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 ASide BHow 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.
Our local group meeting in November was all about painting fabric. We are still working on background fabrics that will be included in our fabric books. We used a variety of “fabric” paints that are heat set.
Louise had cut up a bunch of different types of fabric to paint on and had a wide arrary of paints.
The idea was to spray water on to the fabric, then add paint and then you could if you wanted, add another piece of fabric on top to pick up extra paint. The photos above show a piece of sheer fabric that was painted, then a piece of cotton velveteen was added on top. The final photo on the right shows the velveteen after all the paint colors were added. This is Sally’s fabric.
Paula was working in shades of brown. These fabrics are all still wet, so it will be interesting to see what they look like dry.
I was working in fall colors. When you see the black printing, those are fabrics that we screen printed years ago that Louise still had in her stash.
These are a few of Louise’s painted pieces.
And one more photo of one of Sally’s painted fabrics. We left the fabric at Louise’s house to dry and then everything will need to be ironed. Next month, we have plans to do some fabric weaving for a book page.
I am happy to report that our floor is finished and we finally have all of our furniture back. I am still unpacking and rearranging but we are definitely near the end of this mammoth project. I’m happy with the new floor and perhaps at some point, I will completely forget the experience of having it done.
My local art group had another get together in the midst of the floor redo and we did some clamp dyeing. I didn’t take any process photos but I do have some of the finished pieces.
We had five pots of acid dye on the stove including bright yellow, yellow ochre, brick red, dark turquoise and purple. You can fold your fabric however you want or not, and then you clamp different objects to the fabric to create a resist for the dye. You put the clamped fabric into the lightest dye pot first. Then you can unclamp, reclamp in a different pattern and put it into a different color. You work from lighter colors to darker colors. You can dip the fabric partially or put it into soak. The variation are endless.
We used a variety of fabric too. The wool we were using was a very thick, hairy wool blanket. It really had to be clamped tightly and the results weren’t as crisp as thinner fabric.
These pieces are cotton velveteen which actually worked really well with the acid dyes. You can see that the thinner fabric took the dye differently.
This piece was done with two metal bird shapes that are the same. They were clamped to the folded fabric on either side.
This is a piece of Kraftex that was folded and clamped, then dipped into various colors.
This is a piece of silk that was folded up tightly and clamped and then dipped into various colors of dye.
Here’s a few more pieces of wool blanket.
And Birdie was supervising the drying process on the porch!
We’re planning on using these fabric pieces to create fabric books. We will be working all year on creating the fabric, then the different pages with other techniques and then putting the books together.
In May this year, I wrote about about a vessel I’d made for an exhibition called ‘Edge’. Although this hadn’t been the intention, the vessel gave me a sort of Japanese minimalism vibe, which was something I wanted to revisit.
Edge Vessel
The vessel fit the Edge brief in that I’d used a circular resist to create the shape but rather than cut the hole in the centre of the circle, I’d stood it on one edge, with the hole on the opposite edge. I like this shape and want to explore it further.
The fibre I’d used was something I also want to come back to. A beautiful fine carded merino and silk mix from World of Wool, it was time-consuming to lay out because of the short staple-length, but produced a lovely, light and velvety soft felt.
Before leaping into making something with so many variables of shape, surface design and fibre, I knew I needed to make some samples and decided to think first about the surface design.
I have no real knowledge of Japanese minimalist art and am not trying to replicate it, just play around with some of the simplicity of design and colours as inspiration. I love problem-solving (or perhaps that’s problem-investigating) so was setting myself a bit of a challenge.
I’ve seen various images of beautiful Japanese brush work using black ink brush strokes and red circles on a white background and I wondered if I could create something like that in felt. The biggest challenge seemed to be how to wet felt black, red and white together while keeping the colours separate. Prefelt seemed to be one way to go so I made three different black prefelts to see which might look like black ink brush strokes.
