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Nuno felt scarf class

Nuno felt scarf class

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Hi all, although I haven’t been doing much felting myself I have been teaching others to do it. I ran my Nunofelt scarf class again this last weekend. I had five lovely ladies at the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild classroom.

The first part of the class is talking about all the fibres. Students are amazed at all the kinds of silk. I usually bring hankies, tops, throwsters waste and recycled sari silk along will wool BFL locks and sparkly nylon. They get to pick their hand dyed scarf blanks and then spend at least 15 min trying to decide what embellishments they want to use. It’s lots of fun watching and helping with colour and texture choices.

Silk hankies
Silk Tops
Dyed Silk Throwsster’s waste
sari waste
Sparkly nylon

It is so hard to pick.

Then it is on to lay out the wool. Once this starts I put the silk blanks away so no one is tempted to change their mind halfway through the layout. I keep all the wool and embellishments out until they wet everything.

 

Everyone enjoys using the ball browser sprayers to get everything wet.

 

In this group, they all stayed together during the different stages of felting. Often they become staggered; someone wants to be first done and another will be very relaxed and go slower. In the end, they always finish  and it’s interesting to see the different styles of learning and doing the same thing.

I didn’t get any pictures of the gently squishing and tossing to full but here they are finished.

nuno scarf
nuo scarf
nuno scarf
nuno scarf
nuno scarf group
nuno scarf group

All in all a great class with happy students.

The only odd thing that happened was one lady had brought her own wool, marked merino and she was sure it wasn’t superwash. She added my embellishments. One of her colours did not stick to the scarf anywhere. My first thought was it was superwash. However, it did seem to felt and grab the silk embellishments on top of it.  Nowhere she had used the copper coloured wool stuck to the silk backing. It was attached by other colours surrounding it so it’s all one piece but I have no idea what was/is going on with the wool, any ideas?

 

Repurposing and Card Making

Repurposing and Card Making

Comments 20 comments

Around mid-November I was rummaging in a chest of drawers trying to create space for visitors to store their clothes, while also thinking about  making some felt Christmas cards to sell at various events.  I came across a scarf I’d felted more than 10 years ago and never done anything with.

Scarf I made more than 10 years ago
View of scarf from the other end

‘Hmmm…..’ I thought. ‘This is taking up space and I’ll never wear it.’  

Why not?  Firstly, I can’t wear wool next to my skin.  I find it way too prickly/itchy. And secondly, I didn’t like how it had felted. You could almost see the little thought bubble appear above my head: “I wonder if I could make some Christmas cards out of this?”

The scarf didn’t fit the bill for a traditional Christmassy look, but that’s one of the things that appealed to me about it. 

Let’s first go back to the scarf-making, in April / March 2014.  No, I’m not an exceptional record-keeper, I just have a lot of photos on my phone and happily they’re all automatically dated.   

I started off with a bright orange silk scarf I’d found in a charity shop. It was what I think of as raw silk: soft and loosely woven. I wasn’t even sure it would felt well but, foolish as I was in those days, it didn’t occur to me to make a sample, I just ploughed on optimistically.

I decided to add shapes in bright rainbow colours so made a big sheet of multi-coloured merino wool light prefelt, broadly following the colours of the rainbow. 

Light ‘rainbow’ prefelt

I cut circular shapes out of it and laid them along the scarf, still following the rainbow sequence. I laid orange merino round the edges and set about felting it.

Original scarf layout

When it was finished, I wasn’t very pleased with it.  The silk was unstructured and flimsy and it seemed to hang wrongly. I don’t think that type of raw silk works well as a base for felting, certainly not on its own. I didn’t take a photo of it.

I left it for a while and came back to it about a year later.  I thought maybe felting a solid wool layer on the reverse might improve the hang and structure.  I felted 2 layers of white merino onto the back.  Now it was firmer but a bit too stiff and still didn’t hang well, but in a different way. I just wasn’t happy with it.

That’s the point at which I gave up on it and popped it into a drawer. Since then it’s been shunted around but I’ve never decided what to do with it…..until now.

