In my last post I mentioned several pieces I was working on and some events that were coming up and I thought I’d use this post to update you on how those went.
I’d made several superfine Merino pendant samples in preparation for a wet felted workshop I had been asked to run for IFA Region 8 in Arnesby, Leicestershire. I had tried to cover options for all abilities from a very simple design that didn’t require a resist, through to a complex design requiring multiple resists. As it turned out all of the samples proved useful because between them my 10 students chose to make one of each of those designs. I was too busy on the day to remember to take progress photos (sorry) and nobody got fully finished before we left but these are some of the images Ive received since…..
One of the ladies, Leah, enjoyed making hers so much she’s gone on to make two more in a style very much of her own which I love!
Another project I’d been working on was Passage of Time, a wet felted Wallhanging inspired by a huge sandstone slab, for the IFA’s online exhibition “Time” which launched in March. You can see the exhibition here. I’d rushed to get this done to meet the deadline. It wasn’t as colourful as I’d intended and I knew it was far from finished! This was how you saw it last…..
After submitting it I continued to embroider and decorate adding colonial knots, free motion stitched mussel shells, machine wrapped cords and embroidered barnacles. As well as needing more surface texture I felt it should be larger and more irregular in shape so wet felted and embellished a second piece to hang adjacent to it. It’s now approximately 1m x 50cm and I’m much happier with how it finished up…..
The exhibition at Harding House in Lincoln went better than any of us could have imagined! Five months of planning and two days of setting up with my friend Jo resulted in an event that we were all very proud to be a part of. Fourteen out of the eighteen participating members travelled from various parts of the midlands to attend the launch party on Saturday 14th March.
We tried to cover as many different techniques as possible with our exhibits and included an “Education Station” with info boards, “touch” samples and the new promotional material advertising the International Feltmakers Association. We also ensured there was an artist in residence every day for the two weeks, either wet felting or needle felting. This meant visitors not only got to see felt being made but they had a point of contact if they wanted to learn more about the art they were seeing, about the IFA, or about Feltmaking in general.
We had a steady footfall throughout the fortnight we were there and it was wonderful to get to meet and speak to so many interested visitors, the feedback received was fantastic!
Earlier this month I travelled over to Risley in Derbyshire to spend the day with Material Girls and the talented, and very entertaining, textile artist known as Mr Finch. Finch creates enormous 3D fabric sculptures of animals, birds, insects, fungi and other fantastical creatures such as this owl and an onion complete with arms, legs and clogs!
He also brought along this Badger and I have to say that the photos really don’t do justice to these fantastic sculptures. To touch them they are rock hard and incredibly weighty, it’s hard to believe that they are stuffed with polyester stuffing! It was fascinating to see close up how he’d made the joints and details such as the paws and fingers.
Finch provided lots of laughs and kept the ladies entertained throughout the day as we learnt his tips for designing templates and creating fabric sculptures. If I’m completely honest I was disappointed that we were hand stitching and not using machines during this class so I’m looking forward to creating another hare very soon using cotton fabric and my machine, putting in to practise some of the useful tips and ideas I picked up from Mr Finch. I think you can see from the photos how much fun we had!
Some time after the Panto to be performed in February 2026 had been chosen and before rehearsals started in 2025 I was approached by the director of what is to be our 2027 Panto to give some thought to making headdresses for the villain and her cohorts.
That Panto is to be Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Apparently the “baddie” in this version is a Queen bee, and the director is thinking well ahead – which makes a nice change from the usual last minute panic. Anyway, I set about thinking how best and how cheaply to do this.
But before I got very far I was asked by our wardrobe mistress to make crowns for the King and Queen of Gooseland, for the 2026 Panto, which was to be Mother Goose. By this time we were well into rehearsal and so I had to stop thinking about bees and start thinking about geese. The wardrobe mistress wanted crowns that fit around the head rather than “tiara” type that sit on top. They should be white and should incorporate goose feathers.
