The Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild has an annual Sale and Exhibition. Every year there is a theme for the Exhibition. This year and the next two years. we are doing a section of the colour wheel. This year we are doing the blue section. We are taking it to the secondary colour on each side to give people the most scope to work with.
Wendy, the Coordinator of the Exhibition, also asked people to let her know if the piece was done in a class or was a class we teach. So, I made a blue bird feeder. It is a fun class. It is always more fun if it doesn’t have to fit anyone at the end.
I like to do a gourd shape, and with the blue theme, I used 4 shades of blue.
Then I picked out some of my blue handspun that has some sparkle in it. I created an all over random design that wrapped around onto the other side.
Then fixed the front so I could cut the hole without cutting the design.
You can see some of the yarn above the hole shifted while I was rolling. Impatience getting the better of me again. I may try to shift them a little with a felting needle.
these to great outside. My mother-in-law’s feeder was hanging outside for 3 years before the rope hanger broke. It was purple with orange locks. After 3 years, it was bluish grey from the sun. The chickadees in particular liked it.
My art group had our annual art retreat at Kiwanis Lodge on Little Bitterroot Lake in Marion, MT. This year we had decided to experiment with cyanotypes. We had actually done a bit of this a few years ago but hadn’t experimented with all the “extra” chemicals that you can add to change the colors and the way the prints developed. Luckily, the weather had cooled down, we got a bit of rain at the start of the weekend and the smoke cleared. Perfect weather to stay at the lodge.
We set up the tables with all our equipment and supplies. We were printing on paper and fabric. Cotton paper and natural fiber fabric seemed to work the best. Everyone brought different botanicals, some dried and flattened and others fresh. The first night we mixed up the cyanotype chemicals and painted our paper and fabric. These were dried in a room that didn’t have outdoor light which ended up being the bathroom. Once dry, the papers were stacked and kept under black paper to prevent sun exposure.
I used some transparencies I had printed in hopes of creating more tree spirit faces. However, I forgot that I needed these to be like a photo negative. I didn’t reverse the black and white so I ended up with some pretty spooky faces which you will see later. We used both the dry and wet methods. The dry method means that the cyanotype painted paper is covered with either botanicals or a printed transparency, covered with glass, clipped on the edges and placed in the sun. The top left photo shows the dry method getting it’s sunshine.
The wet method adds water and other “chemicals” to the mix. The painted fabric or paper is laid down. Here, Paula used feathers and placed them over the cyanotype paper. She then spritzed with water, watered down vinegar and watered down baking soda. With the pipette, she added some yellow pigment to the mix. Then she covered with glass, clamped the glass in place and put it out in the sun. You could also add bubbles or coarse salt to the wet surface.
Once it’s “cooked” in the sun, the piece is rinsed in water or water and hydrogen peroxide and the result is the typical blue cyanotype.
Here’s a video of rinsing the paper and seeing the change to blue.
Then, if you want a bit different look, you can “bleach” the paper in soda ash water. The picture on the left shows the paper from the video as it is put into the bleach bath and the one on the right is after bleaching it for a minute or two.
Here’s one of my creepy faces. Unfortunately, after I rinsed this one, I decided to bleach it. The cyanotype disappeared all together. I’m not sure if it was the previously screen printed surface that caused that or the type of fabric. Experimentation often lends itself to failures but you always learn new things.
Here’s some pieces drying. Some of the ones that have lots of brown were either previously eco printed or rusted.
Once the pieces were dry, then they could be bleached or toned. For toning we soaked in baths of pigment, tea, or coffee. That can add some background color. After the weekend was over, I kept getting all kinds of videos about using different substances to rinse or tone. Apparently, you can use nettles, madder root, citric acid and who knows what else. I am sure there are more options available. If you’re interested, there are loads of videos on Instagram and YouTube on cyanotype printing.
Here’s one more creepy face for you. I have a few printed faces on paper and some on different types of fabric. I even printed on some lightweight, sheer silk so I will be trying a few cyanotypes with nuno felting.
The other interesting thing that happened was printing on these tea bags. The end result had a purple color that we couldn’t figure out where it came from. We used several different kinds of tea bag paper and this was the only brand that gave a purple print. I don’t remember the brand though so who knows if it’s repeatable.
