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Autumn Leaf wet felted table mat
Autumn Leaves Table Mat, Lavender Bags and Sarah Snowman

Autumn Leaves Table Mat, Lavender Bags and Sarah Snowman

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Annie

Autumn Leaf wet felted table mat

I have discovered that I like making table mats!  They are easy to make, don’t require a mount or framing, and the design can be as simple as a plain colour, a pattern or repeated motif and no composition required.  That means they have a good chance of being completed.

Autumn is my favourite season – the temperature cools, the air is crisp (well sometimes, when it’s not pouring with rain! But I love the rain too so that’s OK!), the leaves are glorious colours, it just feels lower pressure all round than summer to me and has the feeling of “cosy”, and felted housewares can add a layer to that cosy feeling!

Autumn Leaves table mat on wooden table with mirror and houseplant

So this project was born of table mats and autumn leaves.  The leaves were made first and shown in our last blog post (blog post) so this post is to show the finished thing.  I say finished….but some of the bright yellow fibres didn’t felt as well as I would like so I might add some needle felting or stitching, not sure yet.  I think the dyeing process of the bright yellow may have over processed the fibres in some way as they remained a little fluffy but the rest of the yellows felted perfectly well.

Here are a few photos of the making, it was quite simple, a circle of yellow that I pre-felted before adding the leaves, that I later trimmed around the shape of the leaves after it had felted a bit.

Felting in progress

I am really pleased with it.  Originally those leaves were just my samples and I was going to make the real leaves after, but then I decided I liked them just as they were.

I managed one other small autumn project of two lavender bags, although they took weeks – I started the project and then there it sat staring at me for 4 weeks, because I thought I had messed it up.

Lavender Bag Quilting in progress

I haven’t done patchwork before that I can remember, and after I had sewed the first squares together it didn’t look right, so I gave up.  But then…..I looked at it again and realised it was just a seam allowance that was making the design look misplaced.  So I picked it up and had another go and sure enough they turned out OK.  I am very pleased with them.  The smell is divine too!  My neighbour had given me a huge lot of lavender.  Some of it stayed on the stems as decorative bunches  …

Lavender stems in ceramic jug

… and the rest I stripped from the stems and put it in jars that I leave open and shake to release the scent. But I daren’t waste it so I wanted a little project.   I don’t like many smells, but I do love real lavender.

Quilted Lavender Bags with Purple Ribbon Hangers

Lyn

I used some scrap fuzzy yarns to knit Sarah Snowman – a hanging tree decoration.  She’s 18cms (5”) tall, plus the hanging cord.  Of course there had to be felt in there somewhere so the nose was fashioned from Bergschaf wool then needle felted into the knitted, stuffed face.  Her arms are twisted floral wire and the gift she is carrying is made from fancy ribbons.

She is waving hello to you all with her free hand 😊

Knitted Snowman holding a gift

 

 

Shopping and Felting, I promise (New picture started & Blue Whale)Part1

Shopping and Felting, I promise (New picture started & Blue Whale)Part1

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Today we will get to felting, but first…There is a new Fiber festival, Ontario East Fibre Fest, in October, south of Ottawa (Canada). Let’s get up early and drive south just past Smith Falls to check it out. I saw ads on Facebook; it looks like there will be a good selection of vendors. Some of whom you may recognise from past shopping opportunities. This looks like fun you might enjoy joining me! Don’t forget to pack your window shopping money and meet us in the driveway by 8 am. Afterwards we can visit the cottage and continue the felting.

Saturday Morning heading to Lombardy:

The drive is just over an hour; it’s one of those places you can’t quite get to in a straight line. If we had more time, we could stop while going through Carlton Place, at the wool growers co-op and look at fleeces, but there may be some at the sale, so let’s keep going. Smith Falls is part of the canal system that runs from Ottawa to Kingston. (The locks were built to help thwart American ideas of trying to liberate us from the British. The Americans were surprised we liked being British and not American.)

map of part of eastern Ontario and close up of Fair grownds at Lombardy1.1) Map of eastern Ontario & map of the event.

Just south of Smithfalls is the town of Lombardy; we are stopping at the Lombardy Fair Grounds. There is a complex of agricultural buildings, lots of parking, and when we arrived, we could see food trucks. We had made good time on the drive, found the handicap parking, and went to start the line to go in. (We are early.)

3 photos of buildings at the Lombardy fair grounds1.2) The buildings

The event was spread over 3 of the buildings (there were a couple more they could expand into, if they had more vendors in the future). It’s a bit of a hike between the 3, but with the walker it was fine. The organisers had a good mix of vendors, with offerings from raw fleece to finished goods and tools. It was not as yarn-heavy as some large fibre festivals have been at lately, but still had a good variety of yarn. Keep an eye out for Toby’s fluorescent yarn; it glows in black light!!! Do you want to knit something for a rave? Let’s have a quick look at some of the things for sale. There is always room for more virtual fibre in your hoard! Luckily real fibre is quite squishy, so there is room for more of that too!!

3photos of things for sale at the Ontario East Fiber festival 6 photos of things for sale at the Eastern Ontrio Fiber festival2.1- 2.2 ) photos from booths

They had asked one of the local sheep shearers to demo on Saturday and a farmer to bring their alpaca on Sunday.

- Setting up for sheering, - sheering of goat, - volinteers to get sheered, - fleeces and sheep after sheering3.1- )sheep shearing (there were also 3 mohair goat volunteers for a haircut. The youngest was having his first haircut and was not impressed!)

