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A Little Light-up Lantern

A Little Light-up Lantern

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

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

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

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

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

I just kept going until I was at this size

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

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.
Miniature Wool Landscapes

Miniature Wool Landscapes

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A few posts ago, I showed you some painted miniature landscapes. Why not try the same idea in felt? So off to my stash to figure out what I had to create these.

Supplies for wool paintings laid out on work bench including various colors of wool roving, locks and colored prefelts.

I found a variety of green wool as well as white, grey and blue for the skies. I also had some locks in black and dark grey and thought they might work well for tree trunks. I had a few sheets of various colors of commercial prefelt to use as a base.

5" x 7" colored prefelts for wool paintings laid out on work bench.

I cut the prefelt into 5″ x 7″ pieces. I thought any smaller might really get difficult getting the wool to cooperate.

Beginning layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I decided to try one first before I made all of the landscapes. I used the pink prefelt and laid out a variety of greens for the foreground and white with a tiny bit of blue and grey for the sky.

Final layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I then laid out the trees with a very small bit of locks for the trunk and a bit of green for the leaves. Now on to wet felting it.

Mini wool painting of landscape after wet felting.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the locks after felting. They went right through the merino and I wasn’t careful enough, as they moved about. Now I had really hairy dark spots that looked nothing like tree trunks. But I was happy with the rest of the landscape. These shrank down to about 4″ x 6″. I probably could have shrunk them down further but since it’s a “painting” and not functional, I decided 4″ x 6″ was a good size. They will fit into 5″ x 7″ frames easily.

Mini wool painting after shaving off excess "hairy" fibers.

Since I wasn’t happy with the hairiness, I decided to shave the piece. I think it looks a bit better now. So on to the other six landscapes.

Final layout of wool on various prefelts for other six mini landscapes.

I laid out the other prefelts and added wool to create more landscapes. Then wet felting them all at the same time. The entire process took me about four hours.

Here they are completed. I like seeing them at thumbnail size as it doesn’t bring out any small details. But I will show you them in a bigger format for those of you who would like to see the details.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on green prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on white prefelt after wet felting.

The plan is to get some frames for these and take them to the gallery. My bigger pieces haven’t been selling very well lately so I thought a smaller size option might be an easier purchase for people.

Sheep Keychain

Sheep Keychain

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I started working on this a while ago and have managed to do one. I can hardly wait until school’s done at the end of the month. I don’t seem to have any time to do anything at the moment. Oh well, enough griping.

You may remember that for my Guild’s anniversary exhibition, I made a little flock of sheep. What to do with them now? I could just put them away or make a display, not that I have room for that.

In the past, I made key chains by threading a cord down and back up through the sheep and then adding a split ring. It worked, but the cords wear too quickly. Then I saw some cool headwear for keychains. They seem to just put beads on them, but what do they know? I bought a multi-coloured pack.

Of course, I also had to buy some new beads for this. Really, I did, I didn’t have any large hole beads that would fit on the pole. Sorry about the bad picture, way too much reflection on the left one, and I didn’t want to dump them out. The one on the left is mixed, so there are solids, stripes, crystals and some different textures.

I picked a green keychain to go with the green sheep.

 

The first thing to do is to make a hole in the sheep. For this, I used a leather awl. It worked quite well; I only had to fiddle a little to get the post through the sheep. You can see that the beads unscrew at both ends. This makes it easier to add the beads on the top and bottom after adding the sheep.

Then add some beads and and screw the ends back on.

I like the way it looks. I need to give him some eyes and probably a nose. None of the sheep or the shepherdess had facial features for the display.

The other thing I want to do is fix some of the ears. I was running out of time, and I knew they wouldn’t be handled, so I didn’t worry about some of the ears not being as sturdy as I would like.  Some of them are too fluffy and underfelted, so they will not last as key chains.

The other thing I bought was a little stand and some cards to attach the keychains to. I hope that it makes them look a little more finished and worth what I want for them.

They are too big to fit in the little bags that came with the cards. I will have to look for some different ones.

P.S. I have not picked a name for the little ram lamb yet. Nothing has really jumped out at me as the right one, yet.

Edge Exhibition

Edge Exhibition

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I live in a coastal town in SE England called Whitstable. As a member of a group called Made in Whitstable (a loose affiliation of local artists & makers) we had a group exhibition coming up with the title of “EDGE” at The Horsebridge – our wonderful local community arts centre. We needed to produce at least one item that fit the Edge brief, however we wanted to interpret it. The rest of our work was entirely up to us. 