I think it’s really interesting seeing these other colors develop with this type of printing. Cyanotype printing is so recognizable that I find it difficult to use in my work. I prefer methods that are more layered and difficult to recognize immediately.
We had a great time as usual and it’s so wonderful to spend uninteruppted time creating with friends.
Years ago, when the kids were small, I became a collector of recipe books. I didn’t particularly want to cook out of any of these, I simply loved reading the books and marvelling at the beauty of the process and the presentation of the meals.
More recently I have found that I have started collecting felting courses. I have been rather busy over the past few years – not sure where the time has gone – but last May, I decided that I had best do a stock take of the courses I have signed up for and not done. I discovered that I have at least 20 in my list. These courses either have indefinite access or I have been able to purchase and download the videos so there has never been an urgency in completing them. That said, I don’t want these to fall into the same category as the cookery books – lovely to look at but I wouldn’t like to do them.
Over the years, I have signed up for different Felting Camps offered by Corinna Nitschmann. Each year around April, Corinna invites a number of felting tutors to join her in her studio. The tutors record their respective workshops and then deliver the workshops on a specified date during the camp. Students can opt to work ‘live’ on the day, working with the pre-recorded videos with the tutor available to answer any questions they might have; they have access to these videos for a number of months, if they prefer to work at their own pace. Alternatively a student can pay a little extra and download the videos so that they are there indefinitely. This is the option I choose but I still enjoy being present during the live sessions as the sessions are always upbeat and great fun. Corinna herself is an amazing tutor and has a great sense of humour. There are lots of other activities taking place (besides the workshops) during the felting camp. Here is the link, if you would like to find out more about these https://cornitfelt.com/. I have 3 years of felting camp courses downloaded, that accounts for 15 courses. Then I purchased some courses that I found attractive from individual tutors and need to take. But for the summer months, I decided to focus on some of the felting camp courses. I thought I might share some of the results with you.
My first venture was called “Wet Felting Jewellery Basics” by Judit Haulik. It was part of the 2025 felting camp. This is a well paced course and the videos are divided nicely into sections so that it is possible to complete a task and walk away from it for a while. Students work with very small pieces of felt and Judit herself acknowledges that it can be a bit fiddly but, to be honest, I found that once I got into the groove, going small was not a challenge. I loved the repetitive nature of the design too and I can see possibilities for upsizing the process which Judit is teaching. My main learning on the course was how to integrate very fine chain into the overall design. I chose a very light chain for this process and I reckon that I will use a more robust one next time. That said I am very pleased that I rose to the challenge of the very fine chain as, after this, I feel the bigger size will be a dawdle. Here is the piece I made. I didn’t investigate further as I wanted to move on to another course. That said, I have ideas on where I can take my learning. I have done some quick sketches before they go out of my mind!
Full view of the necklace. Holes felted with sequinned material
Top section of the necklace with sequinned fabric in the centre
Base of the necklace with sequinned fabric showing in the hole
My next workshop came from the 2026 Felting Camp. It was one of the courses that originally attracted me to this year’s camp. The introduction to “Stool Covers” by Bea Nemeth was very joyous and depicted a variety of different shapes and sizes of stools which could be worked on. Bea also presented different possibilities for fibres which could be used in the design. We worked our design on prefelt and then if we wished we could adorn the stool cover with locks. Bea was fun and a little mischievous and at one stage headed to a dye pot with one of her samples. It was fun to see all this in real time at the session. As for the result ….. beautiful! I didn’t have a stool to work off so I headed out to our local Ikea. I made a variegated colour strong merino prefelt and I used my own geometric pattern for my design. I had some Bergschaf left over from making boots a number of years ago so I used this for the background. The resist was huge and I don’t know if you ever have that moment when you feel that a piece will never shrink down sufficiently (I had that on the stool) but it didn’t disappoint and, finally, with lots of patience, shaping and using tools it fit perfectly. I love the result and it acts as a reminder that patience works wonders when I am trying to fit to size.
