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Needle-felt Brooches and a Print Exhibition

Needle-felt Brooches and a Print Exhibition

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Since my last blog in November I’ve been very busy, though not necessarily making felt. I did, however, have a week’s exhibition with two friends in a local gallery the second week in December, and this afternoon I’ve dropped off 12 pictures for an open-call print exhibition, so that’s what I’m going to talk about today. 

Sitting in the gallery, I had time to do a little needle felting – I generally prefer wet felting but needle felting is better suited to gallery-sitting.  My friend Lynzi (yep, same name but different spelling) asked if I’d make two small brooches for her to give to her mother for Christmas. Lynzi liked some earrings I’d made previously …..

….. so asked me to make a mussel shell and a starfish brooch. I’d not needle felted a brooch before but didn’t think it would be very different from an earring so I set about it.

The trickiest thing was that she wanted them very small: she suggested between 2 & 4 cm. The smallest mussel shell earrings I’ve ever made were about 5.5cm and the star fish – which was a one-off – was considerably larger.  I didn’t think 2cm was practical, not least of all because of the size of the pin needed to attach the brooches, so we agreed on approximately 4cm. The mussel shell was relatively straightforward.  For earrings I make them curved like shells. For a brooch, I just made the back solid rather than curved and was sure to felt it very firmly so I could sew the fastening pin securely onto it. 

I had to adapt the starfish design as the centre of the starfish – which had to conceal the brooch pin – had to be a larger part of the overall design than it was for the earring.  I started off using a small star-shaped cookie-cutter to help me get an even star shape.  I concentrated on working the length of the arms and the centre of the starfish, so that when I stopped using the cookie-cutter I could work into the sides of the arms to make it less like a star and more like a starfish.

Here are the end results.

Mussel shell and starfish brooches
Brooches with a coin for scale

Lynzi was delighted and I’m looking forward to hearing what her Mum thought.

Now here we are in 2026 and I’ve had to put in quite a lot of studio time this week to create work for a print exhibition. Another local gallery (The Horsebridge Community Arts Centre in Whitstable) had an open-call for a print exhibition. The only requirement was that pieces had to have some element of hand printing. I wondered if my felt pictures with a printed tree would meet the criteria so had a chat with the organiser.  She said ‘yes’ so I decided to enter some.  The deal is that you pay per piece for a framed, wall hung item and you can put up to 5 unframed items per wall piece into a browser.  The gallery takes 10% commission on sales of the framed pieces (which you’ve also paid to submit) and 35% commission on the unframed, browser pieces (which you haven’t paid to submit). I opted for 2 framed and 10 for the browser.

These were the framed pictures I already had

And two unframed pictures presented with a card back and mount. 

So, I just needed to make 8 more unframed pictures this week to fill my quota for the wall and browser.  That didn’t seem too unreasonable when I decided to do it, but it has felt a bit less sensible given the time I’ve had available. It’s also quite cold here (for England). My studio is in an old industrial building (it used to be a bottle capping factory for Shepherd Neame, the oldest brewery in the UK). It has very little heating, so I had to decamp to my house part way through the week when my hands just could not cope with any more freezing water.

The unframed pictures have a mount with an aperture of 20 x 20 cm (about 8 x 8 inches) so the felt is about 24 cm square.  I thought the best idea was to make 4 pictures in one sheet and cut them apart during the fulling process. By ‘best’ I mean most efficient while still being a size I could handle on my felting table. I drew myself a little sketch to help me decide where to put the silk

Option 1 would mean the nuno felted area was the same in all 4 pictures so it was an easy decision to go for option 2.

I spent quite a long time sifting through my embarrassingly large collection of second hand silk scarves to select the pieces I wanted to use. 

I was keen on a grey leopard print scarf with a white background but it had stripes of more and less dense silk running across it. I thought I should just check that the dense section would felt OK so I did a very scrappy little sample. If you’re wondering why I got so little shrinkage, the felted scrap started off considerably bigger than the non-felted one.

It’s not easy to see here – more visible on the finished picture – but the more dense stripes produced a little more ruching.

It all seemed to felt fine so above you can see the first batch part way through the fulling stage.

Below is the layout for the second batch of pictures

I put a stripe of second hand wool (usually tapestry wool) along the top of the silk section. For the brightly coloured marbled scarf I auditioned a few different colours (red, yellow, dark brown, green)

And went with the green

So, here is the first group of 4 pictures with their printed trees

And here’s the second group of 4

I took the photos very hastily today and not in very good light: they are not as grey as some of the images suggest.