On to the card making. I decided simple triangular tree shapes might be nice for festive cards so I made myself a little tree template and set about the scarf with my rotary cutter. 

Cutting up the scarf to make triangle tree shapes

For the first few cards I refelted all the cut edges of each triangle.  This was nice, but took quite a long time both to do and to dry, so I decided to go with raw edges: it didn’t make a lot of difference to the appearance and it certainly speeded up the making. I cut out some different card and paper backgrounds, glued them onto cards, stuck the trees to the backgrounds and drew a stem and decorative dot on top of each tree. Mostly I used acrylic pens but where I didn’t have a suitable colour I used other permanent markers. Here’s the first batch.

Some of the triangles were a little plain and, as I had my acrylic pens out, I decided to do a bit of doodling. I admit, I was rather enjoying myself by this stage.  Perhaps I got a bit carried away (some of the trees started to look like pizza slices)!

I grouped the trees into threes, choosing ones that had three different colours on them wherever possible. I found some bright pre-cut papers and chose the nearest colours to the trees in each group. Then I swapped them around so that each tree was on a background that matched one of the others in its group.  I finished off by swapping the colours again for the dots and stems.  

Here’s a close up. The trees have green, purple and turquoise on them. I picked out the matching papers, put the lime green tree on the purple paper, the turquoise tree on the green paper and purple tree on the turquoise paper. Then I finished off with the dot and stem in the third colour that wasn’t on the tree or background paper.

It’s hard to describe just how much I was enjoying myself, though some of that may be because I was almost certainly supposed to be doing something boring like cleaning or tidying up.

I did sell some of the cards and sent a few too.  They’re not the best cards I’ve ever made but I did enjoy making them and was happy to have repurposed a scarf that didn’t really work.  I still have plenty of felt scarf left so I may do something else with it in the future.

A little later, I made some other cards that I liked better and that sold really well. 

In my charity shop moochings I recently found a really beautiful, large hand-marbled silk scarf.  It was way more expensive than anything I normally buy.  I’m normally in the £2 – £4 range for a silk scarf and this was £8.50.  However, it really was big and interesting and I was intrigued as to how well it would felt. So, I splashed the cash. The marbled dyes sit on the surface of the fabric so I wondered how well the wool fibres would penetrate the silk. Age and experience do have their advantages: this time I made a small sample to make sure it felted well, which it did.  

I cut out a long rectangle of merino and silk prefelt and laid a section of the scarf full length along it, flush with the edge of one long side and covering half of the width.  Sorry, I forgot to take a photo so I here’s a quick sketch, literally on the back of an envelope.

Once it was felted and dry, I cut it into thin strips ready for printing. I’d found a royalty-free image of a plain green fir tree and, using photoshop elements, dotted it with robins to look like baubles. I printed the images on heat transfer paper, then, using my heat press, printed a tree on some of the strips. I stuck the strips to long cards and this was the result.  Not as much fun to make as the other cards but I do like the result better.

8 ‘Robins’ cards above and a close up of one of them, below

On the remaining strips, I printed an image of a friend’s cat, to which I’d added (in photoshop) a Santa hat.  I had six felt strips for the cat but one didn’t print properly which left me with five.  I thought I’d better save one to send to the cat owner and was going to offer the other four for sale but my cat-owning friend decided he’d like to send the cards, so bought all four.  There are lots of cat and dog lovers around so maybe I’ll make some of those next year.  What do you think?

Four ‘Layla’ cards above and a close up below

While I was on a roll, I repeated the process using an animal print scarf and a blue patterned scarf to make some cards that are not season-specific. People do seem to like this type of design and quite a few say they or the recipients will cut them out to make a bookmark or just put the card in a frame. The horse chestnut is from a painting my Mum did, the honesty was composed from some photos I’d taken, the ferns were from a royalty-free image I found online and the birds are all from photos of my previous large felt pictures.

I know I’ve said it more than once before but I do love a bit of fabric re-purposing, whether second-hand or from a failed project.

Needle Felted Sheep Workshop.

Needle Felted Sheep Workshop.