full view of the stool – blue base is bergschaff
pattern on stool made with merino prefelt
Next up, it was a bit of a return to a comfort zone for me, fine art felt. I checked out Jorie Johnson’s ‘Fine Art “Small Works”’ Jorie studied textile design both in the USA,where she is originally from, and in Finland. She moved to Japan in 1987 and has been based there ever since. If you would like to find out more about Jorie you can visit her website at https://joirae.com/biography/. There was something very special about Jorie’s approach to the workshop – it kind of gave me permission to play with my design while being mindful of her teaching. While students had the freedom to use any style resist of their choosing, I decided to use the one Jorie presented, principally because it had some really challenging angles and shapes included. I also favoured roving over prefelt when I was laying out my background. I got a bit carried away with the design (Jorie recommended leaving more space between each element), but this was playtime and experimentation was the key for me here. Here is the result. Again, there was lots of learning on what can work and it is a great reference for future pieces.
sculpture with resist to show shrinkage (resist design by tutor)
front view of the sculpture
Nuno felted ‘window’
closeup of raised area and nuno felted pattern
closeup of textures and nuno
detail of some of the locks and textures
closeup of the linen section
Second side of the sculpture featuring a variety of textures
That’s all I have for now. I know there are 17 more courses to go, but at least I have made a start. If you like, I can keep you updated on my progress, but the danger is that I am likely to disappear down the odd rabbit hole (I can already see two opening up). Like Alice in Wonderland, there is a possibility that I might meet (or transform into) the Mad Hatter although I wouldn’t mind having some of White Rabbit’s energy (perhaps it would help me get through the classes quicker) because at the moment in this (what appears to be at time of writing) never ending heat wave, my character is more akin to the Dormouse, constantly ready to roll over for another sleep!
Is there anyone out there in the same boat with lots of outstanding courses? Please tell me so that I know I am not alone.
I had a wonderful sales month at the 4 Ravens Gallery in Missoula and sold four pieces in the space of 30 days! Yay, happy dance and then… I suddenly realized that the gallery only had 2 small pieces left. I needed more work and it’s summertime and I don’t want to miss the tourist season.
I found I had a multicolored piece of nuno felt big enough to split into two pieces. You can see the edge of the second piece on the right. My trees always seem to sell quickly so of course, more trees it is. I found a piece of handdyed fabric that I had used as “matte” fabric and it was perfect for making tree trunks. I worked out a configuration of trunks that I liked.
Then I hand stitched the trunks in place and tried out some cheesecloth as foliage. I had created a piece before with cheesecloth and tried that idea on the left. It looked too Dr. Seuss in these colors. So I chopped up smaller pieces and thought that would work better.
So I added more, spread the pieces out a bit and added some cheesecloth to the foreground for undergrowth.
Here it is before I stitched it all down. The cheesecloth moves around easily so it changes as I stitch but hopefully, that makes it more organic and less regular.
Here is the piece after all the stitching is complete. The funny thing I noticed is that there are several areas that look like shadows in the foreground from the tree trunks. They weren’t planned but I guess I must have noticed them subconsciously, as they seem to work perfectly. I’m calling this one Transitions.
I dyed a piece of muslin in dark burnt orange for the “matte” fabric, laced it to a backing and took it to the framers.
Here’s the piece framed. I have worked on two other pieces and traded around some pieces that I had at a gallery in Kalispell, so I will have 5 pieces to take to Missoula in a week or so.
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:
They were really a breeze to make, while I was stewarding for my last group exhibition.
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:
I loved the salmon colour and itched to use it.
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):
Here are my background rectangles cut from the original sheet.
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:
This is the most peaceful, maybe: just two little boats with shiny sails floating on a limitless sea..
This is the most disquieting of the four, but it just came out this way, and who knows, maybe someone out there would like a bird (pigeon? bird of prey?no idea) for their bookmark. My husband says that the bird shape is an alien life form under an alien sun: well, who knows, it could be.
This was meant to be an abstract landscape at night, so I stitched a moon in shiny DMC Diamant thread.
This is lonesome or purposeful and dreamy, depending on what you feel it represents.
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:
This one has more sky and less ground, and I placed a round piece of silk rods up there on the right to make the sun.