I could have got away with explaining that practically everything in my wet-felted pictures happens at the water’s edge, and it therefore met the brief. But I was actually quite excited to think through some new and different work. I particularly like working 3D and it feels like a while since I’ve felt really energised by the creative process. So, I thought about what ‘edge’ might mean and I ended up making 3 different interpretations.

Edge 1

For my first piece I pondered the edge of the felt as a focus of a picture. 

I decided on a flat background with strips of felt jutting out to show their edges. I’ve made things like this using multiple resists to create flaps that then stand out. I wondered if I could pre-felt some strips before attaching, rather than creating flaps with resists in the lay-out stage. 

I selected some home-dyed Corriedale wool I had left over from an old project. Just as I’d decided to use this I noticed how well the colours went with a second-hand silk scarf I’d just bought so I decided to use some of that too. 

Home-dyed Corriedale wool and charity shop silk scarf

After I’d laid it out, leaving a fluffy edge to help attach it to the background, I realised I’d made it far too wide. “Oh well”, I thought, “I’ll cut it into strips once it’s prefelted”. I’d intended this to be a test for a more thought-through piece.

Wool layout
Adding silk
Prefelt reverse
Prefelt right side
Cut into strips
Testing strips on prefelt background
Fully felted

I decided to stick with what I’d done and move on to something else: I never made the more thought-through piece.

Edge 2

For my second piece I started to think about the outside edges of a shape. I decided I’d try using a book resist to make a vessel with a large surface area. 

I scanned the internet for book resist ideas that didn’t have too many ‘pages’. I alighted on an article Gladys Paulus (a felting hero of mine) had written for DHG comparing bergschaf and merino wools in which she included a 3 page book resist.

https://dhgshop.it/blog/article-compares-carded-wool-bergschaf-and-merino_88.php

I decided I’d use a similar shape using black and white wool but would cut and shape it differently from Gladys’s. 

I wanted to use carded batts as they’re much easier to lay out than tops / rovings when navigating complex shapes.  I had a good supply of white Norwegian wool batts but was struggling to lay my hands on anything appropriate in black.  I found a black merino batt and decided to go with that, though I wasn’t sure how the wools would interact, with the Norwegian being much more coarse than the merino.

Book resist
Starting to full the shape

The Norwegian wool was slow to felt and the black merino didn’t come through as much as I’d imagined. Interesting, if not surprising.  Eventually I ended up with something that looked decidedly anatomical: three lungs was the most polite thing I could think of.  I got a lot of comments about the anatomical possibilities of this one!

The vessel is an odd shape so I decided to embrace its oddness and bought some curved screw-in metal studs to add to the top of each segment. Given the brief was ‘edge’, I thought these would add a little extra edginess.

Edge 3

And, finally, I created a vessel using a circular resist that I would stand on its edge.  I’d recently bought a carded merino and silk (70% : 30%) batt from World of Wool that I was dying to use – it is deliciously soft and scrumptious to feel.

I laid out the first layer clockwise around the resist, and the second in circles radiating from the centre. 

Layout for Edge 3

Having wetted the fibre out, I turned it tightly over the resist then set about laying out another two fine layers in the same pattern.  Or at least, that’s what I intended. Looking back, I think I got distracted and may have only laid out two layers on one side, as the reverse side feels decidedly thin and soft, despite long and patient fulling.  Distracted? When I’m making something I’m finding fun, I tend to add lots of “what if”s and “how about”s instead of sticking to my original plan. See the ‘ooh, shall I add some silk’ for Edge 1.  On this occasion my “how about”s included a stripe of mohair tops, a dark circle cut from Edge 2’s offcuts (one on each side) and a strip of curly locks.  Fun, but not very scientific.

Adding ‘stuff’

Anyhoo, here’s Edge 3.  It does feel lovely and is very light but I wish I’d paid more attention to the layout.  I’m tempted to make something similar with a 6 layer layout.

In the meantime, here’s my exhibition space. I was pleased with the results and had very much enjoyed making three experimental pieces. 