They had arranged 2 food trucks, and one little building had Chapman’s ice cream on cones or cups. One of the food trucks was selling food featuring cheese (I found out later they had a fantastic variety of grilled cheese sandwiches, one with pineapple! The other was handmade tacos. I should have gone over to look more closely!!! Next year.

2 photos, - 2 food trucks, Husband with icecreem4.1) ice cream and food trucks

It’s now past 2 pm; if we are going to also get some raking and felting done at the cottage, we probably should head out soon. By the time we got there, Glenn was wiped, and I was busy trying to get a shot of all the cool things I found. So we put off the raking of the pine needles until Sunday morning.

3 photos - new 3D printed combs, New Fiber and handout from event5.1) Jan’s Loot from the Ontario East Fibre Fest

I wound up working on the blue whale after dinner. I can’t find more of the tongue colour I had used. It’s probably in the missing box with my photo reference pictures. So used what I had left and then started to join the top and bottom sections together.

Sunday:

Glenn inspected the progress Sunday morning

building up under-structure of blue whale5.2- Whale on chair in 2 pieces, working on felting down mouth and colouring tongue, Glenn inspecting whale with 2 parts joined

It’s amazing how weather can change over a short space of time. I was inspired by the steam coming off the creek that looked like little figures dancing above the water (looked a bit dangerous dancing on water; you could fall in and get wet).

The water was flat and reflected the trees and fall colours at 7:30 am. After breakfast, it was still calm, and Glenn spent a couple of hours removing the pine needles over the septic field and up the driveway. He made 3 big piles by the edge of the driveway.

 

While he was busy with the pine needles, I started lunch, ginger orange chicken with peppers and onions over rice. During lunch, we noticed odd noises on the metal roof and finally figured out it was pine cones being pelted by the pine trees at the house! This shock was followed by an increasingly gusty wind and the Pine-Snow-Apocalyptics!!! The beautifully raked yard, the driveway and even the previously clean porch were covered in pine needles and stray leaves! As if Sunday morning raking had never happened.

https://youtube.com/shorts/h0QWWmRMf-U?feature=share

5.3) video of snowing pine needles 

pine needles carpeting the deck, thedrive way and a photo of the creek 5.4) Photos of the area around the cottage of the pine needle apocalypses.

pine needles cerownd rectangle where car was parked which is clearly deliniated5.5)Where the car was parked during the event; you can see the per-raking level of needles under the car.

I guess we can try again next week? Oh well, I did get to work on the blue whale; he now looks more whale-like, but his fin-wires are too high. I promise I will lower them.

Monday was the guild meeting, so I was in early to set up the library, do a check of the circulation file and add a few donated books and a new magazine. Then it was time for the meeting, which was on sock knitting machines and was very interesting. I had a selection of the guild’s books on socks from the post-spinning section. (Post-spinning is things you can do with thread or yarn after you have spun it). (I also have a post-weaving section of the guild library, formerly known as sewing.)

OVWSG library display for topic of sock knitting and photo from meeting about sock knitting machines6.1- shots of the meeting/library set up

Tuesday, I have the new mini tower computer back and am trying to get it set up. I lost all my old beloved hardworking programs when the huge tower computer died. No more Windows 2010 and its fabulous artistic photo editing tools!!! No more Publisher supported by Microsoft, so I was going to dump all their products as soon as I lost my old owned copy. I had been pointed to OpenOffice, but the one I found was very clunky and took much longer to write a blog post on. I later found the newer version LeberOpenoffice, it has lots of features and is still getting updates. I wrote the last blog post in that. I didn’t have extra time to investigate it too far, but I did discover it can open Publisher files, so I’m very happy. I had to reinstall PhotoPad, which both Ann and I use, but the new version is more limited and keeps trying to get us to buy the suite. (annoying)

It took most of 2 days to edit the photos for the blog. It is still slower than windows/old photopad was, but I will create a workaround, and it will get faster, I hope.

Glenn was home earlier than he has been in over a month, so we packed up and went to Kanata for the evening. Glenn played another horrible train game for about 3 hours, and I lowered the whales fins/

As you may remember from the smaller humpback whale armature, they have upper and lower armature body parts. For the bigger blue whale, I had moved the fins to the upper armature since they seemed a tiny bit low on the Humpback whale. I realised I had added more to the underside of the upper body than I had anticipated, so as I joined the upper and lower body parts together, the fins seemed a bit high…. drat. Oh well, if I had left them on the lower armature, they would still be too low. I can relocate them down by adding an extra wire. I tried just bending them to a lower their position but that made the fin support too short. I will get that fixed before I make the wet felted skin.

I inserted a 6-gauge wire between the two armatures about where the fins should be. Then cut the trailing end of the fin wire I had mis-located and wound it around the new, much stiffer wire. Once the wire was positioned, it was time to spend a bit of time firming the area between the eye position and the far side of the fin.

adding 6g aluminum wier through whale then using original 12g to wrap around 6g and hold it in place 7.1) Fin Fixing with augmented 6g wire inserted between armatures.

Oh dear, it’s already very long. I will stop here and share the rest next time.

 

What if I ……?

What if I ……?

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Like a cat (and like most of us here) I have had many previous lives. At one stage I worked in finance, I was never really let loose on customers (possibly a good thing for all our sakes). When not fitting out apartments, I was strictly a numbers gal. This was before computers landed on all our desks. When they did, I found them mouth wateringly fascinating (I guess you are beginning to understand why I was best kept in the back office). The first software I had a chance to get my head around was called Symphony. It was one of the first spreadsheet packages the company bought into. I loved it. It had a great function called “What-If”. It’s still around today although Symphony is long gone.