This one is slightly more square and has more ground/sea/whatever than sky. Or I can always turn it upside down.
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.
This is the background that I felted.
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.
Yes, I know, it is nothing like green grapes. And sorry about the background chaos of cushions.
Well, then I started making the shapes in core wool, thinking that I was going to cover them with dyed Merino afterwards.
Let’s start from the pepper, as I like the pepper.
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.
White pepper on background.
Pepper and the apple.
Pepper, apple and hint of second pepper in the background.
Making grapes while thinking “What a brilliant idea, so fast to make!” or something like, if you get my irony and already know the nice words.
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.
I admit that it is unusual, as still life, a bit ghostly maybe, but that was the point of still lifes, to play with the concept of life and death by hinting at them. It is better in person than in photos, though, as the sculptural quality of the piece does not show well on camera.
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 went for bright cheerful colours this time.
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.
My local group met recently and we tried a new painting technique for fabric. It’s very simple and creates an organic look to the fabric. I didn’t manage to take any photos during the process. We watered down instant coffee and acrylic paint, really watered down. A tiny bit of paint and lots of water. Then the fabric is scrunched up and dipped into the watered down paint. After the fabric is completely soaked with paint, scrunch the fabric up again and darker paint can be added in dabs to the outside edges and over the ball of scrunched up fabric if desired. Then let the fabric dry and iron it afterwards.
Here’s all the fabric I painted scrunched and drying in the sun. It took more than two days to dry. I used fabric that had already been dyed, many of which were really bright orange and I was finding difficult to use in projects. So a bit more neutralizing was needed.
This is a piece of cotton that was already dyed gray and then paint added on top.
Here’s another piece of cotton that was orange. I added diluted blue paint and then some darker paint after it was scrunched.
I think this piece was white to start and the paint made the pattern and color.
This was medical gauze that Paula gave us. I think it will work for nuno felting, so you will probably see it again in the future.
These two were previously dyed cheesecloth (again orange) and then diluted paint added over the top.
I’m fairly certain this is silk gauze with dye and paint added. Again, another candidate for nuno felting.
The fossil print on this piece of fabric was done years ago. I designed the silk screen and printed a variety of fossils. Now this trilobite has a bit moodier background. More layers?
This piece of silk gauze started white and then had diluted paint and coffee added. I will be interested to see if the coffee holds its color with felting. I thought this might be an interesting start to a landscape.
We’re supposed to be using these fabrics for our fabric book (our year long project) but I’m not making much progress in that direction. I have three pages complete but I’m not really happy with the result. One of those projects where I’m in the middle, discouraged and can’t imagine that it’s going to end well. Hopefully, I will be inspired by these new fabric choices to use.
As you probably know, I firmly fall in the camp of the recycling fans: I love a good chance to use bits of recycled fabric, yarn or fiber, found objects and so on, often to surprising effects. Mostly the surprise is a good one, eh. My drawers and charity shops (or thrift shops, if you want) bargain baskets are source of plenty of materials to use in a creative way, and there is a particular satisfaction in using pre-loved materials and giving them a whole new life.
Some time ago I have bought 3 skeins of multicoloured recycled banana chunky yarn from Oxfam charity shop thinking that I was going to felt it into something and give that something a bit of jazz, much in the same way that I use recycled sari silk fiber. My idea is to use it by teasing the fiber away, but future experiments could involve using the yarn as is, as embellishment and to try maybe a bit of creative weaving with it, who knows.
Here they are:
The Banana fiber yarns: they are colourful and shiny, they instantly grabbed my attention. They were a tad expensive, but I will have plenty of fiber to use, they will last me a long time.
I like the fact that they are not solid colours, as I can see them combine well with different palettes, without much thought about colourways on my part: when you are unsure about which colours to use together, a ready made mix of colours that you can already see is pleasant will hugely help you decide!
I have chosen to go for felting a loop scarf/cowl because it is a simple and fast type of project that I have already had success with. I have measurements that are fine for me, and I only had to find my rectangular resist that must be somewhere in there, maybe in the first drawer..or no, maybe in the second drawer..or no, maybe in the bubblewrap bag..or likely on the projects shelf..or..(do you think that I can blame the future guinea pigs or is it a bit too much?)