Before I leave you, I thought I’d show you a natural phenomenon I saw while I was making my edge pieces. Being lucky enough to live by the coast, I often have a speed walk in the morning by way of exercise and enjoyment. It was a clear and sunny early morning when I noticed some mist rolling in. I saw a puzzling white arc in the sky – sort of like a rainbow except it wasn’t raining. I decided it might be a ‘mistbow’ and looked it up when I got home. Turns out it’s called a ‘fogbow’. It’s unusual as you have to have very specific conditions: enough mist or fog to reflect the sunlight but a low sun behind you which isn’t obscured by the mist / fog. The water droplets in mist are very small so don’t refract the light like raindrops do, they just reflect it. It’s also called a ghost rainbow. I saw this photo while I was uploading the images for this post and thought you might be interested. I’d never even heard of such a thing but I found it really lovely.

This Weeks Felting

This Weeks Felting

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This week, I managed to make a few small felt pieces.  My husband has been asking me to make some more handle covers for his cast-iron pans.

 

Second. I have a wrap for my travel mug.  I don’t really like the feel of the metal of the mug, especially in the cold. I have several travel mugs, but only one cover.   I have been using the same one for about 10 years. It still looks good, but I thought I should have more than one. I wanted it to be a little longer and wider than the one I’m using at the moment. The one I have now is purple and blue. This one has a green background. The colour is shartruse, I think. The curls are Blue Faced Leicester.

Then I flipped it over and folded the edges in neatly.

This is the finished piece. It still needs a couple of buttons and some elastic to hold it on.

sheep curls felted int the green back ground A close-up of the curls.

close up of curls on green background

Lastly, I finished the strange-looking book resist. This was round one. At the time, I thought it was stiff enough, so I went ahead and rinsed it out and added lots of clothespins so it would dry correctly.

green 5 pointed 3d sat shape with clothespins outside of same piece with clothespins

After opening it up, I was not thrilled with it. It opened wide. I thought maybe ironing it would help. I was showing it in a Zoom chat, and Karen asked if it was completely fulled. My first thought was yes, it was stiff, but as I played with it, it got softer and softer. So I wet it down and kept working it while watching a cosy mystery.  It shrank more and is much sturdier. I needed a lot fewer clothespins. So I rounded the bottom of the arms.

same piece fulled again with clothespins . much stiffer

This is after it was dry. It doesn’t stand on its own. I will need to flatten the bottom or make a little holder, if I want it to stand like this.

same piece, dry without clothspins

Next, I thought I would try partially turning it inside out. I think I like it better this way.

same piece semi inverted, top shot same piece, semi inverted, bottom shot

One not felt thing. Spring is here, Lambing has started.

This little lamb was born on May 2. he will end up cream coloured. You can see the true colour past the dark tips.

wooly sheep and lamb

 

 

Keeping out of mischief!

Keeping out of mischief!

Comments 14 comments

Between exhibitions and challenges, I have been busy for the past few months – at least it kept me out of trouble. I thought I might present some of the pieces to you here.

Just by way of background, I am a member of a small group of feltmakers. At any time, there are a maximum of 10 in the group and the group is called Unperfect 10. I recently learned the reason for the name.  It is in recognition that all members are very ambitious but far from perfect.  I like the name even more now that I know its history.  We meet online every six weeks and we agree a theme for a challenge, the result of which we present at our next get together. Although the theme changes each time, the weight stays the same. The piece we present should weigh 10 grams. It’s not always that easy to weigh in at exactly 10 grams (perhaps that is another reason why our group is called the Unperfect 10!)

So far, we have met three times this year. The theme for our January meeting was ‘Home’. Members’ interpretations were very personal. For me, home revolves around the kitchen. It is the place for gatherings, happiness and informality. This I represented in a cup of tea. Unfortunately I cannot find my original resist but I have drawn one here to give you an idea what it looked like. I laid out the orange fibre on the cup, the handle and just inside the rim and the laid the white and light brown fibre on the upper dome to represent the tea. I then added the circles on the cup as decorations. I felted and fulled the cup, cutting a hole in the base of the cup to remove the resist. I turned the dome top to the inside of the cup, shaped and finished it off. Here are photos of the result.

  • rough sketch of the concept
  • View of the cup
  • I’ll have a half cup!
  • View inside my cup of tea!