We had some white feathers in stock, but none long enough to look like goose feathers, so first of all I would have to make some. We had, in our initial discussion, thought about how many would be needed. I was anxious that a fully feathered crown should not make the king look as if he was aping a native American Indian chief wearing a War Bonnet. We decided that I would make 5 feathers for each crown, taller ones for the king and slightly shorter for the queen.
I used one of my white nonwoven cotton cloths and some black (all I had) plastic rods. I used an old and well washed cloth, which when ironed stretched and ironed again became paper thin but remained flexible. I cut 10 strips about 2” wide and 8 or 9 inches long. Using “washable PVA glue … (yes, I’d never heard of it before either, it was a gift from our odd job man/friend. According to the lable on the bottle it was a mixture of water, PVA, glycerine, stearic acid and sodium hydroxide) … as I was saying, using washable PVA glue I stuck 2 lengths of the cloth together, sandwiching a plastic rod part way up the middle – short of the top and protruding from the bottom, so that it represented the quill. In this way I made 10 basic shapes which I trimmed into feather shapes, and carved 2 or 3 “notches’” randomly in the sides to add to the feather-like appearance. I painted the black quills white and, to give them extra strength, painted each side of the feathers with more of the PVA.
Making the feathers. That funny bottle shape at the bottom right is one of my eyedrop dispensers but handy for spreading glue!
Then I could consider the design of each crown; the king’s would need to be “manly” and the queen’s elegant. Having gone through my design source images I chose 2 crowns from the film version of Lord of the Rings on which to base my ideas – Elron’s crown for the Gooseland queen (No he’s not a bloke, he’s an elegant Elf – can’t you see his pointy ears?) and Aragorn’s for the king.
Elrond and his crown
Aragorn wearing his crown
I went through my stash of beads, stones and jewels and picked out items which could adorn either crown – the idea being that although they weren’t identical they would be a pair. I found a strip of muslin which had pearls and clear beads already attached to it and also some large round green cabochons mounted in “silver” frames. I painted the stones with several coats of pearl coloured nail varnish and I brightened the frames with a coat of silver nail varnish, and both with a top coat of clear.
[I find nail varnish very useful in making costumes and props, so whenever I see any reduced in price, especially odd colours, or colourless, I snap them up.]
Having obtained approval for my ideas from the director and the wardrobe mistress, I then had to wait some weeks before I received details of the king and queen’s head sizes. We had a cast of 35 in this Panto, some of whom played more than one character, and there were at least 2 costumes for most of the characters, not to mention 5 or 6 for Mother Goose, the dame. It is not surprising therefore that our poor wardrobe mistress, who does most of the work herself with the help of a couple of members, took some time to get round to sorting the wigs for the king and queen and measuring their resulting head sizes. Once I had these I was able to get a gallop on!
I started with the queen’s crown. I made a drawing based on the Elrond crown and then blew it up to the size needed. I transferred 2 copies of the pattern to the card stock I was going to use, cut them out and, after auditioning the feathers and jewellery as to placement, proceed to decorate one of them.
I’m not keen on using just glue for holding things together, whether on costumes, on props or on actors (I once lost my Polly parrot beak mid performance!) It’s belt and braces for me, so I sewed the strip of muslin with the pearl and clear beads along one of the sections of the crown, front to back on either side of the centre “V”. I also sewed the feathers to the inside of the crown and I added a shield shape to the back of the centre front to add a bit of strength. It was as well that I had cut out a second pattern, the stitching of the muslin to the narrow sections of the crown in fact weakened the card. So I attached the second pattern to the inside of the crown and then added a cut out shape of non-slip mat to the inside front of the crown. I was concerned that the weight of the stones on the front might cause the crown to slide down the actor’s forehead. (In the end however I needn’t have bothered as the actor’s coarse and curly wig had a large fringe, on which the crown sat, but again belt and braces I suppose.) Finally I joined the two ends of the crown with a large hook and eye (the sort covered in fabric and normally used by furriers) painted white.
Half a Crown design with initial choice of decoration
My design for 1/2 a crown(!) Sorry about the black Fleur de Lis on the back of the paper.