You might now wonder why I am bringing this up. Well, I was bored recently. So I decided to play and to resurrect my own version of the ‘What-If’ function. In short, I had fun. Honestly I don’t do it enough.

So I just kept asking myself ‘what if’ questions, actioning them and seeing the results. I suppose this is the question we all quietly ask ourselves when we play….

Anyway, back to my playtime. What got me started was the question, what if I just doodle a resist? The only limitations I put on this was that I wanted an opening at the top and the bottom. Here is the result:

The resist I used

 

Next, it was decision time, the background colour…. What if I used black merino for this? Would it swallow up all my decorations? Would the whole experiment be a waste of time? So what if it was! Chickening out was not an option!

The last big question I wanted to ask was what if I laid all of the decorative elements against the resist and then laid my background? That’s not really rocket science, is it to felt blindly. But it does add to the loss of control over the piece but also provides an interesting element of surprise when the piece is turned the right side around after the resist is removed (and there’s no going back).

So here is the result of my what if experiment. I will take you through each element briefly to give you, I hope a clearer picture of the game. Each decorative element began with the question ‘What if’ so I won’t bore you with constantly repeating this. Let’s get started:

I laid a thick mix of linen and viscose on the widest opening of the vessel.

shiny viscose and no sheen linen

The reaction was quite interesting. The sheen of the viscose disappeared to a great extent so I suspect what I am looking at is more likely the linen element which was a dull red to start with. Both have adhered well and have produced a nice wavy pattern as they felted into the shrinking black fibre.

Viscose with linen fibres – viscose sheen is drowned out by the linen

I laid down some art yarn that I had purchased from someone who was reducing their stash.  This was in no way guaranteed to work as I don’t feel that person who sold it to me ever experimented with it. Here is what it looks like on the ball. I have absolutely no idea of its composition but I reckoned it was worth a try.

Art Yarn from a stash someone was selling off

 

So I meandered it around two sides of the vessel. I actually love the result! It was caught by the black merino and is firmly embedded but not swallowed. A total win!

art yarn

Next I laid down a thick layer of viscose in two different colours; first the red and then a beautiful shade of purple.

red and purple viscose (purple too close in colour to back merino – swallowed in felting)

The purple was laid over and alongside the red. Because I was working in reverse, I expected that the red would dominate the line with the purple acting as an edging when the vessel was turned right side out. I was hoping that where the viscose laid on top of each other, they might decide to mix a bit. This result was surprising as the purple viscose was swallowed up by the black merino. The red adhered beautifully and kept its sheen so it looks quite different to the fibre mix used at the opening (mentioned earlier).

red and purple viscose

 

 

Next, I used a piece of lightweight silk chiffon that I dyed some years ago and had been foolishly keeping for a ‘special occasion’. I do have to ask myself why I find it so hard to cut into beautiful fabrics (I have too many of these!).

I dyed this silk some years ago (clamped)

 

 

I expected the black to swallow up the silk completely but this didn’t happen (confession: I did give it a light shave to see what would happen). Very pleased with the result here.

Hand dyed nuno

 

 

On a rummage, I found some prefelt I made ions ago, it was time to throw this into the mix.

Remnants of thick red merino and viscose used in raised lines

I had made this red prefelt using viscose as a decorative element so I roughed up the back, cut it into strips and laid it down on the resist. I was able to play with these lines when I was fulling it and create a 3 dimensional surface on the vessel. It was fun twisting and turning these as I worked them. The black fibre migrated through and they now remind me of coils for some reason.

red viscose and merino prefelts felted in and then pinched to create ridges

Turning over to the other side, I played with the notion of a felted ‘shibori’ element. I found some prefelt and made the 3D elements stuffing the prefelt and tying it off. I then roughed up the back. I laid some black merino on top of the prefelt (avoiding the balls) so that the ‘shibori’ would protrude from the vessel background. These were then laid face down on the resist. I did not have the same control when felting as I could not get my hands near the bases of the ‘shibori’ That said, it produced interesting results.

Prefelt – shibori effect

 

My next experiment was to nuno felt some fabric into the vessel but to leave a hole where there was no merino used.

Silk, lace and pencil roving used in window and nuno (purple silk)

I was inspired by something I learned on a course with Jorie Johnson but I used a different process to Jorie’s here.   I decided to double up on the fabric to make the hole a little more interesting I used a purple silk behind a very delicate lace which came from an old mantilla someone donated many years ago. Before laying down the fabric I outlined the future hole with pencil roving, then popped the fabric on top. The purple silk extended way beyond the featured hole and it felted in wonderfully. I love the overall effect.

Purple Nuno, and window (black lace and purple silk)

 

Then I used some very special locks. The donor was a Leicester Longwool sheep aptly named ‘Bright Eyes’. These were sourced from my buddy Leonor who is the creative genius behind Eleanor Shadow (https://eleanorshadow.com/) Be sure to check out her website and all her beautiful hand dyed products.  Here are some of the locks I used.  The colours are gorgeous!

Eleanor Shadow’s beautiful hand dyed locks

 

I thought I would add a little of Bright Eyes to the mix to see how it would react to being totally felted into the vessel. The fibre kept its lustre and happily felted in without being swallowed. I do have to add that I would prefer to see these beautiful locks move freely as a statement on a piece rather than being ‘imprisoned’ in this way. Just glad I only used a few!