 

Our meeting in February required a little more planning. The theme was ‘Carnival’ and each member had to make a prefelt for another member and post it on to them. This prefelt then was used as the main fabric for our creations. Once finished, the piece was posted back to the person who made the prefelt. After a lot of research, I decided to make a colourful version of the Venetian Moretta mask. While in its day, the Moretta mask had other connotations (think Dangerous Liaisons) I was attracted to the button or ball which was attached to the back of the mask as it stopped women from talking, something I felt was pertinent in many societies today. I included curls on the mask – this was a ‘nod’ to the Romans who are believed to have invented carnival, although it was a different affair back then. I used part of the prefelt I received, added some extra fibre, margillan silk and, of course, a button.

  • Front view of the carnival themed moretta mask.
  • Side view of the mask. The Curls are a reference to Roman sculptures.
  • The back of the mask. I added margillan silk and, of course the button!

We had our third meeting in early April. The theme this time was a little more challenging as we worked from a number of words. M.C. Escher; Optical Illusion; Tessellations; Black and White fibre; 3D Sculpture; Resist; Template; Stencil. All of which had to be completed in a 10g presentation! M.C. Escher was a Dutch Graphic artist and if you like you can find out more about his work here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher

I found a section of an Escher piece that I liked and got to work. First, I made my pattern which comprised three identical diamond shapes that made up a cube. Then I made three different colour prefelts (Black/White/Grey) which I then cut out and made into 25 joined cubes (75 pieces). These were then felted together. Once dried and shaped, I stiffened the piece and mounted it on pins in a box frame. The optical illusion is the 3D effect, especially when it is viewed in the frame:

  • My inspiration: Portion of MC Escher’s artwork ‘Cycle’
  • Checking the diamond shapes
  • Checking the layout of the prefelts
  • prefelts are ready for felting!
  • Altogether Cubes weighed in at 9.65g
  • Another side view of the cubes. I removed the glass as it was causing too much shine!
  • Cubes front view. The shadowing can be seen here.
  • View 3: walking around the piece
  • Side view of the cubes. It is pinned into the backing

I also had two pieces in exhibitions during March. The first was a live exhibition which was run by my local felting guild, Feltmakers Ireland. The guild is very well run and there is always something happening in it. If you are based in Ireland, it is well worth joining. The theme of the exhibition was “Symbols of Ireland” and I chose the Irish dry stone wall which was recently formally recognized with its inclusion in UNESCO’s prestigious list of protected cultural heritage practices, and the native Galway breed sheep for my piece. Ireland’s dry stone walls have been around since the Neolithic period so I felt that it would fit the brief. The Galway sheep produce beautiful fleeces which are very versatile and can be used for spinning, weaving and of course felting.

I first had to design and build my wall on paper. Then I made lots of different shades of grey nuno prefelts which were cut to the shapes of the stone drawings. Once the wall was felted onto its background, I needle felted the sheep’s head so that it would add dimension to the piece. This was attached to the picture and then the main body was needle felted using Galway fibre. I made a variety of prefelts which I then cut into the shape of foliage and lichen. These were then needle felted onto the stones. Unfortunately I did not keep a record of my process but here is the result.

  • Irish dry stone wall with sheep
  • A close up of the 3D effect and nuno work
  • Another closeup showing 3D plants and lichen
  • The top of the wall with additions

My final piece was for the online exhibition of the International Feltmakers Association. The theme here was ‘Connections’ and I was not sure what I would do for this. One morning I woke up with the words ‘Chaos theory’ in my head. I knew I needed to investigate this. It led me to my chosen topic ‘The Butterfly Effect’. The butterfly effect suggests small actions can have massive, unpredictable consequences. In society, this idea highlights how individual decisions—like a single vote or a small act of kindness—can ripple through time, influencing social movements, global events, or personal lives, ultimately shaping broader cultural and political outcomes.

Lyn and Annie’s beautiful work with tree canopies provided me with the inspiration for the background of this piece. I have been looking up a lot more since reading their posts on the beauty of the tree canopy. My base was inspired by a photo I took in New Zealand some time ago. I then needle felted the butterfly and then wet felted it. I wanted to be able to manipulate its wings so I added a light wiring to the back of the wings. I then decided that the tree canopy deserved a different perspective – what did we do as kids when looking up at the sky? I remember spinning around. So my square picture became a circle. I attached the butterfly by needle felting it securely to the picture but I also secured it to the felt backing to give it added dimension:

  • My inspiration. Taken in Auckland NZ last year
  • The tree canopy is laid out
  • close up of the felted butterfly
  • Checking possibilities for butterfly placement
  • I decided to cut the background into a circle. This gave me freedom to hang at any angle!
  • Closeup of the 3D butterfly

I hope you enjoyed my little ‘retrospective’. I would love to hear about what you have been working on over the past few months.