Comments 11 comments

It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to warm woolly sweaters( jumpers). So, where do they get all that wonderful wool in amazing colours? Why for colourful sheep of course.  Dyed in the wool as it were. And where do you get those? Well, you make them of course. They can really spruce up a manger scene for Christmas or you can add them to the scenery of your model railroad or add a pin and wear them.

I had 8 lovely ladies to make some cute little sheep. There should have been 9 but one couldn’t make it so her sister who was there paid her materials fee and took some supplies to her so she could make a sheep at home.

After this point, once the students arrive, I forget to take pictures.  We start with the legs. I show them how to make them with needle felting. It is long and tedious to make them dense enough to hold the sheep up. Then I show them how to make wet felted snakes to cut up for legs.  You can see a plastic bag on the table it has the sheep samples and all the snakes I made so they could have legs and move on the the rest of the sheep. they make bodies, heads, and ears and then they needle felt them all together. they usually look a little wonky at this point and everyone has a good laugh at them and worries there sheep will not look right.

Most of them look like they are on stilts at this point. It is better to start that way and then do some hoof trimming at the end, to get the length you want.

Next is the best part, giving them their colourful ( or natural) coats. we used Bluefaced Leicester curls. they are small nice curls.

As they have all their wool, their personalities emerge.

Everyone seems happy, I will need to find out if I had any comments on the evaluation forms. Fingers crossed there are no complaints. When you teach with our guild we have the student fill out an anonymous evaluation. It helps to head off problems before they really start and sometimes you get good ideas for your next class. Students pop them into an envelope and it’s sealed. Someone else opens it and has a look and you get the feedback later.

This is my last post for the year so I hope you all have a

Happy Holiday and a Fantastic New Year!

Green "branchy" background added to purple ornament card.
Painting Christmas Cards

Painting Christmas Cards

Comments 23 comments

Happy Winter Solstice! It’s the shortest day of the year so we’re on to longer days now. Yay! The shorter days make it a bit dreary sometimes but I decided to create some Christmas cards to cheer myself up. I saw this method on numerous posts and videos online so I can’t credit one person for the idea. This method makes it fairly simple to create ornaments or baubles for a card with watercolors.

Artist's workbench with watercolor set up for creating cards, including palettes, brushes, water and paint rimmed jar.

Here’s my set up in the studio. I had several palettes of paint and it works best with two brushes I found. I didn’t use the very thin detail brush until the end. Also, two sources of water, one kept clean, work well too. I found a couple of glass jars in different sizes that would work on my 5″ x 7″ cards.

Glass jar rim being painted with red watercolor paint.

Get some “juicy” watercolor on to the edge of the glass jar and print it on to your paper or card.

Using clean wet watercolor brush to "grab" red color from edge of printed circle.

Then quickly add clean water around the edge to get the paint moving. You can also use your other “juicy” brush to add in more color while the paper is still wet. Remember to leave some white spots for the “shine” on the ornament.

Using gold gel pen to add ornament top to purple round ornament.

I painted sixteen of these in four different colors. This photo shows using a gold gel pen to add the ornament top and string.

Four pieces of watercolor paper with painted ornaments in a variety of colors.

Here’s what the cards looked like after that. I wanted to add something in the background or something more festive. I started with the “gold” ones.

Golden ornaments decorated with pine greenery and splatters.

I added greenery and some splatters. But I wasn’t particularly happy with the look.  It’s okay but I decided to try something different on the other colors.

Green background added to red ornament card.

I started with the red ornaments, added water to the background and dropped in some green paint. Okay, but still not exactly what I wanted.

Green "branchy" background added to blue ornament card.

I changed my green color and then worked on trying to make the background look more like pine branches. This was looking better.

Green "branchy" background added to purple ornament card.

So I finished out the purple ornaments in the same way. Then I glued them down to a regular 5″ x 7″ greeting card with Yes Paste. I have found that is the easiest glue method with cards/paper. So now, my Christmas cards are off in the mail. It was a fun activity and really pretty simple. If you want to try it, there are quite a few YouTube videos showing the process.