Bright Eyes locks felted in close-up

 

Finally, my last experiment involved taking some of the hand dyed silk I had used earlier, I gathered it by hand stitching, I laid it down on the resist so that the hand stitching was uppermost and then added the black merino background. I had no real control as to how this would felt in so I needed to do a bit of pulling to loosen up the fabric once I turned it as the black fibre had come right through all the layers. All a learning experience. Next time I will work with the stitched fabric on top of the fibre as I will be more in control and have less tugging and pulling (and cussing) at the end.

gathered silk then nuno’d

 

All in all, the play was fun. No methodical approach to sampling here, just good fun. And sure don’t we learn when we are having fun!  Here is the final piece:

 

Next: the update on workshops taken. Just one this time, flowers with Diana Nagorna. I supersized one of two of the flowers (just for fun of course) Here are the results.

 

 

Lastly, registration is open for my online course wet felting a spiral. The course will start on 30th October and run through the month of November.     You will have access to step by step videos, a downloadable PDF and, of course yours truly here in the virtual classroom. Please feel free to click on the following link to find out more https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/classes/hanging-felted-spiral/   It will be the last spiral session for 2026 and as I plan to do a bit of travelling next year I am not sure of my scheduling for 2027.

Happy felting (and playing) all!

Helene x

Making a weighted blanket.

Making a weighted blanket.

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Weighted blankets may often be helpful for anxiety, and the pressure of this type of  blanket may help to calm, and reduce stress. They can be, and are, used by both adults and children; they can be described as a comforting hug, and used as an aid to restful sleep.

These blankets have also been used to help calm children with a diagnosis of autism or a hyperactive disorder.

Five years ago my nephew and his wife adopted 3 children – siblings  (the youngest would not be born for another two months. They were unable to conceive, and IVF attempts had failed twice. So, they adopted the two siblings, and agreed to adopt the expected baby at birth. An instant family. The children have their challenges, and I was asked to make two weighted blankets for the two older children about 18 months after their adoption. The blankets are really helpful during stressful periods for the children, and they love them!

The third child now needs his own blanket – the older siblings are fed up sharing! I hope this post gives an idea of how I made the blanket – but you may already know how to make one? I did not make any notes first time round unfortunately, Youtube is, as always, a help.

It is most important that the blanket is not too heavy for the child, or adult. They need to be able to move underneath it, and the blanket must never be placed over the child’s head. It is recommended that the weighted blanket should be no more than 10% of the child’s weight, this includes the blanket weight before the beads are inserted. The beads are very small, and can be made from plastic, or micro glass. The glass variety are more expensive. This photo shows the size of the beads in comparison to a few grains of rice.

I used plastic beads for the blankets. The Youtube tutorials describe various methods of blanket making, but skip over the tricky bit of inserting the beads. I had kept a long cardboard tube on which some fabric was rolled, from some years ago. I was so happy to find the tube again. I had used it with the other blankets too. The use of the cardboard tube was definitely a lightbulb moment the first time i made these.

I had the blanket measurements, and the child’s weight, so I just had to calculate the channels and number of pockets needed, so that there would be an even distribution of the pellets all over the blanket. So, a regular quilt, but with two layers of batting, stitched together on three sides, inside out, and then turned the right side out. A further reinforcing line of stitching one inch from the edge removed the need for any binding. I did not use any special fabric, both top and back were repurposed cotton, and actually match the fabric of the first two.

I measured and stitched six channels down the length of the blanket, and measured again to decide on the size of the pockets.

The weighing scales, and small pots for holding the small portion of beads for each pocket were assembled. Once each group of beads was inserted, I made sure that they were shaken down to the bottom, and two rows of stitching to secure those pockets, and repeated this process to complete the blanket. The top edges were turned in, and stitched to secure. I weighed the blanket and I was happy that it was just over 10% of the body weight. A label with the name on completed the look.

Grand daughter No 2 is requesting similar for Christmas……….

Strawberry Moon

Strawberry Moon

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I finished the little quilt that I was working on where I made the circle portion while playing with my circle attachment and my sewing machine’s built in stitches. It started off like this:

machine stitched circles on white fabric
The beginning

And by the end of my July 2026 blog post looked like this:

Progress as of the end of July

Here is a link to the July blog post if you are interested in reading about how I got this point…https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2026/07/25/more-circle-play/

It had been hanging on my design wall since I finished that blog post so I thought I had better get it finished. I have a series of Full Moon quilts that I’ve been working on for several years now and I thought this piece could become a good candidate for that series. Since I already started using my “tile” method I decided to continue with that method. By ‘tile method” I mean that I cut out shapes from fabrics that have been fused to Wonder Under, all raw edge, and then iron them to a background once I find the perfect fabrics for my project.

My other Full Moon quilts usually have a solid-colored background that I completely fill with tiles, so this one added a few new challenges for me because of that busy background. And I was still dealing with the “in your face” white portion of the circle.

My first decision was to get rid of the white. I printed out a couple photos and using my colored pencils, I tried yellow, green and red violet over the white.

I liked the yellow the best. I was surprised with that choice, well aware of how bright it would be in that proportion. I then used an Inktense pencil with aloe vera on the fabric piece to set it off (the aloe vera keeps it from running hither and yon).

Circle after adding yellow Inktense pencil

Yep, quite bright. Now I need to figure out how to try to calm it down.

Adding more tiles

The yellow is still quite bright after adding some additional tiles around and inside it, but a full moon can be bright too!

At this point I felt that I had enough tile pieces but I still felt that it needed additional elements that would help move the eye around the piece.

I added some hand painted organza pieces and some of the leftover fabric that I had cut my tiles from.