Just a little reminder: Registration will open shortly for my wet felted hanging spiral workshop which will begin on 2nd May. Please feel free to click here if you would like to find out more.

A little Progress on the Workshop and Some Nice Yarn.

A little Progress on the Workshop and Some Nice Yarn.

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I have finished the first draft of the resist workshop. 6 pages, and I haven’t added any pictures yet. I printed it out, and I am working on the first sample. I will add notes to the draft and add in anything I missed. The first sample is a circle resist.

stack of wool resists
All stacked and ready to go

stack of resists and rubbing tool
Time to start rubbing

That is how far I got, one set of all the surfaces rubbed. I am going to have to find my studio microwave and set it up so I can reheat these when I get back to them.

 

The only other fibery thing I have done lately is spin on my drop spindle. I do this mostly when I go to guild socials. It’s a nice, portable way to work.

Here are some balls I made earlier,

 

The dark pink has some silk in it, I think it came from Louet a long time ago.  The light blue and purple is from a batt I bought at a fiber show. The other three I made on my blending board. They are meino and sari silk. I like the pops of colour and slight slubbiness it gives the yarn.

Now, I am working on a sample pack from World of Wool. I got it last year. I am just getting to it now. They no longer sell this wool. It is Merino and Stelina (metallic-coated nylon). The Stelina is very sparlkely.

                       

 

I did the yellow first, mostly for a change. I don’t do much yellow. It is hard to get the sparkle with the camera but there is lots of it.  As usual, I found it stuck to several things when I pulled my laundry out of the dryer. It really does get everywhere.

That’s it for my fiberiness for the last little while. I hope everyone is coming out of the winter blues and into the joys of spring. I am looking forward to being able to sit in the garden, in the sun and enjoy my felting and fibers among the flowers and bird song.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch on dark gray background.
Grove of Trees – Part Five

Grove of Trees – Part Five

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My grove nunofelt landscape is finally complete. I added a bit of ‘grass’ in the foreground to balance all the lines at the top from the stitched branches.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch.

I didn’t think that it needed a lot, but just some suggestion of the higher grasses. I also stitched down the loose edges around the entire piece. Now to move forward on getting it ready to frame.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch on tan background.

I didn’t have a lot of fabric to audition to see how the background matte would look. This is on a piece of tan fabric. To my eye, it is too close in value to the piece itself and doesn’t match with the colors.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch on medium gray background.

Then trying on medium gray. This is slightly darker in value but still feels very similar to the values in the piece. It doesn’t do it for me.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch on dark gray background.

Next up is a dark grey background. The darker value is definitely better and brings out the light in the piece. I could use this color, it’s okay.

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch on dark red background.

Then I found a piece of dark red maroon/burgundy colored silk fabric. I won’t use the silk for the background but it was in the color scheme so I thought I would try it. The value is good again, making the light from the back of the piece feel more prominent. The color seems to work pretty well.

What do you think? Would you use a different background fabric color? Or do you like one of the ones I tried?

I’m thinking of naming this one “Golden Grove”. Any other name ideas?

Self-Felting; a Fictitious Fun Felting Class for The Fur-bearing Who Lack Thumbs

Self-Felting; a Fictitious Fun Felting Class for The Fur-bearing Who Lack Thumbs

Comments 21 comments

Here’s a quick update: I am improving, but it’s two steps forward and a step and a half back.  Unfortunately, the two blog posts I have been working on are just not ready to go yet. So I wanted to tell you about something a bit different, I have been working on. It is felting adjacent and made Glenn laugh a lot.

The local guild is working on recruiting new teachers for our workshops. One of the barriers suggested to the acquisition of new teachers is “the paperwork requirements are intimidating”.  I am easily intimidated by forms, but I didn’t find this process at all scary.

The request was:

  • Craft CV (basically, what’s your background in your craft and how long have you been doing it?)
  • A lesson plan for your first workshop. Giving a suggestion of what you will be teaching, outcome goals for the students and a very basic idea of how you will do this.