Rehearsal of design, feathers and decorations
Bead decoration stitched to crown ready for cabochons and feathers to be attached
Attaching the feathers and support for the cabochons
Attaching the strengthening lining to the crown after attaching the cabochons
The Queen’s Crown
Adding the final non-slip fabric to the inside of the crown
Then on to the King’s crown. I had found somewhere on the internet a pattern page of the pieces used to make a version of Aragorn’s crown.
Pattern for Aragorn’s Crown
I liked the basic idea of some form of emblem at the front which could hold up the feathers but I didn’t want to use the actual design from Aragorn’s crown – it was too “serious” and the Gooseland King was a comic part – so after trying out various shapes, which would also hold 3 of the cabochon stones, I decided to use a shield shape, with a smaller version at the back and smaller versions still at the two sides. I decided that I would not use the remainder of the muslin with the pearl and clear beads for the King’s crown (too feminine) so I decided to add a border of yarn around the edges of everything to add a sort of metallic rim as if the metalsmith had added a border of twisted metal, as indicated on the page of pattern pieces. So here I deviated from my glue+ method and just soaked some white yarn in PVA and ran it around the edges of the shields and the bands of the crown. I did stitch the cabochons to the front shield and also the feathers. I covered this on the inside with another shield shaped piece of card. I wasn’t sure how to decorate the two side and the back shields and I wondered if I could find a suitable monogram for Gooseland. In the end I found, somewhere on line, a drawing of a winged shield, I added a capital G to the centre of that and printed off three copies which I attached to the centre of the 3 blank shields.
Rehearsing placement of decorations 1
Rehearsing placement of decorations 2
Rehearsing placement of decorations 3
Rehearsing placement of decorations 4
Attaching the front shield and joining the side pieces
The edging cord is in there somewhere
Glueing the cord edging to the Shields
Glueing the front shield to the back shield to sandwich the feathers after sewing on the cabochons
Glueing the side and back monogrammed shields
Once all the glue was dry I packed them up and delivered the Crowns a couple of days before the first dress rehearsal.
The Queen’s Crown
The King’s Crown
King & Queen of Gooseland
King and Queen with daughter, Princess Priscilla, (who laid the golden eggs) and Dame, Mother Goose
I am still working on the “watercolor landscape” samples that I created. This one is nuno felted paper that has had watercolor applied after the felting process. It needs a bit more, doesn’t it?
I scanned the piece on my printer so I had the exact size of the piece printed out. I then drew a tree over the landscape in pencil. Instead of trying to transfer the design of the tree on to the piece, I decided to just mark where the edges of the trunk were on the top and bottom.
I didn’t get any photos of the stitching process as I stitched it mainly while traveling. I had found a variety of grey yarn that I couched down with a dark grey cotton machine thread. I tried to give an impression of depth of the tree with the values of grey. I followed my sketch but “edited” out some of the smaller branches.
Here’s a couple of close ups of the stitching.
The next step was to find a piece of background (matte) fabric. I stitched the felt piece on to this hand dyed grey background that I already had in my stash. Luckily, it was a blue grey tone that matched the watercolors. The piece was then stretched and laced around matte board. Then it’s ready for a frame.
Here it is in the frame and ready to go to the gallery. This piece in the frame is 8″ x 10″ and I have decided to name it “Solitude”.
I thought I’d show a few things I’ve been up to since my last post in December, starting with some pendants. A while ago I did an online workshop with feltmaker Aniko Boros to make her beautiful wet felted Fuchsia pendant. It wasn’t my intention to carry in making more fuchsias but rather to learn Anikos technique for making complex pendants so I could apply it to my own designs. And so the fuchsia led to this yellow/grey pendant which in turn has led to a recent request from Region 8 of the International Feltmakers Association to teach how to make it.