You know what, let’s forget the previous resist, I have my measurements in my project notebook (thanks God!) and I can just cut a new one from a piece of bubblewrap, of which I have an ever multiplying pile (they are possibly breeding in there, I started with just a couple pieces a few years ago, I do not know, they talk about rabbits but they are nothing to bubblewrap).
Here, so, my resist is a plain rectangle, 17 inches by 15 inches or 43 cm x 38 cm. The shrinkage was not supposed to be huge. I was aiming for a lightweight type of soft scarf with only 2 light layers of Merino wool.
My resist was in pale blue, so I guess you can see it, just barely.
I started by choosing my banana yarn, the reddish one that they have called Rainbow, then adding to it matching silk fabric from charity shop silk scarves, and I went on choosing the Merino wool colours to match and complement the other fibers. I toyed with the idea of a white background but I really did not have enough white Merino wool (I need to restock it), and I felt that a royal blue would make all the other colours pop out. So it was royal blue background, and coral, white and eggshell for the Merino wool accents.
Spotting similarities among different bunches of textiles is a lot of fun.
I was ready to start with a first layer of banana fiber: I teased it out by unraveling the yarn, and laying it in a clouds layout, trying to keep all the colours as mixed and varied as possible. I covered the whole resist, taking care of leaving maybe 1cm of free resist at the top and bottom (as the cowl needs a hole for my head!), and of going a bit out of the resist when covering left and right sides, to ensure that the design will run smoothly all around my cowl.
Pulling at the yarn to release the fiber.
The yarn was made of many small strands in different colours.
The effect is good and my first side is all covered.
When I was done with it on the first side, I decided for a thin layer of the royal blue Merino on top of the banana fiber before turning it to the other side, as I was afraid that the banana fiber would not stay put if I just wet it and turned the resist, as it was loosely laid out. That is not ideal, as I then had to carefully tease away the banana fiber from the Merino thin layer on the other side when I turned the resist, so by any means if you have a different design where you have a first uninterrupted layer, just wet it and turn the resist to the other side before adding a second layer. The right way to do it is to have the wet fabrics layer as first layer, I suppose, so that it is easier to turn: well, I just wanted to try out the banana fiber (shoulder shrugging), I have been waiting months to have the right chance, so that is what I used first! The felting police was nowhere in sight, so I guess I will get away with it, if there are no snitches here to make trouble.
I started from the edges all around, and then covered the whole resist with a first thin horizontal layer of Merino wool.
Starting from the edges with the Merino wool.
First layer of Merino almost done
I put on it a net curtain fabric, wet and lightly soaped it, then carefully lifted the net away and turned the whole to the other side.
Wetting the side after putting netting over it.
The view from the other side, after folding the banana fiber coming from the first side.
As I said, I had to separate the banana fiber from the Merino where I had to fold it on the resist at the sides. Then I covered the resist with a layer of banana fiber, making sure that some would go also on the bits from the first side left and right, so as to make it seem a smooth continuum. You can not really see the layer of fiber on this second side of the resist on my photo, but it is there!
Folding of the Merino wool over the left and side edges, over the first layer of banana fiber
Then, I folded over it the Merino sticking out from the left and right edges and went on covering the rest of the resist with a thin horizontal layer of Merino, exactly as I had done on the other side, but without doubling up on left and right edges, to avoid having two thicker areas at the sides.
After wetting and soaping it, I turned the whole again to the first side of the resist. I tidied up the upper and bottom edges with my fingers, pushing the wool fibers to form a neater edge. I do not care much about very straight edges, personally, but if you prefer them you can always cut your top and bottom edges with scissors and then seal them by rubbing them, towards the end of the felting process.
At this point I added a second thin Merino wool layer, vertical layer, and repeated the wetting and light soaping with a bit of pressure on the net to make the soaped water pass through the wool and fibers, but still no actual rubbing. I flipped it to the other side and laid out the second layer there, repeating all steps.
Two Merino wool layers done.
After flipping it again to the first side, I repeated the tidying of top and bottom edges.