Using commercial black merino prefelt, I cut a strip and felted it a little. I didn’t think this would work well as it’s the cut ends that move most into the surrounding fibres and this strip is basically all cut edges. Next, I tried lightly prefelting two other types of black merino wool: carded and tops, as if I was starting to make felt rope.
commercial prefelt stripcarded batt layout carded batt prefelttop to bottom: merino strips from commercial prefelt, carded batt prefelt, tops prefelt Prefelt for black lines
The tops and carded wool produced very similar-looking results and I confess, when I got to the making bit, I lost track of which was which. The advantage of these was that the fibres are mainly running along the length of the line rather than sticking out of the sides so there should be less migration into the white. I decided I’d use these rather than the commercial prefelt strip.
I then turned my attention to red circles. I suspect carded wool might be best but I only have tops in red so that was what I used. First, I just tried making a circle freehand. I got about 2/3 of a circle and a raggedy bit. On the plus side, there weren’t cut edges, so that should help minimise side-to-side fibre migration. On the minus side, the shape left a lot to be desired! Needs further work.
Next, I made some red prefelt and cut a couple of circles out of it. I thought this would work less well but I was interested to see how they compared with the freehand idea.
freehand shapered prefelt with circle templateMaking red circles
I was aiming for a very simple design, so played around arranging black strands and red circles in different combinations.
Testing out different layouts
Now to actually make a sample.
My chosen layout
I used a rectangle of white silk and merino commercial prefelt for speed, and felted it together with three black strips and a red circle to see what happened.
Sample 1 completed
As you can see, the black didn’t migrate much on the long sides, though it did where I’d cut the shorter pieces (on the ends on the left side). The lines did, however, crimp and move a bit – maybe I need to prefelt these a bit less on the length and definitely more on any cut ends. Also, I must keep a better check on any movement as I felt.
The red, on the other hand, probably needed prefelting more as there was quite a lot of migration there. Basically, far too many loose cut ends, so either felt the edges harder or go back to a different layout.
At this point, I wonder why the heck I’m doing this: the layout looks so much better than the felted piece. Nevertheless, I decide to make a quick second sample before I finish for the day.
This time I used the freehand red circle with the raggedy edge. Somewhere in the dusty corners of my brain, I’d started to think about using resists to reveal the colours rather than just laying them on the surface. I hadn’t actually developed this thought but just plonked a resist on top of the red felt and laid a second layer of the white over the whole of the piece. I had some vague thoughts about the red incomplete circle looking a bit like a setting sun so placed it near the bottom and thought I could perhaps print some flying bird silhouettes on the upper part afterwards.
OK, I’m sort of freewheeling by this stage.
Sample 2 layout Sample 2 layout with extra layerSample 2 feltedSample 2
The useful learning from my experiments thus far was that the freehand circle (which has fibres running around the circumference of the circle, therefore avoiding lots of ends sticking out) works much better. You can see this very clearly from the under side. The cut ends clearly also migrate much more up and down as well as side to side. The freehand shape was probably also felted a bit harder than the red prefelt sheet.
Sample 1 underside: lots of migration round the edgesSample 2 underside: very little migrationComparing undersides of samples 1 & 2
For my final two test pieces, I lightly needle-felted some red circles then wet-felted the edges to make them as neat as possible. I went back to using the original white carded 70:30 merino:silk mix and decided to concentrate on getting the red circle right. I laid out two layers of fibre at right-angles to each other and put a needle felted circle top right.
Needle felted circleSample 3 layoutSample 3 felted Sample 3 finished with a printed treeSample 3 using needle felted circle
The needle-felted circle felted in well and when it was dry I printed a tree onto it. It’s a bit big but I’m going to make this into a birthday card for my Mum.
For my final test piece I continued with the carded merino & silk batt. I laid four layers of fibre round a circular resist and added one needle-felted red circle on each side.
As with my earlier Edge vessel, I cut it on one of the edges (rather than in the centre of the circle) and designed it to sit on the opposite edge.
Part-way through fulling, I worried that one of the red circles hadn’t felted in very well so did a little judicious needle felting around its edges before finishing the vessel.
layout for layers 1 & 3layout for layers 2 & 4Side 1 – still wetSide 2 – still wetSide 1 – nearly dryVessel with 2 circles: sample 4
This is a lot smaller than my original ‘edge’ vessel and much sturdier.