I’ve presented them with a back board and white mount and dropped them off at the gallery this afternoon. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow so, that’s pretty good for me. I have marked ‘last minute’ tendencies.

I print the images with a heat press – the kind of thing you might use for printing and image on a t-shirt. As I was heating it up anyway, I pulled together some pieces of felt that were test pieces or offcuts, cut them into small pieces and printed on those too. I will make these into cards.

Well, that’s me for now. Wishing everyone a joyful, healthy and creative 2026.

Nuno Felt Scarf Class

Nuno Felt Scarf Class

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Last week I taught my final workshop of the year. It was Nuno Felt Scarf.  I had 8 students. Previously, I have been restricted to 6. The old class space at the guild was a snug fit with 6, but since some rearranging of space, I can now teach 8 students comfortably.

This was a fun class; one lady had bought 5 spaces to surprise her family with a Christmas workshop. They had no idea what they were doing until they arrived. They were all game, but I did see some scepticism there too.

I started with a little more explanation than usual to help the surprised students get a better idea of what we were going to do. I had lots of samples to show them to help decide how they wanted their scaves to look. Then I explained all the embellishment fibres. It’s a lot to take in when you’ve just started thinking about it. Most students have been thinking about it for a while and have an idea of what they want to do.

They picked scarf blanks and then base colours. There was a lot of back and forth to pick wool colours, and then the embellishment fibres.  Everyone was encouraging and helpful with colour choices and what goes together. All colours go together, just in case you didn’t know. I always enjoy watching everyone work out colours and often working up the courage to be bold and add all the extra bits of colour they want.

After everyone gets their scarves wet, it’s time for lunch.

Usually, lunch is a bring-your-own, or there are a couple of fast-food places around. However, the student who had bought her family had decided to provide everyone with lunch. It was very tasty, cold cuts, cheese, salad and bread. Then there were homemade cookies and fruit for dessert. I felt very spoiled.

After lunch, they moved on to rubbing and rolling.

I am sure some of them thought it was never going to work. Then they noticed it was really shrinking. Then, when it was time to finish fulling, it was so fast, and they could hardly believe they were done. They were all very happy, and there was talk of doing another class; it was so much fun.

 

Felting Glasses Cases

Felting Glasses Cases

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Although a recent eye test showed I didn’t need a new prescription, I decided to buy some new glasses anyway to give me more colour/style choices and also hopefully reduce the time I spend trying to find my glasses.  I have a place at home where they’re supposed to live but I often thoughtlessly plonk them down somewhere and then get cross with myself as I play hunt the glasses. 

On seeing my new glasses’ accompanying dull acrylic felt cases, I decided to make some wet felted wool cases of my own, either for myself, or to sell or give as gifts. 

I want the cases to fit snugly, so that the glasses don’t slip out but also don’t need any kind of closure fastening: a simple wet felted sleeve. I like the simplicity of this idea and also the challenge of working them to exactly the right size.

While on holiday recently, I bought a carded (mostly) Wensleydale wool batt from a farmers’ market in Ithaca, New York, that I thought might be suitable and I was looking forward to trying it out.

Here’s some of the batt, the work of Windsong Farm in Burdett NY www.windsongfarm.com

I like a sturdy glasses case as it has to withstand being bashed about in my capacious handbag, so I decided on 4 layers of wool: two natural white merino tops and two of the Wensleydale batt – which includes quite a lot of locks.

I calculated a generous size for the case and multiplied the finished dimensions by 1.7 to give me a nice firm felt.

Resist
2 layers of natural white Merino
First layer of Wensleydale batt
Second layer of Wensleydale batt with a few extra locks

And here it is dry: side 1, side 2 and end-on to show how thick the felt is.

I was happy with the result, though because of the thickness and shrinkage it took quite a long time to felt it fully. 

My second case I decided to treat more like a seascape picture. First, I rounded the corners on one end of the resist to give the case a more rounded bottom. I laid out two layers of wool: pewter for the top half that would become the sea and white for the lower half, that would become the beach. 

I laid two layers of blues with white angora highlights over the pewter section to form the sea, and  two more white layers topped with a strip of very sheer recycled spotted silk scarf which I hoped would look like pebbles for the beach.