Time for the silk scarves fabric and the embellishments! Firstly I added accents with coral, white and eggshell Merino Wool. Then, I cut out my 2 chosen fabrics in irregular pieces and placed them on the wool alternating the 2 designs. I made sure to overlap the side edges of the resist, so that the design could run in a smooth way all around the scarf. I usually take a photo of my design at this point, so that I can use it as reference for the other side and not go on completely differently once I turn to the second side (It happened, yes).
It looks like total chaos but it will turn out one single felt, I promise.
After turning my cowl again, folding the fabric and wool overlapping the left and right edges, and completing the second side as well by following the same steps as the first, it was time to go back to the first side, net it again and put a little bit more soap on it to start rubbing properly. The aim is to have the silk bits be grabbed into the wool fibers.
Wet and soaped.
I did that for both sides, and then something not related to felting happened and I had to stop everything. Nothing dramatic, I just had to go out in a bit of a rush, and one thing that I love about felting is that you CAN stop, put some bubblewrap on it and leave it there, and then come back to it after a few hours and all is fine. Not only fine, the soaped water has probably better seeped into the wool fibers, so it can go quicker after the pause.
When I got back home, I got out my sander, checked that all the prefelt was fully wet and soaped, covered it with bubble wrap and used the sander to make sure that all the fabric was securely rubbed in. One of the silks in particular was slower than the other in getting felted in, so I had to work on it a bit more.
After being sure that all the fabric was securely attached, I rolled the cowl, still with the resist inside it, for a few times in all directions. I did not insist too much on the rolling, though, as I like to manipulate my prefelt to take it to the felt stage and be able to keep a close eye on how much it is shrinking. Well, to be honest, I do not enjoy rolling as much as rubbing and kneading and throwing and so on, so I find a lot of excuses to cut the rolling short!
I did my rolling, and I have proof of it!
Thus, after a bit of perfunctory rolling so the rolling gods be appeased, I took the cowl from the resist and took care of the left and right edge by opening up my cowl, folding it in a different way so that the edges were now resting in the middle, putting a hand inside the cowl and rubbing the edges on the bubblewrap underneath. I will agree that this is a bit yuk! in colder months, as you have your arm inside a cold wet thing, but it is very quickly done if you have taken care not to overlap too much wool and fabric at the side edges. You may have to open up a little bit the wool (very gently) if you have pinched together a small amount of wool at those edges, but a bit of energetic rubbing will help smooth it all to nothing.
yuk! but needs doing.
This is fun!
After that, it was all swishing the cowl on the bubblewrap in different directions, gently kneading it and a bit of gentler throwing, keeping an eye on the forming of more and more wrinkles on the silk and on the shrinkage. I may have overdone it a bit, as the cowl ended up slightly tighter than what I wanted, but still a good comfy size when I tried it on after the drying.
I do not know if you can spot the light blue resist behind the wet scarf, it shows the shrinkage that I obtained.
I rinsed it with clean water, and put it to dry on a rack close to a radiator.
Here it is: I hope that you like the effect of the banana fiber as I do! it felted so easily that it was comparable to silk or other plant based fibers that I have tried (mint and rose), and I definitely liked to work with it as fiber, as it was easier than silk fiber to lay out, due to it being less fine and less prone to flying away at a wrong breath.
Side A
Side B
How it looks like when you put it on.
You can also wear it on your hair, very comfy, warm and soft, keeps your ears all warm if you like.
I also made a normal cobweb scarf with the smallest amount of yellow Merino wool and the pinkish banana yarn, just to try a very bright combination of colours:
Two bright colours for this cobweb scarf, daring a little bit more than my usual. It was fun to use this recycled banana fiber!
Now the only banana yarn that I have not used yet is the white one, so that will be the next one to try.
Do you also have an irresistible new upcycling material to try out?
I have been seeing some abstract watercolor landscape paintings on Instagram and thought I would like to try them. I don’t have a link for you as I seem to have kept scrolling without following or saving the video. If you look up painting watercolor landscapes with a palette knife on either YouTube or Instagram, you should be able to see some videos.
