laying out the second side, I poked holes to put the spikes through.

Spikes in the Wool

After wetting it all down, I wrapped each spike in plastic wrap so it would not get felted down flat.

Spikes all Wrapped Up

I covered it with a sheer curtain and rubbed both sides for a while and rolled it for a while, and then wrapped it up, put it in the dryer twice, changing the position of the felt each time.  It was starting to shrink, so I cut out the resist and switched to rolling it in a stick blind. I find the stick blinds to be very aggressive and shrinks the felt quickly.  I did do some throwing, too. Finally, I rinsed the cave out in a bucket of alternately hot and cold water, being quite aggressive with it. I then had to stretch the top so it would be domed. I steamed it to heat it and make it easier to stretch. Mostly, I used a wooden spoon to push in a sliding motion to get the shape. Here it is on top of the resist, so you can see how much it shrank.

Finished Cave on top of the Resist

Here it is in use; it didn’t take long for one of my cats, Wu, to take up residence.

 

Cat in Cave

As a footnote, Wu (the queen of all things) is no longer with us. This is one of my favourite pictures of her. She really liked the cave; we buried her in it, here on the farm.

A Little Light-up Lantern

A Little Light-up Lantern

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A while ago, I picked up a few little hanging displays.

I thought a little light-up sphere would be a fun thing to put in one.

I have a really small Tupperware lid that I used to draw around for a circle. It’s about 2 inches(25 mm) across.  Then I enlarged it. I drew the size of the fake candle in the middle just to see the size relationship.

I used some wool I had with sparkle in it. It is called Moss from World of Wools’ Glitzy collection. I did one thin layer as I want he light to show through. I am surprised at how well the sparkle shows in the picture.

Once it started to shrink, I popped the resist out. You can see it hasn’t shrunk much yet. I cut a fairly large hole as I want to put the fake candle inside.

I just kept going until I was at this size

It fits the holder just fine. It is still wet here. I had to take it home and stuff it so it could dry in the right shape. And now I’ve come to writing about it, I can’t find what I did with it.  I will search for it some more and hopefully find it for some pictures with the light inside before I have to publish this in a few days

Mostly just a question.

Mostly just a question.

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School is almost finished, this is the last week. I hope that school ending will let me get back to my felting life. I have managed to finish the first part of my planned book resistance workshop, but haven’t had time for much else.  I want to get your opinions on the best background to take the pictures for the next part of the workshop. I can’t use my tabletop as it is much to reflective.

 

I will be using pink wool for the workshop. Please ignore the fold lines, I will wash and iron the cloth before using it for taking pictures. Here are the choices

Grey

Blue stripes

multi coloured stripes

and Poka dots

 

I am leaning towards the grey. The white resist shows up well, and the pink does too. I kinda like the blue stripes (they look grey on my screen)as it gives me something to line up with.

 

I will need to add something to the background to let me know I am in the frame properly. I think just some painter’s tape will do it. This is the view from the tripod, right now.

 

Jan bought me this doohickey to extend my camera further away from the tripod. It works with the ring light, but the ring light is too tall.  The screw on the tripod is to short to add the ring light I have. I will have to find out the name of this thing and see if I can find one with a hole at one end and a screw at the other. It adds about 2.5 inches of reach for the phone/camera.

Back to the original question, which background do you like best?