Conclusions?
The needle-felted and freehand wet-felted circles work better than cutting the circles from prefelt. I like the effect though could maybe make the need-felted circles a bit thinner: they do look as if they’re partially sitting on top of the surface. I’m happy that I’ve more or less cracked that bit of my challenge. As for the black lines, I’m leaving them for now but may come back to them at a later stage. The carded merino / silk batt was lovely to work with and I will definitely be making more things using this fibre. I might make a series of vessels using different colours and / or numbers of circles. I may also develop combining a circle and a printed tree. As usual, each experiment opens up lots of new possibilities. So much felt to make and too little time…..
This particular post has been inspired by some of our regular readers so here’s a quick advance thank you. I really love it when comments lead to further exploration and sharing!
Just a few cautionary words before I go on. I dip in and out of dyeing, definitely a hobbyist and I purely play so my dyeing exploits are experimental. There are lots of great sites out there if you really want to dig deep or if, like me you sometimes just love to watch someone’s process on social media you could check out @thedogwooddyer or @sashaduerr or @joanne_green_art on Instagram. Joanne has recently published a book which I would love to get hold of – it’s all about pigments. I have Sasha Duerr’s book; Natural Palettes and although it focuses on plants grown around California, there’s plenty of botanical commonality going on. It can be hard to believe that it’s Ireland I am talking about – and yes we do have some specimen Californian Redwoods here!
Second cautionary note: please exercise caution when dyeing and keep all of your dyeing equipment separate to your cooking equipment. It’s very important. Also, just because something is natural doesn’t automatically mean it is safe to handle without gloves or a mask. We recently had to burn wood in our pit. I extracted the charcoal and made some lye as an experiment. The pH is such that if it lands on skin it will feel like soap, lovely and soft, but what is happening is that it is dissolving the outer layer of skin! But please don’t be deterred by this. Just exercise caution and common sense and all will be grand!
When I started looking around for something to play with for this blog post I found some fallen branches from one of our cedar trees. I stripped the bark and left it to soak with the intention of throwing some fibres straight into the mix as the high level of tannins in the dye lot would mean that I did not have to heat the mix for it to work. After about a week soaking the mix I made the mistake of stirring it without gloves on. The resin in the mix started irritating my skin (yes, I learned a lesson that day). So it was back to the drawing board to find something safer to extract the dye from. (I haven’t yet learned how to extract the resin from the mix!)
This time I decided to opt for something most of us have at our disposal – compost! Onion skins to be more precise. I have been collecting these for quite some time (we are talking months here – I have been storing them in a cotton bag and they kept perfectly!). I had approximately 110g of skins which I just threw in a huge stock pot (used only for dyeing). I filled it three quarters way with water – not particularly scientific, probably around 6 litres, and put it on a low heat for about 4 hours. During this time I should have checked it (oops, I forgot!) but it was fine. It came to a rolling simmer. By this time it was bed time so I just turned it off and left it overnight to cool and then drained off the skins. There still appears to be colour left in the skins so I popped them into a nylon bag and left them to dry on the washing line – I will try to extract more dye another day.
The colour was a lovely rich colour – like a golden red. So I decided to extract the pigment from 1 litre of the liquid and use the rest for sample dyeing. I will hold on to the dyeing section for my next post as otherwise this will get a little too long and boring for you to read.
110g of onion skins ready for dye extraction
Overview Yummy colour.
Yummy colour against the light
Discarded onion skins. I dried these and I will dye with them again before composting them
Let’s start with the pigment making. We are talking natural dyeing here. Extracting the pigment from the dye liquid involves introducing a few ingredients which bind the molecules to themselves and cause them to separate from the liquid. First I am using an acid (alum) (which can also be used as a mordant on fabric and fibre to prepare the surface for dyeing). Then I add an alkaline solution (soda crystals). The two chemicals react and the pigment separates and sinks to the bottom. This can fizz up so make sure there’s plenty of room in the container. (Remember those great lava making experiments done back in the to encourage kids into science? You get my drift). The liquid is drained off then the remaining pigment is left to drain in a coffee filter. Once drained, the colour can be filtered in distilled water, dried, ground et voila! Pigment.