Green nuno felted background with appliqued flower and stitched blue flowers added.
Indian Paintbrush Continues

Indian Paintbrush Continues

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I have been slowly working on my Indian Paintbrush artwork. Since the last time I showed you, I have painted the stems and added some blue flowers in the background.

Full view of green nuno felted background with appliqued flower and stems painted darker yellow green.

Here it is after I painted the stems and leaves. I didn’t add any further color to the flowers themselves as I thought I might do. Once I was finished, I decided I should have left the bottom stems alone so they blended better into the background. I could add more paint on top but so far I have just left them as they are.

Green nuno felted background with appliqued flower and stems painted darker yellow green.

Here’s a closer view of the stems. Next up was to decide if I needed to add anything else. I decided to enhance the blue areas with some hand stitching. I found a hand dyed greyed down blue that was multi valued.

Green nuno felted background with appliqued flowers and stitched blue flowers added.

So I used fly stitch and the thread was a thin cotton slightly bigger than one strand of floss. It’s actually hard to see in this photo but you can click on the photo to enlarge it.

Green nuno felted background with appliqued flower and stitched blue flowers added.

Here’s a closer view of the blue stitching. So what’s next? I’m not sure. I have been looking at the piece now for several weeks hanging up in my studio. Does it need more? If so what? I still haven’t decided. What do you think?

Northern lights in Kalispell, MT 10/10/2024

On another note, I finally saw the Northern Lights here in Kalispell, Montana. I never realized that you need to look through the camera’s lense to actually see the lights very well. Paula took the photo above and I took the one below. Do you see the constellation?

Northern lights in Kalispell, MT 10/10/2024

Sunset on Little Bitterroot Lake at Kiwanis Lodge.
Annual Art Retreat

Annual Art Retreat

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I went to our annual art retreat over Labor Day weekend (Aug. 30 – Sep. 1) at the Kiwanis Lodge at Little Bitterroot Lake near Marion, MT (USA). Luckily my husband is a Kiwanian so we are able to use this lodge once a year. I got there a bit early and while waiting for the others to join me, I took a few photos and gave Edgar a swimming lesson.

Kiwanis Lodge at Little Bitterroot Lake

This is the lodge, this side faces the lake. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, no smoke (August is usually fire season around here) but cold enough at night to need a fire in the fireplace.

View of Little Bitterroot Lake looking from shore with boat dock towards the lake and mountains in the distance.

Here’s a view of the lake. Even on a holiday weekend, the lake wasn’t busy and we even saw 8 loons swimming about. Edgar, my dog, has short legs and a very dense body. He’s not overweight but weighs fourty pounds. When he has tried to swim in the past, he had a really hard time keeping his head above water. He just sinks. So we bought him a life jacket and I took it with us to the lake. (Edgar got to go to the retreat for the first time because hubby was going to Missoula for a UM football game.)

A mixed breed dog (Edgar) wearing a life jacket and swimming in the lake with a branch in his mouth.

After a few tries, he got the hang of it and was eager to have me throw the stick so he could swim out to get it. Needless to say, Edgar had a good weekend.

Two buckets with indigo vats and one bucket with clamped fabric soaking in water.

Our main art activity this weekend was indigo dyeing. Both Paula and Louise set up an indigo pot on Friday and then we dyed various fabric, clothing etc. on Saturday. Here you can see the two indigo pots and some clamped fabric soaking in water in the pink bucket.

Louise (on left) and Paula (on right) working with indigo vats.

Louise (left) is putting her first piece of fabric into the dye vat and Paula (right) is getting rid of the “bloom” on the top of her indigo pot before dyeing. I have personally never made an indigo pot but they used the directions that are available on Dharma Trading Co.

Louise (left) holding soaked fabric about to be put into indigo pot and Sally (right) looking on.

Here Louise (left) is explaining to Sally (right) about how to use the indigo pot and getting her fabric ready to put in the vat.

Indigo dyed fabrics laying out on plastic. One piece just taken out of vat, it is green before oxidation will turn it to blue.