Yellow/grey necklace
I was concerned that some in the group I will be teaching may not be used to working with Superfine fibre on such a fiddly scale, so over the Christmas/New Year period I created three more sample pendants. Two of these involve some different techniques to Aniko’s, making them easier and quicker to create than my grey one, but they will produce a similar look. The third sample is made without resists and aimed more for absolute beginners, just in case we have any attend. The other obvious difference with these new samples is the addition of beading which can be optional. I’m looking forward to teaching this class on the 8th March.
Another project I’ve been working on recently is a planned IFA exhibition of Feltmaking titled Felt Connected: Bringing People and Fibre Together. It came about after we surveyed Region 8 members as to what they wanted from their Regional Coordinators and one of our members, Jo Cook, suggested we organise an exhibition of members work. Since then Jo and I have been working together to organise the event which will take place next month in Harding House Gallery in Lincoln. We have a total of 17 IFA members taking part with the aim of not only showcasing their talent but demonstrating the versatility of fibre and what can be done with it while at the same time promoting the IFA and hopefully attracting more members. If you are in the area we will be holding a Meet the Artists session from 1pm – 3pm on Saturday 14th March and it would be great to see you there.
Examples of our members work
Earlier this month I started work on The Passage of Time, my submission for the IFA 2026 online exhibition “Time” that launches during our AGM on March 28th. When I first read the theme title I have to admit that for a day or two I struggled to see anything other than clocks! Then I had a lightbulb moment, I’d make an Ouroboros, the mythical serpent that is often represented in Alchemy art depicted eating its own tail. It’s a symbol of the cyclical nature of time, the universe, and self-renewal and represents the concept of eternity and endless return. Image source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20171204-the-ancient-symbol-that-spanned-millennia
I created my 3D mobius wet felted version using Merino fibre but when it came to photographing it, no matter what angle I took it from, it looked really dull and boring. So I abandoned that idea and instead I’ve taken inspiration from the beautiful sandstone slabs on Seahouses beach in Northumberland. Coastal erosion and fossils are both dramatic indicators of the passage of time so seemed a fitting replacement for the failed Ouroboros!
My inspiration for The Passage of TimeExperimental piece depicting fossilsAnother fossil experimentWork in progressAdding free motion stitch
The base is a mix of Carded Corriedale and Bergschaf fibre with silk fabrics, wallpaper, Tyvek, free motion stitch and hand embroidery. I’ve included a piece of felt I made a few years ago which mimics fossils, it’s one of two experimental samples I made and didn’t get around to using until now. After auditioning both of them in the pre-made hole I went with the darker option, which doesn’t look as dark in the flesh as it does in the photo. I’ve submitted this piece for the online exhibition but I’ve since felted another slab to add to the first one. It will be embellished in a similar way, to create a larger piece of work for another exhibition that Jo and I are hoping to launch in July.
I’ll leave you with a piece of work that was created by a lovely lady called Avie, also known as The Curly Sheep. Avie came to spend a day with me last month to learn how to wet felt a picture and how to do free motion stitch. Turns out she’s a natural at both as I’m sure you will agree!
On looking through my file of possible posts I have found that there are several subjects on the list about which I don’t have a lot to say, so I thought I’d put them all together.
First, my work basket. You may recall that I told you about the craft basket makeovers that I had done some years ago https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/06/12/craft-basket-makeovers-part-1/ After we moved to Dorset I acquired a marketing basket, can’t remember where from now but at the time it was “in” to be seen wandering around the shops with a basket on your arm. I didn’t use it for that for long though as I was worried about my purse sitting on top of shopping and being a bit of a temptation. So I decided that I’d turn the shopping basket into a work basket. At that time I hadn’t been introduced to felt, I was still spinning, crocheting, tatting, sewing and embroidering so a market basket would be ideal for that.
I used some more of the fabric remnants which I had bought from the same shop in Maidstone where I’d got those which I’d used for the spinning baskets. I lined the basket, having attached some internal pockets to the lining and made a padded/quilted lid. That was fixed at one end of the lining and a covered button and loop held it closed at the other end. I had found a miniature washing basket at a charity shop and I turned that into a pin cushion and I made a small pouch to hold small accessories like cotton reels. That was fixed to the side of the basket lining with a snap fastener.