I then ran a line of kid mohair top along the length of the case where the sea meets the beach to form a wave. I find this type of mohair felts with a nice wiggle that suggests a breaking wave.

layout layers 1 & 2
adding the sea
a silk scarf for the beach
kid mohair for a breaking wave

Joining the silk so as not to leave a gap or have a bulky overlap was a bit fiddly but I find it works most easily with a very sheer silk. It’s interesting how dominant the wave looks in the photo because of the curvature of the sides.

The finished seascape case

Once that was done, it occurred to me that perhaps people view their glasses cases more in portrait mode than landscape?  I decided case 3 would be less ‘landscape’! I also started to think more about how people use glasses cases. I’m sure some, like me, have them rattling around in a large bag.  But I suppose some people want to put them in a pocket, so may want something a little thinner?

As I was rummaging in one of the giant boxes of charity shop silk scarves I’ve collected for nuno felting, I found a very sheer small orange scarf with wonky purple circles that I thought I’d try for case number 3. I laid out 4 very fine layers of orange merino tops (to reduce the overall thickness).

My plan was for the orange of the silk to merge with the orange of the wool so that the circles were more prominent than their background. I added three pieces silk to each side of the case.

4 thin layers, of merino, 3 wonky silk circles per side laid out then prefelted ready to full

I’m still felting these very firmly.  You can see the shrinkage when comparing the finished case to its resist. I’m not completely sure why, but I’m getting more shrinkage in the width than the length.  Probably it’s because it’s easier to roll it in that direction, using my hands and various thicknesses of pool noodle inside the case during fulling.  Whatever the reason, it’s nice and firm so I can afford to chop a bit off the length of the resist.

Left – finished & dry; top right – testing the fit; bottom right – showing the shrinkage

For case 4 I decide to go thinner still (I’m thinking of someone putting their glasses in a jacket breast pocket) so switch to 2 layers of wool – this time a natural marled grey merino – which I think looks quite pebble-like.  I added a little white wool to the surface to enhance the pebble look. 

I forgot to take progress shots but here is the finished case.

It is definitely thinner and a little softer, though it’s still felted very firmly. 

Now I’m starting to think about the time these cases are taking to felt.  I have a week in a gallery in December and will also be offering some things for sale in two other galleries that that have a local handmade artesan ‘market’ throughout December. I could sell some cases as they might make nice gifts, but I’m not sure how much people will be willing to pay for a glasses case.

Cases are generally supplied free when you buy glasses and I know most people have no idea how long something like this takes to make. There’s not a whole lot I can do but I thought that making two at once may reduce the making time a little. 

So, cases 5 and 6 will be twins.  I cut a new double-length resist and laid out some natural marled grey Corriedale wool.

I like the white veining on the merino ‘pebble’ case but it’s fairly subtle so I add more of it to these ones.

Top: double-size resist with wool laid out and wetted tightly round the resist. Middle: case 5 (rounded bottom). Bottom: case 6 (rounded both ends)

I keep twin one (case 5) the same as the previous cases, with a rounded bottom and flat top, and cut a rounded top of twin two (case 6) to make it overall more symmetrical.  Actually, I really like the symmetry of this rounded one, but realise that the top is a bit more flimsy than previous cases: presumably because I’m overlapping more wool at the ends of the resist than in the middle, where I have cut these two apart. 

Because I prefer the single to the twin cases, I decide to make the next pair alongside each other but separate.

I have some lightly prefelted ‘pebbles’ that I made earlier, so set these out on the bottom halves of two resists (on two layers of merino wool) with 4 layers of blue & green merino wool and strands of white angora on the top half to create the idea of sea.

Left – layout; right – prefelted

I soon abandoned working on  both at the same time as the pebbles were a bit tricky to felt round so many corners so I worked on the two separately

Comparing the finished one with the wetted out one, you can see that I lost quite a bit of  the pebble definition but I’m still fairly happy with them and they are very sturdy. Indeed, when dry and lightly shaved you can see more of the pebbles, in particular the nuno elements.

I have some Corriedale wool that I dyed ages ago (to make this bag)….

….so for the next pair I go for a blue, green, purple colour fade.

This time I use just 2 layers of wool and they are (not surprisingly) considerably thinner and slightly smaller than the previous pair. They are also much quicker to produce as the layout is fairly simple.

Finished: cases 7 & 8 colour-fade hand-dyed Corriedale

For number 9 I try lightly prefelting 2 mussel shells (one for each side) which I felt into a sandy-coloured background.