Later all the teachers will fill out a spreadsheet that is used to create the schedule, and the web pages.  I made a yearlong catalogue of workshops to be displayed at demos and the guild sale. I used the information the teachers provided, and the schedule the team put together to produce it. After I had all the cut and paste and layout done, there were always lots of spelling mistakes that would be attributed to me….. I cut and pasted! Not my spelling problems!!  Since the pandemic, we are no longer doing a full catalogue, but I am no longer in trouble for other people’s spelling problems.  I do miss the fun of layout.

Now, on to the point of this very odd post.

I wanted to help by giving a non-intimidating sample form, for “New teacher”, of a new yet fictitious felting class. After writing this, I had this odd idea that actual felters might enjoy reading about this very unlikely felting workshop I created as a sample to make the forms less scary for potential new teachers. I have simplified the wording of the original questions again to reduce fear.

__________________

This is a craft CV ( which is just a fancy way of saying “what you have been doing in your craft”). It’s a way to find out about the potential new teacher’s background in what they want to teach. (it doesn’t have to be a stuffy list of all relevant education and exhibitions!) So let’s see what Miaka has to say about herself and her felting background. She has added some extra remarks beyond the questions that she hopes the teacher acquisition committee will take into consideration.

Fiber CV for Miaka Scott-Martin,

Education: Home schooled and self-taught felter.   I have been the Center of the universe for many years, directing my staff in its running. Unfortunately, my staff are not too bright and refuse to do my carefully explained bidding.  I use my love of felting to relieve this stress and utter disappointment.

o             When did you start the craft you are going to teach? In my teens.

o             Have you taken workshops on this topic, or are you self-taught? I developed this technique myself.

Craft experience: I watched my mother weave, felt and spin and assisted in some of these activities. Then, in my teens, I started to experiment with techniques of self-felting. After years of experimentation, I have come up with a style of felting suitable to those of us inflicted by a lack of thumbs.

My technique is suitable for most fur-bearing people who shed. It is easier if you are also able to purr. I practiced my felting for close to 20 years.

Teaching experience: my full-time job has me instructing and supervising the staff, but I must be patient with their inadequacies. I have extensive experience successfully instructing the big barking bad smelling new sibling on how to be the perfect cat.

o             Do you have teaching experience (with adults)? Great success with other fur-bearing people, the furless ones have proved a bit dim.

o             If you do not have previous teaching experience, you can partner with a guild teacher in your field to help give you experience.

Shows and exhibitions: This is not essential. Guild members can participate in guild shows and exhibitions if you would like the experience.

o             Have you participated in any art shows or exhibitions in your field? Alas, with my busy schedule of keeping the universe running, I was unable to enter any shows or exhibits even though I was a family member of the guild my entire life.  I was also unable to make anyone understand my superior typing style of body slamming the keyboard, so all the needed letters were there; you just needed to sort them out on your own.

Portfolio: Show examples of their work in the field of their workshop. (shows that the prospective teacher has not just taken a workshop on a topic, and after one piece is wanting to teach the topic.) Some teachers have a web presence and we can be directed to see their work there.

o             Do you have a portfolio to show us or a website to direct us to? Due to the ephemeral nature of my work and the horror of passing vacuum cleaners, most of my art installations have not survived. Please talk to my mother (one of the Guild librarians) for further details on them. I was particularly proud of my master-work, “Self-felting on white Dining room chair cover”. Alas, this great work too was lost to the horrid vacuum.

o             Please provide a good quality digital photo of yourself for web publicity and teacher bios.

Possible teacher photos:

small black and white cat sitting on cow hide in a spot of sunlight1) Miaka, taking a break from work,

small black and white cat leaning out the back of a cardbord sports car. licene plate says Miaka Rules and has a helow kitty skull and crossbones beside the licence plate car made of the finest cardbord box. 2) Miaka, looking out back of her sports car,

small black and white cat lownging in a patch of sunlight staring at vewer. 3) Miaka, center of the Universe, “Don’t interrupt me I’m Busy!”

____________________________________________________________________

New instructors were asked to write a very basic lesson plan of their workshop, giving an overview, goals and objectives. This gives the committee an idea of how the topic will be covered and that the teacher has thought through and has an organized presentation. This is Miaka’s plan to teach her workshop on self felting.

Outline of lesson plan for workshop

1 day  workshop with longer homework project

Class size; maximum number of fabric-covered chairs that can sit in good direct sunlight. Any Students who are too big to lounge on a chair are required to bring a blanket or pillow that they will fit on.