The coolest thing about indigo, in my opinion, is that it comes out of the dye pot green and then when it hits the air and oxidizes, it turns blue. The longer you leave the fabric in the dye bath, the more blue it will end up.

Here are a few pieces drying on the grass. The one on the right was rust dyed first and then put into the indigo.

Paula brought some clamps and different shapes of wood, which once clamped on the fabric, resist the indigo. You can see the results of some of those in the right hand photo.

Sunset on Little Bitterroot Lake at Kiwanis Lodge.

It was a wonderful weekend and we enjoyed some gorgeous sunsets while sitting out on the porch.

For those of you who wish they belonged to an art group (felting group or whatever), my suggestion is to start your own group. If you meet someone who might be interested, ask them to join a group. All the people in your group don’t have to be felt makers. You can learn so much from creative people who enjoy other media. So don’t be shy, just ask others that you know or meet and start up a group of your own. That’s what I did and now more than ten years later, we are still going strong.

The Quest Continues

The Quest Continues

Comments 13 comments

I left you last time as I was about to felt my sequins. I put the fabric on both sides of some felt and felted them most of the way. They felt quickly. The fabric they are attached to has a very open weave.

After they were dry I cut out diamonds.

sequined fabric cut into diamonds

I now have a great admiration for everyone who sews costumes or anything with sequins. What a mess they make. Sequins have ambitions of being glitter and being everywhere. I am sure I will be finding them in odd places they flew for quite a while.

cut sequin mess on a towel

 

I felted then again to seal up the edges

diamond shaped sequined fabric

A quick trip in a side direction. Jan did some shopping for me at Twist. I didn’t ask for anything but she knows I would have bought it if I had been there.

A New Brunswick woold worker who specialises in fibre arts accessories, had made a palm felter.  It looks really beautiful, it feels really nice in your hand, and it works great. It has a shorter profile and shallower indentations and is lighter than the other similar ones we all know. I found that one quite heavy when I had a look at it at a fibre show.

Back to sparkle. I made 4 colours using super bright trilobal nylon to make some squares. The nylon is on both sides. Again I felted them most of the way and they will need to be felted a bit more to seal up the edges.

after cutting them out I had little shards of sparkly nylon all over. I guess sparkle just likes to spread.

 

I think I have way more than 75 diamonds already. Jan has been working on her dragon hand for this project. I am sure you will hear about it from her.  I have had to pause this project to get on with my sheep and shepherdess for the Guilds retrospective at the Museum. They need to be ready much sooner. I need to make more legs. but that’s another blog post.  As always seems to be the way, you curse along ( lol, that was supposed to be cruse along but curse seems to fit too) with no deadlines or pressing projects then, all of a sudden you have too many.

 

 

 

top of landscape sowing sky sea and rocks with cut outs from the oican
Maureen Shared her vacation, which became A Little Needle Felted Landscape

Maureen Shared her vacation, which became A Little Needle Felted Landscape

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I know some of us are very lucky to live near an active guild.  Many fibre arts people don’t have that source of fibre friends and inspiration. One of our guild members was on a road trip. She kindly brought us along vicariously through her posted shots.  Some were of the spots where she had stopped and spun yarn. One of the shots she shared with the guild particularly caught my eye.  It was a good composition, but the tilt of the horizon bothered me.  I could fix that…..

the original photo of Maureen’s Vacation spinning picture “spinning in front to the Arches at Arches Provincial Park”. not the odd tilt of the horizen. 1) Maureen’s Vacation spinning picture “spinning in front to the Arches at Arches Provincial Park”

Tuesday, July 09th: I was at the Kanata Games Club on Tuesday night, Glenn was busy and I had wool, a nametag size piece of green wool, needles, and scissors, now where is my felting mat and the fine Sharpie I thought I had?  Ok give me a minute, I know where the dollar store is, just down the hill from the gaming. It’s a bit too far to go with the walker, but really close by car. I was back with a garden foam kneeling pad and 3 fine sharps (and snacks) by 6:30 pm.

one print out of the photo to use as a template and another few to use as reference. i have croped the picknick table and some of the width mostly trees2) 6:30-ish pm at the Kanata Games Club.