Left & middle – layouts side 1 & 2. Right – nearly finished case

I only made this yesterday and it’s still a bit damp. The finished image isn’t a great photo as I’ve taken it in domestic electric light but it gives you the overall impression.

And finally, another recycled scarf but this one is white dots on a red background from a fairly open-weave wool fabric.

To get round the fiddliness of joining / overlapping fabric on this size and shape of resist, I cut out two sections of the scarf and laid one on each side, with gaps along all the sides.

Here’s the layout and here’s a photo of the finished glasses case. I only made this today so it’s very wet. I’m hoping the dots will be a little clearer when it’s dry.

So, what have I learned from all this? Well, I’ve enjoyed playing with all the different layouts. I drew up a list of ideas and I haven’t even completed half of them so there’s plenty more to play at when I have time. 

I think my favourite more complex ones are the combined pebbles & sea.  For the more simple layouts I like both the grey & white pebbles and the blue / green / purple hand-dyed Corriedale ones.  To sell the glasses cases I will have to focus on the simple ones as the more complex layouts take way too much time to make. I’ve already made a couple more of the grey & white pebble ones and will probably make a few more simple brightly coloured ones before I move onto other things. I’m not sure yet which ones I will keep or give as gifts. Do you have a favourite? Or any you don’t like?

A Summer Round Up

A Summer Round Up

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As I sit down to begin this post the sky has darkened and the rain (fingers crossed) is about to fall, heaven knows we need it, but what a fabulous summer it’s been so far here in sunny Lincolnshire! I don’t know about you but I tend to not do too much in the way of creative stuff through July and August as there are too many distractions and this year the intense heat has made me feel very lazy so lots of time spent relaxing, reading and watching creative videos. Consequently I’ve now got a table of projects I want to finish and a head full of others I want to start!

A couple of projects I did do this summer are two wet felted vessels. The first one, inspired by a shrivelled seed pod, was made at the İFA Region 8’s Summer School in Arnesby near Leicester. Our region encompasses several counties and is so spread out we struggle to get our İFA members to attend. On the other hand we have a regular group of creative ‘non members’ in the locality who are more than welcome to come along to our events, and thankfully they do! It was a busy and fun two days…..

My seed pod began life as five leaf book resist measuring 27cm x 36cm and various colours of Merino and Corriedale fibres.

It’s final shape was formed after lots of pushing and pulling and using strong clips to get it to stay as I wanted it.I decided to keep the opening as tiny as possible and, as a consequence, the resist had to be ripped to shreds in order to remove it! I’m wondering about adding some hand embroidery here and there in the shape of circles using a dull gold thread, I think it’s lacking something but is that it?

Photo of a wet felted 3D multicoloured seed pod with a shrivelled appearance.
Photo of a wet felted 3D multicoloured seed pod with a shrivelled appearance.

The second vessel was started last Friday when I was working at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. I’d seen a post somewhere mentioning they were having their second Artist Studio Day and inviting local artists to apply. If successful it meant I would get the use of a table in their ground floor workspace and get to spend the day with four other artists. It sounded like a great opportunity and I’m so glad I applied! Only four artists turned up on the day and unfortunately one of those had to leave early. My other two companions were both painters and it was nice to get to know a bit about them and watch them work. We had a few members of the public come in to see what we were doing but for most of the time it was very quiet which allowed us to focus on what we were doing.

Knowing I wouldn’t get finished, but would need to get my vessel to a stable state before leaving the gallery, meant I needed to do a bit of prep the day before. So I decided on a size, cut my circular resist and made this piece of prefelt combining threads, fabrics and fibres to cut up and use as surface decoration.

Prefelt for surface decoration
By the time we had to leave I had a stable prefelt that looked like a pizza and could be folded into my bag….it was too large to carry it flat!
The finished rock inspired vessel

One of the Summer pieces I’ve yet to finish is an Iris which I started at the end of July. This is going to be for the Lincolnshire Textile Groups Bountiful Botanicals competition taking place in October. I’m creating it from hand painted Tyvek fabric and wire and the flower will be approximately 30cm dia by 115cm tall. I’ve just got the leaves to do now and then I’ve got the perfect spot for it in my lounge when it’s finished. I don’t want to reveal too much before the competition so this is a sneak preview for now…..