Prerequisites for this workshop:

  • No experience in felting necessary
  • Must have shed-able fur

Housekeeping

  • introduction of the teacher and what the workshop is about
  • where the washrooms are
  • point out the coffee maker, microwave and fridge
  • Mention local food sources.
  • Gets students to say their names and felting experience

Overview of the course

  • what students will be expected to do and learn
  • What the final project will be.
  • Notes can be given at the beginning or end of the workshop
  • Contact information for the teacher in case the students have questions

Introduction to felting,  (fibres and how it works)

How to grow your own fiber (good diet, lots of naps, dual coat, good grooming, etc)

Tools required

  • Sunny spot with a comfortable sitting item (Chair, couch, other fabric covered object)
  • An un-sunny spot can also be used, but it’s not as warm. This is sometimes the better location to felt, depending on your home cleaning staff.

Shedding

  • Practice shedding with suggestion from the teacher. (use of music, turning and repositioning regularly, long yawns and brief naps may be helpful)
  • Some find shedding easiest at certain times of the year, others are more fortunate and can shed whenever and on whatever they like.
  • Professional shedders can shed a single colour to stand out most on what someone else is wearing.

Self-felting

  • Regular turning and repositioning with constant purring will improve speed of felting.
  • Drool may also be applied but is not necessary for felt integrity.
  • This is not a quick process, and may be best achieved on a fabric surface not regularly used by others.

Problems you may encounter

  • BEWARE of the Vacuum, which can ruin months of good shedding and felting! I suggest “vomit in shoe” revenge if this happens.

Inspection and Positively critique the sample felting produced today.

  • Be positive and make suggestions for use on their masterwork home project. Answer any questions the students may still have.
  • Fill out the workshop questionnaire, since the students lack thumbs, their staff may assist them.

homework student master pieces

  • Students will practice what they have learned in the workshop at home, in a location of their choosing.
  • Suggested time line is working over the summer and have your self-shredded felt ready for the September show and tell meeting.
  • Students will bring in their finished felt for show and tell to a guild meeting. (get your staff to drive you back on the meeting Monday)

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After a teacher has done their CV and Sample lesson plan, the teacher acquisition committee will review the information provided and, if accepted, will pass along to The Workshop Coordinator a list of new teachers. The Coordinator will send out a spreadsheet of questions to fill in for each workshop that the teachers are offering for the time frame she has requested. That looks a bit scary but the questions are not too hard. Like, what time do you want to start your workshop, when do you want it to end? After teachers spend a bit of time answering all these odd seeming questions and sending it back, the workshop team will create the schedule.

  • Fill in the spreadsheet sent to teachers, it will have questions about the workshop and your teaching availability, and what level of students you want to teach.
  • You will also be asked for a couple of high resolution (good number of megapixels) photos for your workshop. What you are making is ideal. Miaka has elected to show an example of shedding for both cats and barking cats, as well as a shot of her wanting to felt but not having thumbs.
  • Availability: Let the coordinator know when in the next workshop time period you will be available. Eg: evening workshops, but not Friday, weekends good, not in March or September. Have holiday plans for April 1 to 4th so not available.

Workshop description (this information is used to publicize the workshop, on the web, at demos, or at guild meetings) Here is an example of what Miaka’s workshop might look.

 

Title: Self-Felting: for those who are lacking opposable thumbs

Instructor: Miaka Scott-Martin
Level: Beginner (B)

Prerequisite: no felting experience necessary, must have own fur, ability to purr is an asset.
Cost: (to be determined by Workshop team, by the number of hours the class runs)

Class size: 10, determined by the maximum number of fabric covered chairs and good direct sunlight. Students who are too big to lounge on a chair are required to bring a blanket or pillow that they will fit on.
Venue: Studio

 

small black and white cat hiding partly under a white comferter while looking at two needle felted sheep4) Don’t let the lack of opposable thumbs get you down and keep you from enjoying the wonders of 2-D felting

Description: 

Have you always wanted to felt, but lack opposable thumbs? This is the workshop for you! We will be creating a self-made 2-D felt. Taught in the guild studio, we will spend the day covering the topics of growing your own fiber, how felt happens, strategies for shedding, and where to shed for best felting outcome. We will make a small sample in class, then produce your masterwork at home. The teacher will provide notes and be available to answer questions if you have trouble during your homework.