So, what do you need for this. As we are playing we will work in small quantities:
1 litre of dye liquid (filtered to remove all the plant material)
Alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) You will have to check where you can source this as it differs depending on location. Like me, you may need to buy online.
Soda crystals (I also use these to clean my washing machine so I can buy them in homeware shops)
pot and cooker to heat the liquid
2 Litre jug that can withstand hot liquid.
Glass jars (if you are patient, you will fit everything in 1 jar
Funnel
Coffee filter
Spoons (measuring and stirring)
weighing scales
pestle and mortar
boiling water
distilled water
Heat the dye liquid but don’t let it boil
Add the alum to a container then add boiling water and stir to dissolve the crystals. This may take a little while so be patient and make sure they are thoroughly dissolved. Quantities? My research has shown that this very much depends on the plant material, but a good starting point is 10% alum to liquid. I used 10 grams here.
Carefully (don’t burn yourself!) pour the dye liquid into the large jug. I tend to do this at the sink. Then add the alum liquid and stir well.
Now dissolve the soda crystals in boiling water. I used 5g here. Once dissolved add this to the big jug and stir. You may notice a fizzing chemical reaction.
Leave the solution to cool and separate. The pigments will sink to the bottom of the jug. The liquid on top should be clear. If it is not, it means that there is some pigment left in it and you could choose to play further with this liquid, once it is drained off. (In other words, repeat the steps outlined above).
Carefully pour off as much of the liquid as you can, without disturbing the pigment.
Set up your glass jar: place the funnel into it and then add the coffee filter to the funnel. Make sure that the funnel is not hitting the bottom of the jar – we want the drained liquid to escape through the bottom
Next slowly pour the wet pigment into the coffee filter. I find if I hurry at this, the filter can disintegrate so I let the filter soak up some of the damp as I am pouring.
Leave this overnight so that the water has mostly drained off and the pigment remains.
Now if you are planning to store your pigment, it is recommended that it is washed at least twice with distilled water and filtered through fresh coffee filters. This is to remove any unwanted mineral salts from the pigment. I am only playing so I did not bother with this step. I know that if this whets your appetite to find out more, you will remember this step.
The next step can be done either when the pigment is completely dry or getting there, scrape it into a mortar (bowl). Once completely dry start grinding using the pestle but be sure to wear a mask for this part as the dust is quite fine.
I store my pigments in tiny glass jars (yes, you guessed 1 litre doesn’t produce a lot but it makes up for it in satisfaction!). Make sure to label and date.
I have put together a slide show on the process I used.
Materials for making pigment
Heating up the liquid dye
Dissolving the alum – be patient, it takes time
Alum and soda crystals are getting to work
The pigment has sunk to the bottom of the jug
I do like this colour!
A bit blurred but here we can see the settled pigment
Here’s a photo of the filtration system
Slowly pouring the pigment into the coffee filter
The filter has soaked up some of the liquid
Here you can see the clear liquid draining off the pigment
Pigment is still draining
Checking on the pigment as it dries
Opening the coffee filters before scaping them clean
Scraping the pigment into the bowl. This will be left to dry
It takes time to grind down the pigment particles, patience is needed.
The yield is quite small but it’s still rewarding
This is the basic process. Colours can be altered before making the pigment by introducing an acid or an alkali and if this is of interest to you, it will be worth doing a bit of research.
I have, in a way, put the cart before the horse here, as I am showing you the process of making the pigment before running through the fabulous colours I achieved with this in dye form. But a promise is a promise and I wanted to deliver so I hope on this occasion you can forgive me. The general ‘rule’ that I have found is to use 10% of the volume of the dye as the binder. So for every 1 litre of dye liquid use 10 grams of alum. Then use 5 grams of soda crystals (or similar) and let the substance perform its magic. This is a good starting point. But like all rules a bit of flexibility can be needed so these figures can change and this is where experience comes into play (knowing what adjustment is needed for different plants). Most importantly, your curiousity and willingness to play comes to the fore here. Just give it a go and have lots of fun.