Adding different elements for movement

 

I kept experimenting with elements and color and finally decided to call it done although I did make a few tweaks to it before I started quilting it.

Additions done!

 

Tiles stitched down so they won’t fall off

At this point I have all the tiles stitched down.  In this photo I have safety pins holding the unquilted layers together. I try to travel between tiles if possible so I don’t have to keep picking up the needle and moving to another area. I had quite a few thread changes for this piece.  Now I need to figure out how to quilt the rest of it. Unfortunately, I had to stop and place an online thread order because even though I have 30+ colors of green in various weights, not one of them satisfies me. Guess that gives me more time to think about what I want to quilt into the remaining spaces. So sorry, but my thread won’t arrive in time for me to finish quilting this before this blog post is due. I’ll try to remember to post a photo on my next blog once I get it completed.

I decided to call this piece Strawberry Moon. It brings back memories of strawberry fields and picking flats of berries during the summer months.

This was a fun and challenging project and I learned a lot while working on it. It made quite the transition from start to finish!

Here are some of my other Full Moon quilts in the series.

Harvest Moon   2017   32 1/4″ W x 39 1/2″ H

Flower Moon   2019    22 1/4″ W x 30 1/2″ H

Blue Moon   2020   22 1/4″ W x 30 1/2″ H

Snow Moon    2022    32 1/2″ W x 37 3/4″ H

Each of these have been juried in to various quilt shows over the years. I hope you enjoyed seeing them.

Happy creating!

Tesi Vaara

Flowers in a vase: a wetfelted abstract project

Flowers in a vase: a wetfelted abstract project

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Hello all!

First of all a recap of my recent activities to give you a background to my most recent piece.

I have been very taken with preparing and then attending my local Art Trail in the first 2 weeks of September: if you remember, my last post was about how I prepared a few new felted items for it, because I wanted to bring a mix of new and old things.

One of the Bourough of Ealing Art Trail banners on a railing at a local park.
It’s quite the event in our local community!

Here is what my stand was looking like at the beginning of the first day of the BEAT (Borough of Ealing Art Trail):

Kiki Peruzzi's stand at the Borough of Ealing Art Trail 2026 is a small table covered in a white cloth. Some scarves are hanging from a small rack on the left, and the items on the table are all small and brightly colored, with some small white framed artworks and other small items. There are small windows above the stand and the walls behind the stand are bare bricks and crumbling mortar.
My small corner. I actually did not bring a lot of items, as I could always get more from home if needed and I did not want to get a very crowded look.

 

A closer look to Kiki's stand at BEAT 2026. At the center of the image, there is the table with many different white framed artworks, two felted bowls holding small felted objects, and some coaster sets in plastic wraps. In the background there is a brick wall and in the upper part of the image there is a window letting bright light come through.
A closer look at the table. You may be able to spot some of the items I was working on the last time that I wrote a post.

 

The left hand side of Kiki's stand at BEAT 2026, with a closer glimpse to some colorful felted scarves, and some small artworks in mixed media and felt.
Here is a closer look at the left hand side.

I have to say, this event is the most fun one among the various exhibitions and events that I participate in with my local art group, the Ealing Art Group: we meet tons of people, and our families and friends are encouraged to pass through. We set up demonstrations of our art in the little yards in front of the hall (weather permitting), to pass the time and  to call passers-by inside (some of us tried also to improvise a little dance routine to catch the attention of people going by, but we felt that it was a bit too much in the end..). And we chat a lot among ourselves, as it is the only time in the year when we actually pass hours together in the same room (the other exhibitions are manned or womaned on a rota as a group, whereas each of us has to take care of their own stand in this one).

Kiki Peruzzi smiles while demonstrating wet felting outside of the Art Trail venue for her local art group. There is a white plastic table set in front of a brick wall decorated with colorful bunting. On the table there are some wool bags in white, teal, grey and pink. There are also a green sprinkler and a plastic container with some water, and on the right there is a small log on top of some white netting and bubble wrap. Kiki is holding some wool in her hands. She is wearing a white sleeveless top and dark blue short trousers.
I had an interesting time demonstrating wet felting while battling the wind and chatting to visitors: you can see it in my please-take-that-shoot-quickly-before-it-all-flies-away smile! I like to think that at least I caught many children’s hearts by giving away wisps of pink and green wool all during my demos!

This year we had a brilliant attendance on the first weekend, weirdly not matched by proportionally higher sales, and usual good attendance on the second weekend: we think that it was because other non-related events were going on in the area during the first weekend, so more people were out and about.

While I was in the middle of this, plenty of new ideas for felting and mixed media pieces were coming to my mind of course: I do not know about you, but that is what happens to me whenever I have no time and I can chat with other creative people and see what they make.

One of the ideas that I thought that I could start on without much fuss was a new wet felted piece about flowers. I need to explain that the artist exhibiting her watercolour pieces right in front of me in the room, and a good friend, is very fond of representational abstract artwork of bright flowers, and I was inspired to make a bright and colourful small piece. What I really set up to make in the end, though, was something quite different.

First of all, I considered that I had bought two canvases 65 x 90 cm (25.6 x 35.5 inches) that I had never used yet, so that a bigger artwork was in order. And, most of all, the base prefelt that I prepared for my artwork was in pewter, as I did not have enough wool of a brighter colour and also, to be totally candid, when I actually got to it, I did not feel like a brighter colour for my base.

So, you just have to take my word for it, my initial idea was of a jolly and quick little flowery piece, but good intentions did not last the first five minutes of actually setting up to make something for real, as it so often happens to me.