The basket got quite a bit of use, as you can probably see from the state of the lining. One drawback I’ve found to sewing the lining to the basket is that it makes laundering it a bit difficult!
My marketing basket.
The lining sewn to the top edge of the basket. A bit rumpled I’m afraid.
The underside of the open quilted lid
Work basket with quilted lid.
Miniature cane basket with handles, containing a pin cushion made from more of the same fabric
The small accessories pouch.
One of the first projects I undertook once I had learned to needle felt was a challenge from a company which used to supply packs of mixed yarns – at least I think it was from them though it might have been a Guild challenge. It was back in 2002 and as I did not make any notes that I can find, I’m not entirely sure. I seem to have taken some progress images as I have found lots of these though unfortunately they are not of particularly good quality.
What I do remember is that I had decided that I would make a miniature of a herb knot garden but |’m afraid that my memory of how I found/chose the design is now so hazy that I can’t be precise. I do remember that when I learned to needle felt our teacher gave us pieces of old woollen blanket on which to draw a design that we could fill in with needle felted fibres. The idea was that we could then wash the work and it would become permanent. I have amongst the progress pictures images of the design as drawn on a piece of blanket and of the lines becoming “box hedges” and the spaces being filled with “flowers”. I can also see from the last couple of pictures that I added a “topiary tree” in each corner.
Knot Garden design
Initial needle felted sample (made a sample? me? Now that’s very unusual!)
The design drawn onto a piece of woolen blanket.
Starting to fill in the spaces with fibres and yarns.
The “box hedges” and most of the “flowers” filled in.
Finished Knot Garden with topiary trees in the corners.
A couple of years later, I acquired a quantity of (I think) Jacob fleece which had been carded all together so that what I had was a sort of grey mixture. I didn’t really want to spin it as I think I had been duped into buying a bag of really rough fibres. At about that time I had become interested in stone carvings – gargoyles (water spouts), grotesques, and heraldic beasts – particularly the Queen’s Beasts which are statues on display at Kew Gardens. Anyway, I decided that I’d have a go at needle felting some gargoyles using the grotty grey Jacob. No progress pictures I’m afraid, just finished pieces mounted on fabric covered card or canvas blocks.
The “Infernal Goat” gargoyle. The colour reproduction is poor it does actually look like grey stone (from a distance!)
Stone Man Gargoyle.
This Gargoyle is a direct copy of a waterspout mounted on the corner of a church tower.
Horned Man gargoyle. His curly hair and beard was, I remember, quite “fun” to do!
Ann’s idea made me think that some miniature gnomes impaled on the metal “spike” could look good as bag charm gnomes to sell in the Museum shop. I had to change the description from key chains to bag charms because the gnomes were a bit too fragile to sit inside someone’s bag/purse, but should look good dangling on the outside. Here are photos of the “shaft” on which the gnomes are made, and a few of the gnomes.
This month Region 8 of the International Feltmakers held an Autumn Woodland themed wet felted picture workshop led by Susan Mulcock. As with many other regions we’ve been struggling with workshop numbers recently so it was great to receive so much interest in Susan’s class that we were able to fill two separate classes over the weekend. A big shout out has to go to IFA member Kerry Thomas who travelled 250 miles from Lockerbie in Scotland to join us on the Sunday.
Kerry
We were encouraged to bring our own photos to use as inspiration and I chose one I’d taken while walking a local section of the Viking Way between Horncastle and Woodhall Spa. The Viking Way is a 149 mile long walking route through Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Rutland. The route opened in 1976 and its name recognises the influence of the Norse invaders on the east of Britain. The route is clearly marked with the recognisable signage of a viking helmet on the yellow disc.
I didn’t think to take photos of the process but this is my finished picture. Looking back at my original photo I think I must have been in a colourful mood when I was laying out my fibres! I’ve added some free motion stitch to help define the tree trunks and some of the finer branches but drew the line at adding hand embroidery. I feel I’d like to do some but I know that if I start I would have to add lots of it so I’ll live with it for now and maybe more stitching will be done at some point.