The piece of green I had grabbed was a bit shorter in length than I wanted. It was also not as rectangular as I would have liked. It’s wool, So not a problem!!! I just added more wool fibre to make it the size I needed.  A bit of work with the Clover multie-needle tool and I had a solid felt base the size I wanted.

I am again using the template method of image transfer and a bit of divine editing of the angle of the horizon.

template method; cutting out the sky then using the remaining image to mark the sky, i have flatened the horizen so the picture is now on a slight angle. i did not add reference marks since the image fit over the felt i was working on. that will come back to hont me later.3) Cutting off the sky and then straightening the Horizon.

sky and horizen in, fixing not squaire felt base 4) Straitened the horizon, and squared up the short corner of felt.

cutting the next section of the photo out and then adding the sea5) cutting the next section out and then adding the sea

Cutting out the rock and the next section of ocean.6) Cutting out the rock and the next section of the ocean.

Continuing to cut away a section of the photo, draw in the new edge then felt in the open area7) Continuing to cut away a section of the photo, draw in the new edge then felt in the open area

I am not the fastest of feltres, this is about 3.5 hours.  Glenn has just finished his gaming and it is time for me to pack up and head home. I am pleased with the progress so far.

 

Wednesday, July 10th:

Resumed felting, ……time for a break, I got over-focused on felting.  Where did I put the camera? On drat, I missed a big chunk of time,  I had better stop for a photo break.

Continuing to cut out a section, then use sharpie to denote the edge, then add wool. replacing the remaining picture to check angles.8.1-8.2) Continuing to cut out a section, then use a sharpie to denote the edge, then add wool.

Laying over the un-felted space with the remains of the reference photo, to see how the image is coming along. You can also see that I have stuck the wool mat in a heavy freezer zip-lock bag. It has not entirely kept the fiber from transferring but the migration has been reduced drastically. This is the third name tag/ picture I have been working with the green base wool on this wool pad. I have been using the same side of the pad but now have rotated the plastic bag. I should last till the end of this picture then I will likely change it for another freezer bag. If you are curious let me know and we can investigate this further, looking into ways to reduce wool transfer to your work surface.

9) My Reference image is now on the computer, note zip lock baggie with all pieces that have been cut out so far.9) My Reference image is now on the computer, note the zip lock baggie with all the pieces that have been cut out so far. it’s above the Right corner of the felting.

I now have my reference image up on the computer, as I am working while waiting for Marie, from Texas, to start Wooly Wednesday on YouTube. You can see the parts of the image I have already cut off in a zip lock baggie so I can refer to them if I need to. (such as the area at the top left where I still need to add a tree in front of the water I have already felted.

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 10.1-10.2) This felting experience was enhanced by the nibbling of blackberries,  just make sure your fingers are clean before getting back to the wool. note the Sharpie it’s double ended (Fine and Extra fine tip)

I am now adding the outline for the right arm. In addition, note the double-ended sharpie (Fine/Extra Fine), and the heavy zip lock bag over my wool felting mat is reducing the amount of wool wanting to transfer into the pad. Blackberries are also very inspirational but don’t let them change the colour of your fingers and then your wool.

the arm is in11) Arm is in

adding shorts12) adding shorts

this is about at 10.5 hours13) This is about 10.5 hours

I still have a lot of detail work to do adding all the flowers a bit more edge defining and tree extensions. But I am quite pleased so far. Time for bed.

 

Thursday;  Finished writing my blog post for the 14th and started writing this one. Ok, I am as slow at writing, as I am at felting. (I did wind up writing about Ann’s Name tag before getting back to finish this one.)

 

Monday, July 15h: I brought the little landscape in to get Ann’s opinion. She said it looked like Maureen’s hair was curly I will try to fix that. I also consulted on the sheep name tag I was making for her.

picture in zip lock bagie, held on to shelf by a magnaet.14) Waiting for a consultation with Ann and I was working on her sheep name tag

I worked a little bit on Wednesday and got the tree in the top left corner blocked in. as you will see when I got back to work at the social. I like to be able to put a piece down and think about what I want to do next, decide on my options and then look at it again with fresh eyes and Reassess.