I already had some pieces of watercolor paper cut into small pieces, the largest being 4″ x 6″. These already had a light painting of blue to purple high flow acrylics on them but I decided that would work as the sky for the landscape. Some of the videos suggest that you use 3-4 colors of watercolor paint but I decided to keep it simple and only use two colors at a time.
I started with dry paper and the first two colors were Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. I used a small blob of Payne’s Gray straight from the tube onto the edge of a palette knife. I scraped the palette knife across the dry paper for the horizon line. Remember the rule of thirds and avoid putting the horizon right in the center of the paper. I always think of it as having more sky or less sky in the picture. The paint can be kind of messy as you apply it and doesn’t need to be a solid line. I then applied the Burnt Sienna in the same manner but limited it to 3-5 small areas.
Then I applied water on a large flat brush above the horizon line. If I got much paint on the brush, I rinsed it between strokes. The paint from the horizon line moves up into the water and spreads by itself. Limit your brush strokes so you don’t overwork it. I pulled the paint up with vertical strokes above the horizon and used quite a lot of water. On some of the paintings, I sprayed water on too. I also took some of the leftover paint on the palette knife (very minimal paint) to make a few tree trunks above the horizon line.
Below the horizon line, I used less water on the brush and barely touched the paint moving it more horizontally. Some of the paintings, I moved the paint a bit by dabbing the end of the brush into paint (already on the painting) and applying it into the wet areas.
The first four paintings were all done with Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. Try to vary the height of the trees and allow some of the trunks to lean one way or the other. The other thing that I tend to do is space my trees evenly across the landscape. That tends to look very artificial so make your spacing uneven. You can see that I experimented with the amount of paint used and the amount of working back into the wet areas.
Next up was to try two new colors. I chose colors from opposite sides of the color wheel so that there was contrast and when they mixed, it would give a neutralized (brown, gray) color. The painting on the right had a few black trunks added after the painting was dry with a black felt tip pen. I used Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Gold Deep in these two paintings. I love how the watercolor painting spreads on the wet paper and how you can add a bit more paint over the “distant” trees to give atmosperhic perspective.
Another change of colors to Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and Quinacridone Gold Deep. This produced a much more pine forest type of feel.
These were really quick and easy to paint and I love the results. If I tried to paint trees in detail, I would never get this result. Now that I have tried these on paper, I have been sampling ways to get this result on silk and nuno felt. I am trying different methods and have a bunch of samples to show you in my next post.
One of my goals for 2025 has been to finish pieces and have them ready for framing at the same time that the piece is complete. I seem to have missed this by a long shot with Golden Grove. I looked it up in my posts and I finished working on this piece in March. I didn’t have a piece of background fabric for matting so it got set aside. Now it’s December and I have things to take to the framer so I am doing last minute dyeing, stitching and lacing to get everything ready to frame. I thought I would show you a basic dyeing method for cotton fabric using fiber reactive dyes (Procion MX).
The first step is to mix up soda ash and water to soak the cotton fabric in advance of dyeing. I used one cup of soda ash to one gallon of water. I use the soda ash water for many dye baths and it keeps well at room temperature. I let the fabric soak in the soda ash water for 30 minutes.
I am not a precise dyer. I don’t take the time to try and create a specific, repeatable dye bath. I do have some work I have done for classes where I keep track of amounts, color results etc. but I tend to add some dye to a cup of water until I get the color I want. I put down a wet paper towel, put a cup of water out and then add however much dye powder seems right to me. (Please remember to use proper safety precautions such as wearing gloves and face mask and use containers, measuring devices etc. that are only used with dyes.) I mix the powder into the water and then test the results on a clean paper towel. I used two different colors of red and a black dye. And if you’re paying attention, you will see that one of my dyes is an acid dye. I have used a combination of both fiber reactive that is used for plant fibers and acid dyes which are used with protein fibers. In my experimentation, I haven’t seen much difference between the two dyes as long as you use an acid (vinegar or acetic acid) for protein fibers and soda ash for plant fibers.
Here’s my first attempt. It helps to remember that you lose some of the dye intensity when it’s rinsed. I put a little dye on a clean paper towel and then looked at it near my completed piece. This seems a little too light so I needed to add more black.