These are some of the wonderful pictures that were created over the weekend.
Something else I wanted to share with you, with permission from the bride, was my friend Sally’s wedding. Or rather the incredible textile/fibre creations that Sally produced for her wedding to fiance Chris. Sally joined the South Lincs Spinners, Weavers and Dyers three years ago where she learnt to spin and weave. She fell in love with both of these crafts and challenged herself to use them to create her own wedding outfit.
Chris’s mother is German and Sally has a thing for sunflowers so Sally aimed to combine both these themes for her big day. She began by purchasing green mulberry silk fibre from World of Wool which she spun. Next the spun fibre was woven and blocked before being cut out and sewn to create the beautiful bodice for her traditional German style dirndl outfit.
Extra fibre was spun and woven (just in case!) and this was used to make her usher, son Lewis, his waistcoat and to make the ring cushion. The gold apron features a white band made up of number of symbols, designed by Sally, that represent members of her family and these were crocheted using a fine thread to add a very personal detail to the outfit.
During our visit to Ampthill Fibre show this summer we saw a stall selling kits to create your own parasol. Sally bought a kit and had the fibre specially dyed to fit in with her sunflower colour scheme. She then crocheted her parasol cover and put the whole thing together to create a stunning accessory for her outfit.
Another beautiful touch was the wet felted Sunflower with Tyvek daisy’s that she made with me. It was attached it to her veil which in turn was lit from beneath with fairy lights.
At our Spinning meeting the month before the wedding we had a drop spindle demonstration and members that took part had the chance to spin a short length of fibre to take to Sally’s wedding. At the reception we took it in turns to add our yarn to a small piece of weaving which Sally and Chris will keep as a memento of their special day.
At the end of the ceremony I can imagine Sally breathing a huge sigh of relief that all her hard work had paid off and resulted in a day that was incredibly creative, unique and very much “Sally”!
In my last post, I showed you how we finished up the binding on our altered books. I didn’t manage to get photos of Louise’s book as she was still working on adding to her inner pages. Sorry, Louise. Here are the inside photos of the rest of the books.
This first book is Paula’s and this is the back cover. This is her bird’s nest; part of her theme was birds. She had picked several words to base her pages on when she was creating the book.
Here’s a page inside Paula’s book with a painting of a magpie.
Paula has a bunch of antique photos that she used throughout the book. She also has some wonderful antique papers which you will see in all of our books as she is so generous.
These are some of the mini landscapes that Paula painted.
And another of Paula’s photos with stitched leaves.
Now on to Sally’s book. This is her cover and Sally is planning on adding to her inside pages but hasn’t completed that yet.
Here’s Sally’s end paper on the left. Perhaps you can see the dark brown fabric where she stitched her signatures? The first page is from some old music sheets that Paula gave us.
Sally has a mix of different kind of papers in her signatures just waiting for her addition of eco printed paper and fabric.
Here are a couple of other examples of the type of paper that Sally used in her book signatures.
This is the inside cover of my book. I didn’t want to take out this lovely map from the original end papers. So I left it the way it was. I then glued my end paper to cover where the signature had been glued in on the back side of the right page shown here. The map is what is stopping me from putting holes in the front cover to stitch some embroidery.
Here is the end paper on the left that covers the glued binding. This piece of paper was screen printed with the deconstructed screening technique. It was my original inspiration for the color scheme for the book. You will have seen the fabric on the right if you read my prior post about how we printed the “backwards” writing.
Here’s another one of my pages. The addition of extra paper in the signatures splits up some of the page spreads that I made but to me it adds some interest. I am thinking about adding some poems and quotes about trees on some of the blank pages.
This page spread in my book shows the back side of one of the book pages that I didn’t change and an old ledger paper from Paula. If you didn’t see all my page spreads that I created for this book, you can see them here and here. Most of them made the cut for the final book layout.