I put my chosen canvas on the working table to understand the approximate size of my base felt and started to lay the wool out, from the setting up of the edges to the filling of the area inside them with two layers of Merino wool. In hindsight I maybe should have gone for my usual 3 layers for the base, but as I was laying out the wool to cover the whole area I had started panicking that the project was too big for the time that I had, and so I was trying to cut times where I felt that I could. That resulted in a coverage that was not as good as I wanted for it, also because in the following steps I ended up deciding to not cover all the base with other colours so as to provide another layer on top of it, as I often do instead.

That is how I started:

There is an oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. On it there is the outline in pewter wool of a big rectangle
The size for this new piece was almost at the limits of what I can make on my table when it is closed.
On an oval table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap there is a big rectangular shape almost completely covered in a first vertical layer of wool.
I tend to layout my base layers not very carefully, as it is supposed to just be a support base to the actual piece. This was my first layer.

After laying out the base and lightly wetting and soaping it, I started laying out the colours for the background from the darkest greens and greys to the lightest (light lime green, yellow and light greys and white):

On a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap, there is a work in progress wet felted piece by Kiki Peruzzi. The piece at this stage is a big rectangle in wet pewter wool with a build up of background wisps of wool in dark and lighter green, dark and lighter grey, light yellow and white on it.
I tend to have light coming from the upper right hand in my pieces, it just works this way for me in most cases. It is also true that the table that I work on has light coming from the right naturally anyway, so maybe that is one reason.

I wanted a good contrasting area, so I went for pretty dark hues in my background, but that meant that the whole piece was already fast moving from a jolly uncomplicated colour riot to something more meditative and sober. I also realised that I wanted to not completely cover the pewter, as I was more and more reminded of my recent tondi pieces: it is just not possible to go completely away from your memories, I find.

I laid out my flowers in colours that were very bright and close to each other (two reds, a salmon, an orange and a yellow) and I added touches of darker shades to build their depth a bit, without going for realistic description. I wanted some white flowers to make the composition pop, and I went for some in white Merino wool with a center of natural yellow eri silk fiber, and some in white eri silk fiber with a few touches of bright blue mulberry silk fiber, for the shiny effect of silk that is reminiscent of oil paint shine.

I also realised that I needed some kind of vase or holding shape for my bunch of flowers, but I did not like the idea of a too solid shape when my flowers were just quick brush strokes of colours, so to speak. I went for just the outline of a vase in dark green, that could be variously interpreted and avoids weighting down the composition.

Here is what it looked like before the wetting, it seemed to me well full and with a background on the darker side, because the base in pewter was already wet at this point:

There is a work-in-progress wet felted piece on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap. The piece is rectangular and has a background in pewter, different hues of green and grey, with some yellow and white. The top layer has wisps of wool in bright reds, salmon pink, yellow, orange and white in different directions to expressively suggest flowers in a dark green vase. The upper layer of wool is not wet yet.
My composition before the wetting: the wool always looks more when it is still dry.

Then, I wetted and soaped the whole, and rubbed it gently under the netting. A bit of rubbing by sander followed, and I went on to the rolling very quickly. I do not need to roll it very much for my purposes, but I added a bit of additional rubbing against the bubblewrap in this case.

There is a rectangular wet felt piece that is almost all covered in bubble wrap for rubbing with a sander, on a table covered in white towel and bubble wrap.
Ready for a bit of sander rubbing.
A pewter work-in-progress felt piece is rolled into bubble wrap and rests on a table covered in a white towel and bubble wrap, ready for the rolling. On the table in the distance there is a glass half full of a clear yellow drink.
And here we go with the rolling, after some rehydration with an Italian favourite soda drink called Cedrata.

After drying it, that is what it looks like:

A wet felted artwork by Kiki Peruzzi is resting on a white canvas. The piece is rectangular, it has a pewter base layer and green and grey, yellow and white background. This abstract piece represents a vase of bright flowers in reds, salmon pink, yellow, orange and white.
This is before the ironing and to test the size of the finished felt on the canvas: it fits nicely as I wanted (I like my canvas to be seen all around the edges).

Because of the rubbing against the bubblewrap, it ended up with the piece developing a bit of movement around the edges, so that I had to iron it a bit to flatten it again after the drying.

I feel that it looks a lot less full than what I wanted, and I am pretty divided about it: do I work on it more or do I call it done? What I am thinking is that this piece would be closer to my idea if I added stitched fabrics in colours similar to the flowers to full up the areas in and around the flowers. I can not really explain well the idea that I have in mind, but I am thinking floating pieces of fabric here, very lightweight and not realistic. I also am very into textural pieces more than flat pieces, so I miss that textural element in this piece, though I understand that it is not what everybody looks for in an artwork, but I am really drawn to textures and 3D elements.

I have asked opinions about it to some of my artist friends during our breaks from the Art Trail work: mostly, they feel that the piece is fine as is, while some agree that I could work on it a bit more. I feel that they do not see in their mind what I could do with it and the right fabrics, because none of them are as familiar with textiles, but it may be that they genuinely do not feel that it will benefit from additions, with some of them mentioning the need to avoid overcrowding the composition.

So, what are my textile friends thinking about it? I can always try something and then unstitch it if I see that it is not going anywhere, but time is at a premium right now in my life, and I have so many UFOs in my pile already!

Let me know your thoughts on it, please.

In the meantime, I will take a bit of rest and relax:

There is a brown and orange Guinea pig sleeping snuggled in a soft cup in light blue and other bright colors, inside a cage with black grids and wood shavings on the bottom.
Repeat with our sweet Pumpkin: “Good nap, everyone!”