And looking again after I added more black. The test on the right side of the paper towel was the final color.
Next up was to wring out the cotton fabric that had been soaking in the soda ash water. Then I poured the dye liquid into another container and added the fabric. You can also do this in a gallon plastic bag. I wasn’t worried about getting a solid dye on the fabric. More dye would have been needed for that.
The next step is to let the fabric “batch” or sit in the dye bath. Normally, I leave it overnight but I didn’t have time for that here so I let it sit for 4-5 hours. I didn’t go back and move the fabric around which would have given a more solid dye but I wanted some variations so I left it. Then on to rinsing. I rinse three times in cold water to get the soda ash out. You can feel it when you’re rinsing, it feels slick. Once that slick feel is gone, it’s time for textile detergent and hot water. The textile detergent is just a few drops into the hot water and then add your fabric. I usually let that soak for a couple of hours and then put it in the drain and spin cycle of the washing machine.
Once it’s out of the washing machine, I iron it when it’s still wet and you can see I got a lot of variation. But I wanted that to look like sunlight through the trees and I was happy with the end result. Too bad most of it gets covered up.
And here’s Golden Grove stitched down to the dyed fabric and then laced on to matte board. It’s ready for framing (only 9 months behind schedule).
Have you tried dyeing? I really enjoy creating custom colors and getting a piece of fabric that is unique. If you haven’t tried it, you might want to give it a try.
I keep wanting to take this class with Jan, but it always seems to get scheduled when I have a class the next day or when I am at the Farmers Market. I finally got to sign up. My class was scheduled before Jan’s. Then I got the dates for the Christmas markets. The hat class was planned for the day after the last market. It would have to move. I would still be exhausted the day after the market. I don’t want to do that to the students or myself. So now I am taking Jan’s class on Saturday and teaching Felt hats on Sunday. I am sure it will be fine. I got all ready for my class early in the week, so all I have to do is load the car on Sunday morning.
To start, Jan emailed us some pictures so we could choose what we wanted to make. There was one I really liked, but thought it needed something else. So I had a chat with Jan about that. She does say you are the God of your picture. And she never does what everyone else is doing when she takes my classes. I went searching on the internet to see if I could find what I wanted to add. I did not have much luck. Google thinks it knows what I want to look at even when it doesn’t match what I put in the search. I found out later that I should try the in cogneto mode to get better results. Jan sent me a couple of pictures, and I found what I wanted.
I picked the one on the top right, but wanted to add a small shed. I know you were expecting one of the ones with sheep, weren’t you?
At the workshop, Jan had lots of her work to show us, to help us understand what we were doing.
Jan gave us lots of information about different ways to work. She explained all the needles she had given us to try out. You can see them stuck in the orange noodle. She included different versions of our pictures to help us pick out the wool we needed.
Then we had to pick our wool. She had a lot of wool. The bags covered 3 6-foot tables. There were also several books on the table for us to look at. I have no picture of the books. We were all wanting to get stabbing. I will ask Jan to look at the landscape book she has that I haven’t looked at before.
On to working. I chose to do a rough outline of where things were by holding the thin felt over the picture on a window. It was fun and absorbing, so I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have.
My friend Judy took this picture of me working.
This was my neighbour, she was working on a musk ox picture.
And here is a shot down the tables, of others busy stabbing away.
After adding the fog, I put in a little shack.
As we neared the end of the day, I went to add another layer of trees in front of the fog, but I couldn’t get them right at all. I think I was done with trees for the day. So I added the snow in the foreground. I may add the grass with stitching.
So now it is a few days later, and looking at the pictures, I can see the fog needs to fade out more. And maybe not cover all the trees. I will remove the tree trunks and fix the shack door. Taking a picture really shows you what you can’t see looking at it live. I am not sure where I will go with the trees. I think I swapped the picture I wanted with a darker one. I may bring the fog down and add a few trees in the mid-ground, maybe with some snow on them. We will see. I will take it to guild socials and continue.
Jan included a large instruction manual for us( 32 pages) in case we want to do another picture and forget everything we were told (completely possible, there was a lot to learn).
I think we all need to pester Jan to make this an online class or a book. She has so much of it already done.