I really enjoyed creating this book and I’m looking forward to the project that we will work on in the coming year with my art group. We don’t have a plan as of yet but I’m sure we will come up with something!
My local art group had our annual retreat and enjoyed a wonderful weekend. One of our members that had moved to Wisconsin over three years ago came this year so it made the retreat extra special. Mainly, we worked on our altered book journals.
Luckily, we have a beautiful place to go each year, the Kiwanis Lodge at Little Bitterroot Lake in Marion, Montana.
We had gorgeous weather this year and it wasn’t smoky yet. The following week was really smoky from wildfires in the northwest US and Canada.
We worked on our altered books and Paula (left) showed us how to do a traditional book binding. There were a lot of steps and I had never done a book binding like this. It wasn’t particularly difficult, just a bit fiddly. For anyone who is an expert at this process, please ignore the fact that I don’t know all the correct terms for each of the processes/parts of the binding.
We used the cover of our books and took all the “guts” out. We had to make signatures to fit the size of the book out of the pages that we had already made. You mark the signatures and put holes to stitch through. You also need a piece of fabric with a marked piece of cardstock matching the signature holes. The cardstock is glued to the fabric with PVA glue.
This is my book, the photo on the left is that stack of five signatures (groups of pages) that have their holes punched. The middle photo shows the signatures and the top header thingee (forgotten the name but it’s at the top left of the signature pile) and my tools. The right photo shows my marked cardstock glued to the fabric where the signatures will be attached.
I got so involved with the process that I forgot to take photos of all the steps. This is Paula’s book after she has her signatures stitched in place and one side is glued down to the cover. The striped pieces are her headers.
Here’s a photo of Louise’s book in progress.
Once you have the signatures glued down to the covers, you need to use “end papers” to cover the inside of the book cover. Paula used different pieces of fabric and then used a portrait she had drawn/painted as the end cover on the front inside cover.
Here’s Paula’s front cover after she got it all together. I am not sure if she is adding more to the cover or not.
This is Sally’s book, she hasn’t glued down the cover piece yet but thinks she will be using various eco printed pieces to fill her book. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of Louise’s book as she was still working on the inner pages.
And here’s my book. I was thinking about doing some surface embroidery on the leaves and pine cones but I would have to put holes through the cover. This would detract from my inside end paper. So I haven’t quite decided yet. Because this post would be a bit long, I will show you the insides of the books on my next post. It was really satisfying to get this book put together after working on various aspects of it for a year.
When I last posted, I was working on two birch landscapes. I had finished stitching the branches on one and was working out what I wanted to do about leaves.
I stitched the branches on the second landscape with free motion machine stitching.
These work very well as a pair. I didn’t do anything to emphasize the “lake” or “water” effect of the background. I thought each person could interpret the landscape as they see it.
Now for the leaves. The photo on the left shows the sheer green fabric I had in my stash. It’s a combination of polyester organza and silk organza that has been hand dyed. I ended up using the more yellow green silk organza choices.
I cut a bunch of leaf shapes. I don’t use a pattern but just cut them out randomly. I have found that they need to be different shapes to look natural so I just start cutting shapes that are vaguely leaf like. In the photos above, I have laid the leaves on top, again very randomly, to see if I have enough coverage. I ended up adding a few more after I started stitching to fill in where needed.
Here are the landscapes after stitching down the leaves. Now, I am going to work on stitching them to a background fabric and lacing on to boards, so they are ready for framing. What should I name the pieces? Any ideas?
I just looked up the meaning of “foray” and I must say, I really didn’t plunge into this activity with any violence. Sorry if I mislead you. If anything, my incursion – is that a better word? – begun because of love.
Love, you ask? Yes, my undying love for Hector! My husband knows he is only second to Hector and is alright with it. You’d understand if you saw him. In fact, let me add a photo of that handsome chap for your enjoyment, and then you tell me if you’re not equally in love.
*drumroll, please*
Isn’t he the most handsomest chap ever? Wouldn’t you sign up to an eco printing workshop if you got to spend some time with this beautiful alpaca? That’s exactly what I did.