 

Monday, July 22nd:

By this point, it’s getting down to details and finishing touches. You can’t tell but in person, the straw yellow is not as embedded and solid as it looks in the photo.

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15.1-15.2) Assessing the progress I have made so far.

I have added a bit of a suggestion of wildflowers and fussed with the green undertones but something is not yet right.

Helping your brain to not just look, but see what it’s looking at can be challenging.

When you are working and get to the point you are unsure, it may be that your eye and your brain are arguing.

The eye says “this is what I am looking at” and the brain says “I know what a tree looks like! I don’t have to look at another tree” There are a few ways to help the brain pay attention and actually see what it is looking at. Here are a few I learned while painting but can be applied to felting too (which is painting with wool).

  • Use a mirror to look at your felt image. By reversing the image, it gives a fresh perspective and often you can see a proportion or angle that is not quite right.
  • Photography (camera, cell phone, iPad); look at the felt image as a digital image. You often will spot something off in the photo you did not notice in the work. You can also digitize the image you are working from. It lets you scroll in close to part of the painting to see details,
    • see the image in black and white or
    • oversaturate the image with colour to see hidden colours.
  • rotate your image and reference until it’s upside down (inverted). It becomes easier to see negative space and spatial relationships when the image is not looked at in the usual way.
  • Set your work and image look at it sitting vertically (on an easel or propped up against something so you are not looking down at it) Step back and look at the work.
  • Take a break, go do something else. Come back with “Fresh eyes”.

16) ways to help your brain see what you are looking at 16) ways to help your brain see what you are looking at

Remember that it’s your image, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same unless you want it to be. You can be the god of your landscape and move a tree, make a shrub shorter or fuller or remove it. Do you feel the image needs more sky? Then add it. As long as the image makes sense  (no double points of light sources unless you are on an alien planet with 2 suns) it will be believable. You are unlikely to hang the photo reference beside your finished piece, so move a tree if it offends you. If you are working on a portrait, you have to be a bit more accurate. Then use the above suggestions to help get as close as you can to the original.

I have put my piece aside, so I can think about it and see the image with fresh eyes before I finish the fine details. So I have switched to work on another little project for Ann. (which you  have seen; https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2024/07/24/name-tag-sneaky/ .) Next time i will show you what i find and how i fix it. Have fun and keep felting!!

 

gold foil placed within the design
Inspired by nature – part 2

Inspired by nature – part 2

Comments 22 comments

In my previous post I had completed two nature inspired collages https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2024/03/28/inspired-by-nature-part-1/ and had then decided (in my infinite wisdom!) to create a third and form a set. Collages one and two were partners, now I was heading for a family!

 

My original completed piece
1   My original completed piece

 

A second work including a found twig, fabric snippets and embroidery stitches
2   My second piece

As I was now creating a ‘triptych’ – meaning the two different nature inspired collages needed to be tied together – I had to concentrate on colour and texture, because I didn’t have enough snippets of all the various fabrics previously used. At the same time, I needed to think about the design direction.

One of the hardest decisions was deciding which way up, I finally wanted to present collages one and two, as this would have a bearing on three. When doing abstract work, I usually work from different directions so that, to me, it is balanced from all sides. This enables me, or a client, to decide which way to hang the piece, or simply present the opportunity to ring the changes!

 

Design sketches and potential fabric pieces to be used
3   Thinking about the design

 

the final auditioning of fabrics
4   Auditioning the fabrics

 

Once I’d decided on the final hanging direction of collages one and two, the next hurdle was the actual design layout. Again, the priority for me, was to unify and compliment the previous finished pieces, for which my various sketches proved very useful.

I’ve been asked many times ‘where do you get your layout ideas from?’ Zimples…I look through my vast collection of images that I find interesting (landscape, architectural, food etc), then finding one I like, I either trace or freehand copy the main shapes. These then become the kicking off point. I’m repeating myself I know, as I’ve mentioned all this before….I just want to get the message over that this method is available to everyone – whether they are ‘arty’ or say they can’t draw for toffee!