 Finally I’ll leave you with some images from this year’s fabulous Asylum Steampunk Festival. As ever there were some outstanding costumes, some very strange costumes and some that looked like they’d missed the theme altogether but it really didn’t matter! There were steampunk enthusiasts represented from all over the UK and from various European countries. One lady said she had come over from Hong Kong especially to join in the festival! The atmosphere is the friendliest you could imagine and the whole Cathedral Quarter was buzzing!

True to form I didn’t make time to create a costume but this year I did dig out a long skirt and a waistcoat as a (very) token gesture in order to wear my oversized steampunk dragonfly brooch.

 

Quicker and Cheaper?

Quicker and Cheaper?

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For some years now I’ve been selling my work in local galleries and from a  ‘fisherman’s hut’ in Whitstable harbour market.

For many traders in the harbour market, sales seem to have been down over the last year, and I’ve noticed that people are frequently buying smaller and cheaper things from everyone, like smaller pictures, or prints rather than original pictures. Sales in the galleries have held up a bit better for me so far.

I decided to see if I could produce some felt pictures more cheaply without compromising on quality.

I wrote here last September about having to make a lot of pictures for a big exhibition. I developed a new line of work that I could produce at speed. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2024/09/05/the-mother-of-invention/

I decided to take my nuno printed tree pictures one stage further to make them a little smaller (less felting time, fewer materials) and offer them unframed (lower material costs).

I’ve realised that using recycled silk or fine wool scarves is a quick way of creating patterns within a felt picture. It can significantly reduce layout time as your fabric does a lot of the work for you.  I then thought that I could cut down on fulling time as well if I made two pictures at a time. 

I then had a presentation question.  I normally have my frames handmade by a local maker. Would I go down the mass-produced frame or the no frame route? I decided to start with the no frame option. I found a provider of inexpensive but good quality picture mount kits that include a back board, mount and cellophane bag.

I made the felt for four pairs of pictures; cutting them apart before printing a different tree on each. I took these photos as a record rather than to present so they’re not the best, sorry.

For the top pair I used a fine wool scarf, for the bottom two, a silk scarf
A recycled silk scarf provides the pattern for this pair
I’ve used a fine wool scarf for these

Do you have a favourite? I think the one top left is mine.

I had 5 weeks of sales / exhibitions in June (one of two weeks and one of three, overlapping – I know, poor planning) and sold 4 of the 8, so I’m pretty happy with this experiment.  What next? I will probably make a few more of these and I might source some sample frames to go along with them. Maybe I’ll get my local frame-maker to make one then buy a couple of cheaper mass produced ones so people can see what the options are.  Framing is much more expensive than many people realise. I’m also offering photos of some of my bird felt pictures, and prints of some of my (non-felt) photographs in the same unframed format. I’ve sold three of these so far so will see how they go.

I thought I’d finish with a follow up to my sample making blog from March. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2025/03/09/auditioning-fabrics/

I made each of the samples into cards and here they are.

Edge Exhibition

Edge Exhibition

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

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

Edge 1

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

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

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

Home-dyed Corriedale wool and charity shop silk scarf

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

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

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

Edge 2

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

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

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

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

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

Book resist
Starting to full the shape

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

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

Edge 3

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

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

Layout for Edge 3

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

Adding ‘stuff’

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

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

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

Keeping out of mischief!

Keeping out of mischief!

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grove of Trees – Part Five

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

Completed nuno felted landscape with applique and hand stitch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Auditioning Fabrics

Auditioning Fabrics

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I’m always buying second hand fabric to use in felt-making. Mostly scarves but occasionally garments or just pieces of fabric, almost always from charity shops. Much of the time, I have a good idea of how the fabric will felt. But sometimes I really don’t know, either because it’s unusual in some way or because I’m not sure what it’s made of.

This week I tried out (or ‘auditioned’) four such fabrics, so here’s what I found.

Firstly, this soft rather loose-weave fabric I found in the British Red Cross shop in Canterbury.

Large soft scarf laid out
Close up of fabric

The ‘prickle test’: I touched it lightly to my neck and it prickled so I concluded it contained at least some wool. I have an annoyingly sensitive skin that can’t wear even the softest wool so this prickle is a good sign. It’s a big scarf and I really like the pattern so I bought it, even though it was a bit more than I’d normally pay. I could imagine using it in a tree picture like this one I talked out in a previous blog.

I cut off a very miserly small strip then decided to make it even smaller – a 5 x 5 cm square (2 x 2 inches) – I just wanted to see if it felted without wasting any. I had a tiny amount of miscellaneous white carded batt loitering on the side of my felting table so I used that to felt it.