Allow me to backtrack just a bit: Hector lives in Birkhill House, and I’ve met up with his human Lara on a few yarn festivals to chat and peruse her wares. I bought a few batts from her, and by coincidence they were all from Hector. Coincidence… or fate? I decided it was fate and from then on decided this was the love of my life and I’d do anything to one day meet the grower of the only alpaca fibre I’ve ever genuinely loved (the others I’ve spun/wore feel itchy!)
Fast forward to the day I bought a full Hector blanket to wash, process and spin. No, fast forward a bit more, to the day Birkhill decided to debut their eco printing workshop. I was so keen to finally meet him! I could thank Hector for the amazing yarns I’ve gotten out of his fibre so far.
First things first, I needed to actually participate in the workshop. Fine, I’ll make that terrible sacrifice. In I go to the working shed and play with plants, merino fabric and wallpaper base.
Plants ready to be chosen and laid out
My flimsy efforts. Knowing what I know now, I’d definitely have filled the negative space with more plant material.
Like I said, this was my first time playing with eco printing. I had no idea what I was doing. I was well instructed by Sunshine, our tutor! Love her name, very fitting to her personality.
Step 1 – roll the plant sandwich
Step 2 – don’t let go of the plant sandwich
Step 3 – tie up the plant sandwich
Someone else’s better efforts!
After we had our plants properly squished between the layer of paper and fabric, and tied up, it was time to add them to the dye bath for a bit. Intermission to look at Birkhill’s plant garden.
Dye garden
Giant rhubarb. I mean giant.
Dye plant with yellow flowers (sorry, natural dyeing enthusiasts, for the lack of more info)
Another dye plant (indigo?)
Meanwhile, our printing was simmering
Roaming peacock! This one has a hatred of shiny cars, apparently.
Wait, did I mention this workshop was a two-parter? After we looked at the plant garden, there was more fun to be had in the form of solar dyeing. I confess I had a little knee-jerk chuckle at the notion of sunshine dyeing anything in Scotland, but then I remembered I get more sunshine here than I ever did in London and shut up.
It was time to peruse the vast sample of plant dyes available for us to play with. Although I’m familiar with acid dyes, it being my bread and butter and all, I’m very ignorant of natural dyes – so I appreciated the labels for me to read and see what colours they’d yield.
Spoiled for choice
Elderberry – one of the dyes I used
My jar all ready for sunshine magic
We were given two silk and silk-and-merino micro skeins to add to our jars (mine used to house caviar, how fancy) and were given full freedom to choose which colours and how many to add. I chose three in the red-purple family. After arriving home I placed it by the window and waited.
At the time of writing my micro skeins are almost finished soaking up the dyes and are looking properly red and purple. Unfortunately, also at the time of writing, I have a cat on my lap and we all know it’s illegal to move them, so you’ll just have to imagine how lovely it’s looking at the moment.
Now comes the best part of my visit: alpacas! Have you ever booped an alpaca’s nose? They have no cartilage there and it’s like booping a velvety marshmallow; it feels magic. The next best thing? Feeding an alpaca.
Thank you Lara for the photo! My happiness is very real.
I heart Hector!
After all this, our eco printing was ready to unravel and dry.
Unravelled strips
Detail. Love the oranges and yellows
Mirrored printing
Detail of someone else’s strip, love the dark hues
And that was my half day at the farm with eco printing and alpacas. I hope you enjoyed reading it, thanks for letting me share my love of Hector. I’ll leave you with some Hector skeins I’ve spun so far, all with different techniques. My favourite so far is definitely the semi-woollen using rolags, the yarn is so fluffy.
From left to right: spun semi-worsted from batt, 2-ply; spun semi-worsted from batt, chain-plied; spun semi-woollen from rolags, 2-ply; spun semi-woollen from textured batt turned into rolags, 2-ply (my favourite).
I hope you like my cat socks, I left them in for your enjoyment.