 

Fabrics finally chosen and laid out in position
5   Layout of fabrics finalised – including some paper birch bark (the yellow underside was more interesting than the white top).

 

With my final decisions made on the design layout and the fabrics to use, it was time to start adding some embellishing stitches.

Although not immediately obvious each work also has some golden elements (paper or foil) included with the dried peeled cherry & birch bark (from felled trees), twigs, or dried bark chips (these were a beach combing find!). All from my ‘that’s too good to throw away/it might come in useful’ stash!

Then it was back to the entire same auditioning process re the placement of Mother Nature’s treasures with the added complication of now having to balance these elements with those of the other two completed works, which in turn, might decide in which order the three collages should be displayed (1,2,3 or 1,3,2 or, 3,1,2 etc).

In terms of design, balance, or colour – if I saw a glaring ‘gap’, yet more embellishing stitches were added, particularly to subtly enhance the circles.

 

gold foil placed within the design
5a   Just to show the gold elements. Notice the copper thread too on the bark

 

These collages are all about being nature inspired, so the following photographs show some close-up details which I have paired with various of my (oh so many!!!) images of Mother Nature’s spontaneous creations that surround us, even in the tiniest of corners.

close up details from my originally collage
6   Detail 1 – A variety of stitches on the original collage

 

 

close up of stitched bark paired with a twig
7   Detail 2 – Stitched cherry bark overlaid with a sheer with crocheted lichen and copper wrapped twig

 

 

close-up detail of second collage
8   Detail 3 – Eco printed fabric, expanded wet-wipe and yarn tufts

 

 

Embroidery stitces to emulate moss and lichen
9   Detail 4 – Embroidery stitches to evoke lichen and moss

 

 

Placement of fabric evokes the cracks seen in rocks and cut tree trunks
10   Detail 5 – Reminiscent of cracks in rocks and aged cut tree trunks

 

 

detail of copper wrapped bark with a tufted yarn to resemble moss.
11 Detail 6 – Copper wrapped bark, ‘cracks’ or maybe twigs and yarn moss

 

Framing the three collages….

I used my favourite method – by stitching each to card cut to fit the frame. I was so lucky that on one car boot sojourn, I found 3 IKEA frames, just perfect for my wall space. Each collage is 22 x 22cm (8½x 8½ins). At some point, I might present them in larger square frames with a wide 10cm (4in) mount (mat) to provide a counterfoil….before that….I’ll need to move house to have more wall space!!!

And herewith the final pieces, enough collage work for now I think….

The first collage
12   The original work – I blame this one for setting me off down this path….I enjoyed it so much!

 

Collage two all framed and ready to hang
13   Collage 2

 

The fianl collage all framed ready to hang
14   Collage 3 – Giving birth to this baby was not quite so easy as it had to share it’s parents’ features!

 

But maybe something beckons….

Lichen and moss covered rocks on top of a stone wall
15 Mother Nature’s circles – Mmmm food for thought perhaps!

Did I forget to mention that I also love the rocks and stones on which the lichen grow!!!

 

We’d love to hear about any dip or triptychs you’ve created.

 

Small things and help with visor problem

Small things and help with visor problem

Comments 10 comments

I am working on my May slow stitch I have a few things done but it’s not finished quite yet. I plan on finishing it at our guild social on Monday  I think the “May” should be bigger. It’s not a very full page this month but it will have to do. I am liking working with the wash-away stabiliser. We will see if I am still happy after it is dissolved.

 

I have done a little spinning and plying so I have a few new balls of yarn to play with. I got a Moodie Blues pack from Carlene. It’s one of the World of Wool collections.

 

I still need to ply the one on the left. I only have one more to go, the top left one. It amazes me the way the wool changes as you spin it. I think because the colours are side by side they become more subtle. I really like the dark one with the blue slubs in it.

Lately, I need some advice on my mirror cover for the visor in my car. I had stuck it on with some Velcro squares. It worked fine all winter but no it’s hot the glue has melted and it has fallen off. What else can I use to attach the cover?