As you see, it felted really well so I set up a bigger strip to make some cards. 

Then I decided not to get ahead of myself so put that on one side to pick up later and got on to fabric number two.

This flowery mesh fabric was from a scarf I bought a while ago. I think I bought it in Faversham Hospices of Hope.

I’ve used fabric similar to this to make barnacles on felt shells before, though it had a smaller woven pattern. I’ve no idea what either fabric is made from.

Barnacles added to a felted oyster shell using a similar fabric

This time I decided to make a slightly larger sample I could use to make cards, assuming it felted OK. Sometimes I just throw caution to the wind!

I laid it on a piece of the merino & silk prefelt I use for my printed felt cards and felted it.

Ready to felt (left) and felted (right)

It felted nicely. The mesh didn’t bed into the wool as much as I’d expected, so it’s more textured between the flowers, which was interesting.  I will cut this into four strips and print something on the plain half to make cards like the ones I’ve shown in the next section.

I decided I liked the idea of a larger sample for cards rather than the tiny sample I can’t use. 

So, here is fabric three.

I bought this a couple of weeks ago in Yorkshire Cancer Research in Ilkley. It feels like it might be a very sheer silk but there’s no label and I’m not sure. Hand rolled hems are often an indication of silk but this has machined hems.  I love the pattern and it didn’t cost too much so I decided to take a chance.

Irritatingly, I cut the silk a bit too small for the prefelt rectangle offcut I was using so I popped a second small strip on the end hoping it would make that end useable.

It felted really easily and well, so I’m pretty sure it is indeed a sheer silk.  I can see lots of uses for this as it has such a ‘coastal’ pattern. Also, I think the join worked OK.

It’s similar to another scarf I’ve used recently for pictures and cards, so I’m very happy.  One of the drawbacks of using second hand scarves is that you can’t go and buy more of the same if you decide you really like it.

A similar scarf I’ve used in previous pictures and cards

And finally, a large, fairly open weave, 100% wool scarf I bought in a Pilgrim’s Hospice shop in Whitstable. No need for the prickle test (though it would undoubtedly have passed) as it still has its label.

I dithered over this one even though it wasn’t expensive. I just wasn’t sure I’d use that much brown. It’s also quite bulky and I’m short of storage space. However, I decided I could use the brown for beach pebbles on pictures and the animal print sections won me over. I love a bit of animal print.

Wool fabric laid out on prefelt (left) and after felting (right). It doesn’t look much different here though, felted, it’s shrunk by about 30%

Actually, I really like the result, more than I expected for some reason. I find that wool fabric felts really evenly – not surprisingly, I suppose. The fabric shrinks with the prefelt rather than rouching like silk does. I will use this sample piece for cards but I’m not sure what I’ll use the rest of the scarf for.  It definitely reminds me of an animal’s fur but I’m not sure quite what animal. 

Well, all four fabrics passed the auditions with flying colours. They all felted well. I can immediately see how I’ll use the first (wool mix?) one and the sheer silk.  I’ll mentally ‘file’ the other two for use at some point in the future.

I love looking out for second-hand fabrics. You never know what you’ll find and what you might be able to do with them. A delicious pre-loved scarf always feels to me like some kind of exciting unearthed treasure.

Another Great Nuno Felt Class

Another Great Nuno Felt Class

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Last weekend I had my last scheduled nuno felt class until the fall. I had 6 enthusiastic women attending and we had a great day.

Earlier in the week I died some more scarf blanks so everyone would have lots to choose from. I use the scrunch dye technique with MX/fiber reactive dye, from Paula Burch’s site. http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/lowwaterimmersion.shtml

4 jars fill with silk scarves and dye a pile of silk scarves

Everyone had fun doing their layout and being creative with fibers. It always amazes me how different they all are.

wool of various colours laid out for felting wool of various colours laid out for felting wool of various colours laid out for felting wool of various colours laid out for felting wool of various colours laid out for felting wool of various colours laid out for felting

Of course, there was always all the usual rubbing.

group of ladies making felt: rubbing

and rolling

group of ladies making felt: rolling the felt

6 happy nuno felting ladies.

Ladies showing off their new nuno felt scarves.

And their scarves

finished scarf finished scarf finished scarf finished scarf finished scarf finished scarf

All in all, a wonderful day with wool and silk. Not quite as much fun as playing myself but still fun. I really like teaching and seeing the amazement on people’s faces when it really works.