Helene
A little post script before this blog is published:
Since my adventures with onion skins, I decided to experiment with the yellow Chrysanthemums flowers from a lovely bouquet that had seen better days and was destined for the compost heap. I used the same ratio of alum and soda crystals only this time I didn’t hold back some of the dye material for fabrib experimentation and I made up pigment with the full dye bath. Here is the result:
Chrysanths pigment made from the yelow flower head
I may have mentioned this last year, but we have a farmer who grows a number of acres of sunflowers every summer. It’s done for charity and it is open to the public to come along, pick the sunflowers and make a donation to the Hospice Foundation. There’s an honesty box on site. It is a form of Meitheal – part of Irish culture where people help others out. By the time I arrived last week, a lot of the sunflowers had ‘gone over’. That said, after a lot of searching I found some that had yet to open and I was very pleased. So I picked and made my donation. Once home I started cutting off the lower leaves and I cut some of the stems so that they would look better in the vase. Rather than discard the waste I decided to run a little experiment. I slowly brought them to the boil. The smell was not particularly nice so I let everything cool down outside. I found I had a lot of liquid (and plenty of dark green dye), so I reduced down the liquid by heating it up again. (I did this out doors this time!). Then I made my pigment. It’s hard to see from the photos but it is a lovely dark green. I worked with a little over 2 litres of liquid. As you can see, it doesn’t produce a lot of pigment but it is very concentrated:
Sunflower leaf and stem pigment
I have decided to treat myself to Joanne Green’s new book Natural Watercolor Paint Making. I have followed her for a long time on Instagram and love her short videos on how she makes pigment. She had followed this up with a book about the process and I could not be happier. I heard from the book store that it is on its way to me so I’m quite excited about that. Please let me know if you would like me to review it in my next post.
I am not sure how it got to be Thursday so quickly. It’s been a busy week since we last chatted. I was working on another post about demoing felting, but it needs more work, so that will be coming later. This week at the local guild, we had a social focusing on Blending Boards. My Kia is partway through her gastric surgery (one of the parts of the new parts was missing from the box, so next week?) The weeds are trying to outnumber the plants in the pots, so that has to be done; they are all looking limp from heat and lack of water, i have to fix that too. The last part of the huge fleece is finally in for its first rinse. Just to add extra excitement, I am still wiping out and having long naps at odd moments. Life is fun!
Since you probably are not interested in the gastric distress of my car, and are likely trying to tackle your own weeds and lack of water (although it keeps raining?) So, this will be a short blog, so you can go enjoy the weeding and fleece washing while the snowbanks are not here. Let me show you what turned up, besides blending boards and bags of bits of fibre, at the local guild on Monday.
Guild social with Blending boards
0.11) Ann making rolags on the blending board, 2 more blending boards used in the background
0.12)- Ann’s rolag is flaccid!
0.13) 4 of the 6 spinners are using drop spindles
Daisy brought in her new book: “The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible: From Woolen to (Nearly!) Worsted and Everything in Between”, by Deborah Held. Released April 2025, it is hardcover and has 136 pages, in English. (ISBN: 978-0811773676, if you wanted to look at it too)
1.1)cover of: The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible, from wool to (nearly!) worsted and everything in between”, by Deborah Held
This book was written for spinners, but felters may also be inspired by it. Anyone working with fibre has more options if they know more ways to prepare that fibre. Different fibre preps produce different kinds of yarn if you are spinning, and will behave differently if you are wet or dry felting. More options are always good. For felters, the fibre mixes that a blending board can create may inspire you. Probably a turbulent sea or impending stormy sky, even mixes of greens suggesting distant trees?