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

Instagram: kiki.textile.art

 

There’s a lurgy doing the rounds

There’s a lurgy doing the rounds

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There are some things you really should be warned about before attending a fibre retreat…

You might accidentally buy more wool that is of course “absolutely essential“.

And that you might catch a lurgy, in this instance, the sock knitting lurgy.

I caught the infection at the Auckland Creative Fibre retreat in June where Kylie was the source, spreading it to all who came near enough, enticing the weak with the beautiful stripy colours of her sock tubes. Who could resist?!! Not me apparently 😉

Kylie is, amongst other things, an engineer. This is perhaps why she is particularly well qualified to be called the Sock Engineer. Socks, after all, are basically engineering for your feet. There are calculations, shaping, structural integrity and an alarming number of opportunities for things to go wrong.

I don’t really consider myself to be a knitter, my knitting skills only extend as far as making 10 x 10cm swatches of handspun samples of the fibres I have for sale. Socks were firmly in the category of things other people make. They look complicated. There were tiny needles. There were mysterious heels. And then there were toes, which appeared to involve some sort of knitting magic that I had no intention of attempting.

Then along came Kylie (very ably assisted by Tracy and Cher).

The inoculation

At the retreat, Kylie taught us how to make the bits of a sock that had always seemed particularly mysterious to me — toes and especially the heels!

There was tea accompanied by some very nice home-baking.

There was laughter and some tongue-poking moments of intense concentration.

There was knitting and picking up dropped stitches.

There was more tea and of course, some wine (and possibly some gin but what happens at retreat stays at retreat 😉 ).

And gradually the whole thing started to make sense. Or was that just the alcohol tricking me into thinking it made sense?

The heel was no longer an incomprehensible bit of knitted origami, and the toe actually began to look like a toe rather than some sort of woolly lopsided geological formation.

Of course, once you realise you can make one sock, you immediately start thinking about making another one. A single sock would be lonely on its todd, wouldn’t it?

This is how the lurgy spreads.

By the end of the retreat, several of us were thoroughly infected. We had become sock knitters.

We were no longer to be trusted around sock yarn.

Sock yarn to be, on the latest addition to my flock of spinning wheels

And now I can’t stop

Since the retreat I’ve been dying sock yarn, spinning fibre to make socks, handing said yarn to Kylie who, like any good drug dealer, returns it knitted into gorgeous tubes, long enough to make a pair of knee-high socks. By the time you read this I will be travelling around South America with a small pile of yarn and sock tubes (and hopefully some new socks!) in tow. Fingers crossed the border control police don’t realise I have a stash of highly addictive substances in my bag…

Sock tubes from the Sock Engineer, demanding my attention…

The Great Cuff Problem

There is, however, one small problem.

I have not yet managed to find a cuff that I am really happy with.

I’ve been knitting 2 x 2 rib, which is lovely and stretchy while I’m knitting it. Unfortunately, when it comes to binding off, my cuff seems to develop a sudden and rather alarming case of commitment issues.

It simply refuses to stretch enough to get comfortably over my heel.

I tried the “loop over” between each stitch when binding off for sock number 2, which has helped, but I can’t help feeling there is a more professional looking bind off…

And this is where I am hoping that the collective wisdom of this beautiful community might come to my rescue!

How do you finish your sock cuffs?

Do you have a particular stretchy bind-off that you swear by? Do you use a different rib? Is there a magical technique that every sock knitter knows except me?

Please share your favourite methods in the comments — preferably before I knit another twelve pairs of socks with cuffs that won’t go over my heels!

In the meantime, I shall continue knitting socks.

There are worse addictions and this one is eminently more portable than wet felting.

Time for another glass of vino and a couple more rows…

Nunofelted background (multicolor) with appliqued flower showing close up of stitched texture on center.
Summer Symphony

Summer Symphony

Comments 14 comments

I finished another nunofelted landscape in preparation for selling that last set I sent to the gallery (one can always hope). I looked through the remainder of the nunofelt pieces I have left from Paula and decided to make another piece with the autumnul colored one. I had planned on making more trees but decided I wanted to create echinacea flowers instead.

Nunofelted background (multicolor) with photos of echinacea placed on top.

I found some photos online and printed a bunch off, then cut the flowers out so I could figure out the sizes needed and a good arrangement. It also helps to make the petals and centers more lifelike otherwise the flowers end up looking too much alike.

I had found yellow hand dyed cotton fabric and a bit browner fabric for the centers. I also got out several shades of green for leaves and stems.

Nunofelted background (multicolor) with cut fabric in yellow and yellow brown representing echinacea flowers.

Once the pieces of applique fabric were cut out, I tried some stems with fabric but they were a bit too thick. So I tried out green yarn and decided to use it instead. I could couch the yarn down and make the stems with more curves much more easily than out of fabric.

Nunofelted background (multicolor) with flowers and stems stitched in place , leaves pinned, ready to stitch.

On to stitching, here the flowers are all appliqued down with matching cotton machine thread. I have also couched the stems down with matching thread. The leaves are cut and pinned in place.

Nunofelted background (multicolor) with appliqued flowers, leaves and stems stitched in place.

Yay, all stitched down. A bit of texture on the centers is needed with a graduation of color and a bit of darkness to add depth.

I used four different colors of hand dyed wool thread so it would look a bit more “furry”. The centers were stitched with a random cross stitch and straight stitches.