Start your self-felting fun today!!!

Example of group self-felting project, in progress, tragically destroyed by a passing vacuum

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5.1) Barking Cat and 5.2) the Center of the Universe,  collaborative felting project in progress

 

Students should bring: On the day of the workshop, bring your own un-brushed fur (to produce the best effect, avoid the brush for a few days to a week before the workshop)

Materials fee: $3 includes all the materials required for the workshop. To be paid to the teacher.

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I hope you have enjoyed reading about Miaka’s proposed self-felting workshop, even if you are not self-producing your own fiber to self-felt. There may be a fur-bearing instructor near you, who is willing to provide a similar workshop that you could investigate.

As to her technique, the purring defiantly helps the felting, but I’m not convinced you have to listen to progressive new opera for the best results. This is a slow, careful build up of fiber, and requires time to get just the cohesive layering you are going for. It requires long periods of napping and body readjusting to perfect the felting process. This technique is not advised for those with fur allergies or those who lack fur. <Grin>

Miaka lived to just short of her 20th birthday. Luckily she got her Giant fish cat cave, which I told you about before, early and got to enjoy it for a short time. She continued her self-felting projects, experimenting with various work surfaces, into her very senior years. I am sure if she had run this workshop, it would have been successful, (I would have helped her with notes and photos).

large wet and needle felted fish held up as it were a fishing toffy fish. it is shades of grey finn wool with bits of blue grey silk fiber.6.1) The Giant Cat cave fish, to give you an idea of the size of it

small black and white cat (Miaka)curled up between the fins of her gient fish cat cave. she is blind by this point and had truble finding the mouth enterence.6.2) Miaka, curled up beside her Cat Cave fish. Tiny cat giant fish!

 

If you have the opportunity to share your knowledge with others who are interested in any of the fiber arts, please do. That could be formally as a teacher or informally at a social or chatting at a fiber fair. Sharing knowledge keeps the techniques from being lost or forgotten. Often when teaching, you will have a student try something that is brilliant and you will also learn from them.

Hopefully this hasn’t been too strange a post, I will endeavor to make more sense in my next one.

Have fun and keep felting!

 

 

 

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey, peach and red and dark maroon threads couched down for branches.
Grove of Trees – Part Four

Grove of Trees – Part Four

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I have been working slowly on my grove of trees landscape. I finished stitching down all the trunks and foreground fabrics.

Nuno felt landscape of a grove of trees, all applique stitched down.

So here’s a photo with it all stitched in place. Next up was adding a bunch of branches and I wanted to see how I could do that.

I took a piece of clear plastic and used paint pens on the plastic to look at various color choices. The photo on the left shows white paint pen and the one on the right shows using grey, peach and brown paint pens. The white definitely felt too stark. So I thought I would use a mixture of colors.

Wool threads choices for branches.

I looked through my stash to see what colors I had that might work. I decided to use wool thread as I wanted the branches to not stand out too much. I thought adding “shiny” cotton thread wouldn’t work well.

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey thread couched down for branches.

So I started with grey thread and this photo doesn’t really show the true colors of the thread. I used the grey on the grey trunks in the background.

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey and peach threads couched down for branches.

Then on to adding peach branches to the peach tree trunks.  I couched the threads down using the same thread for the couching stitches.

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey and peach thread couched down for branches. Auditioning dark red and pink thread for further branches.

Then I needed to decide if I was going to keep going with light colored threads or add some darker branches. I tried a piece of pink thread by laying it down on the right and then a dark maroon thread in the center. I decided the darker branches would work the best. As the light in this piece is coming from the back right, the lighter branches give that feeling of light shining on them. The foreground branches would be darker with less light shining on them.

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey, peach and red threads couched down for branches.

So I added a medium value red thread for the three red trees to the right side. Again, all the branches were couched down.

Nuno felt tree landscape with grey, peach and red and dark maroon threads couched down for branches.

Then I added in the maroon threads for the darker trees on the left side.  I also turned the silk that was loose on the top under to the back. I will hand stitch all of the loose silk around the edge down to the back. The piece is now hanging on the design wall. I think I will add some peach “grass” in the foreground just as I have couched down the threads for the branches. But I am letting it sit for a bit so I can see if it needs anything else. What do you think?