Here are the main topics covered (I have listed the contents of all of chapter 4, since it may be of greatest interest to felters):
Foreword
Introduction
1: YOUR BLENDING BOARD: THE ALL-IN-ONE FIBER-PROCESSING TOOL
Breaking Down the Blending Board
A Comparison of Tools Used in Fiber Preparation
2: INDUSTRY SECRETS: UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN POTENTIAL OF YOUR BLENDING BOARD
Aftermarket Accessories
Technique: Dos and Don’ts
Smooth vs. Textured Preparations
Working with “Difficult” Fibers
3: ROLLED-OFF PREPARATIONS: ROLAGS, ROLLED LOGS, PUNIS, AND ROLY-POLIES
Rolled-off Preparations, Defined
Rolling Fiber Off Your Blending Board
Color, Texture, and Other Creative Play
4: BATTS AND CLOUDS, ROVINGS AND SLIVERS
Batts
Better Batts
Make the Best Batts
Layer Your Fiber in Thin Staple Lengths, Burnishing Often
Remove the Batt from the Blending Board
Make It a Double
Make It More Woolen with Multiple and Directional Passes
Directional Loading
Recard Your Batt
Make It More Worsted
Carded Clouds
Make It the Most Woolen
Roving vs. Sliver
Pin-drafted Roving
Make Your Own Roving, Multiple Ways
Hand-pulled Rovings: from a Batt/Cloud or Roll-up, as a Z-strip
Diz a Roving or Sliver
Diz from the Board
Off the Batt or Roving
Double-diz
Make It More Worsted
Creative Play with Color and Texture
Flecks/Tweeds and Heathers
Garneting for Extra Texture
Make It a Marl by Stacking Your Batts
Stripes/Repeating Colors and Variegates
Color Blocking
Gradients
Vertical and Horizontal Gradients
Individually Carded Gradients
Scraptastic Sandwich Batts
Fractals
Fancy Farm Batt
Bizzed Datty Bumps
5: UNEXPECTED WAYS TO USE YOUR BLENDING BOARD
Bring a Braid of Fiber Back to Life
Flick-card Locks and Line Them Up for Spinning
Flick-comb Your Locks
Diz a Repeatable “Combed” Top
Wet Felting
6: CARE AND STORAGE OF YOUR BLENDING BOARD
Keep It Clean
Storage
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: DIY Blending Board
Appendix B: Comparison of Blending Boards Used in This Book
Resources and Credits
Glossary
I like that the book considers repeatable and totally unrepeatable ways to work with fibre. While it’s fun to do artsy one-off things, it’s also nice to be able to get a predictable effect and repeat it if you want to. There are two tables I am particularly impressed with, one on types of fibre prep and what they produce (with pros and cons)(I want to meet this author!!). And the other on the Woolen to worsted continuum. It’s an elegant way of explaining vocabulary. Which is a problem when shopping for the prepared fibre, you want what you thought you were purchasing to arrive. There are good photos of various ways to lay out colour to get different effects as well as photos that show how to use the equipment, including the diz.
Let me show you a few interior pages to see if I can tempt you to check it out further.
2.1--2.6) interior shots of the book to tempt you to go take a look at it.
As you can see from the list of contents and the photos, this book covers a lot of ground, not only in ways to make use of a blending board but also in the various fibre preparations and how they are different. If your library or guild picks up this book, seek it out and take a perusal. Even if you never find a blending board at a garage sale or make your own, there is a lot of info here in case you do!
3)Back cover
Also, you can absorb the info presented and transfer that knowledge to a drum carder if you have one, or have access to use one. You can lay fibre directly on the drum, diz off or make rolags. Even after a short-ish perusal and skimming, it has me thinking odd thoughts of trying things on my drum carder. But first, I have to finish washing the last of that giant fleece. Just how big was that sheep? And what was he rolling around in? That water is filthy.
Oh no, a big storm is coming through in consecutive waves this evening, I guess the weather thought that fleece was very dirty too and is helping with the rinse! I will hope the waves of the incoming storm don’t take out the power before I get this posted!!! (Ann may not be able to do the final spellcheck and find all the missing or extra capitals!)
Have fun! Stay dry, Enjoy Summer and Keep Felting!!
0.11) Ann making rolags on the blending board, 2 more blending boards used in the background
0.12)- Ann’s rolag is flaccid!
0.13) 4 of the 6 spinners are using drop spindles
1.1)cover of: The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible, from wool to (nearly!) worsted and everything in between”, by Deborah Held
1.2) first 2 pages of the Contents pages
1.3) Chapters 3-6 plus appendices
3)Back cover