Next up, I wanted to see if stitching lines in the petals would be a good addition. So I cut another sample petal or two and tried some different thread with stem stitch to see what it looked like. It just didn’t seem to add enough to the petals for the amount of work it would take.

Nunofelted landscape featuring echinacea flowers on multicolored background stitched to green "matte" fabric and laced to matte board.

I decided it was finished. So I bought a piece of background fabric and stitched the nunofelt in place. The piece was finished as usual by lacing the green fabric around two pieces of matte board. It’s all ready to go to the framers when I have a few more pieces finished. I think my next project is to  make some smaller (5×7″) landscapes as I have sold a few of those from the gallery in Kalispell.

What have you been working on? We would love to see your projects, please upload them to our community page.

colourful wool fibres to lay on loose weave fabric to make nuno felt
Doris the hedgehog and an autumn table mat

Doris the hedgehog and an autumn table mat

Comments 19 comments

Lyn

The nights are drawing in and heralding autumn.  The leaves have started to fall and the plants are looking sad.
Gardeners will already be clearing away plant litter, but I urge them not to be too tidy – leave a little mess for our garden friends to shelter in or under.
We had a hedgehog hibernate under a mound of leaves in our garden and it inspired me write a ditty and felt a picture – it’s wet and needle felt with some hand stitching – 28x18cm (11”x7”).

DITTY FOR DORIS

I help you with your garden plants
I eat the slugs and snails and ants
So help me when it’s cold and bitter
Look closely when you rake the litter
Please check that I’m not in my bed
With fallen leaves around my head

Lyn

a hedgehog nestled under autumn leaves at the start of hibernation

Annie

I wanted a small but interesting textiles project to help me get back into the swing of making things again after a busy year has kept me from my fibres, and since autumn is my favourite season it seemed like a good subject!

I decided on a small table mat with an autumn leaves design.   I made a sample set of leaves but actually they might end up being the final ones.  I chopped up and arranged some small squares of open weave fabrics

loose weave fabrics for nuno felt

then flipped them over and laid corresponding colours of fibres over the fabrics so that I could felt it to prefelt and then cut my leaves from the prefelt.

colourful wool fibres to lay on loose weave fabric to make nuno felt

Leaves cut from the prefelt.

nuno felt cut into leaf shapes

Here’s a close up of three of the leaves.

Not sure what the next stage is but this is as far as I have got!

Felting in Arnesby & Yarn Bombing in Cosby

Felting in Arnesby & Yarn Bombing in Cosby

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A few weeks ago I travelled down to Arnesby in Leicestershire to take part in the Feltmakers Region 8 annual Summer School. The name is a bit misleading as this isn’t a “tutored” gathering but more of a two day Play Day doing whatever takes your fancy. It’s just great to have the luxury of two whole days of uninterrupted felting and for me this would be my first felting project since March so I was particularly keen to make the most of it.

I knew I wanted to make something to display at a Coastal themed exhibition I’m taking part in September but hadn’t exactly planned what that was going to look like. So I dug out my tin of shells and chose a spiral one, covered in barnacles, to take with me as inspiration.

My initial thought was to create a vessel with a tiny opening in the base to remove the resist through. After working out the size I wanted my vessel to be I drew and cut out my resist, elongating the bottom section of the shell to give this more emphasis and more height.

By the time I’d finished my first coffee I’d changed my mind about what I was doing and decided the shape I’d drawn would lend itself nicely to being a lidded vessel. Its just as well I hadn’t got any fibre laid down yet!

The main body of the shell got laid out first and put to one side while I made the nuno prefelt to cut the craters from which would represent the barnacles.

I did wonder if that narrow base was going to prove a bad idea and whether I had the weight distribution right but by that point I was too invested so just had carry on and hope I could make it work!

This could have gone so wrong so it was a big relief to see it standing!

The finished vessel stands approx 45cm tall and is 25cm at its widest point.

After our first day of felting the friend I was staying with offered to drive three of us to Cosby, a village close by that stages an enormous themed yarn bomb. This years theme was “Round the World in 80 Displays”. The event happens every two years and the exhibits are in place for three weeks so we were lucky to catch the final evening before the displays were taken down. I can’t begin to describe the scale of this project! I’ve a friend who’s heavily involved so I’ve known of it for several years but it’s the first time I’ve visited and it surpassed all expectations!

The two leading lights behind this mega yarn bomb are Mel Charnock and Natalie Smith. These fun loving creatives have a passion for colour, textiles, jumble sales and people plus experience of TV & film costume styling, community events, visual merchandising, teaching better mental health & crafts for adults, not to mention a brief stint sewing gussets knickers! All of which led them to founding Gather Create Grow CIC, a local not for profit community group focused on connection and bringing people together, reducing isolation and improving wellbeing with creative community projects.

From very young school children to the very senior residents in the village everyone is encouraged to get involved. Each display area had its own information board telling the viewer a little about who had made what. The exhibits are spread far and wide around Cosby but there is a map available if you want to ensure you see the lot! There was lots we didn’t get to see but I hope you can get a feel for the event with these photos…..

The evening was topped off with a cuddle from this very friendly, and thoughtfully placed, Polar Bear before we headed off to the local chippy.

If you are wondering what happens to the exhibits at the end of the show they are taken down, dismantled, washed, repaired and packed away ready to be reborn again in two years time. Some will re-emerge looking much as they did this year, but in a different setting, while others will have a complete makeover and become something new. If you happen to be in the Leicestershire area when the next Yarn Bomb is on I can recommend you make a detour to Cosby and experience this wonderful event close up for yourself, you wont be disappointed!