Paper – Felting and Fiber Studio

Theatre Textiles – More Crowns

April 17, 2026 frabjousfabrica Comments 10 comments

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.

A bottle of washable PVA glue with 5 part made artificial feathers — 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.

Silver crown on a blue stand with image of Elrond behind — Elrond and his crown

head of Aragorn wearing High King's 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.

paper pattern of part of crown with cabochons, beads and earrings — Half a Crown design with initial choice of decoration

a hand drawn design for half of the proposed crown — My design for 1/2 a crown(!) Sorry about the black Fleur de Lis on the back of the paper.

layout of crown design with suggestion of placement of feathers and decorations — Rehearsal of design, feathers and decorations

Cut out crown with beads stitched on and cabochons in position to be attached — Bead decoration stitched to crown ready for cabochons and feathers to be attached

back of crown with glued and stitched feathers and support card for stones — Attaching the feathers and support for the cabochons

Inside of the crown after feathers and all decorations attached with lining/strengthening added — Attaching the strengthening lining to the crown after attaching the cabochons

the completed Queen's Crown — The Queen’s Crown

Centre inside of the crown with non-slip fabric added — 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.

page of patterns for the parts 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.

testing placement of decorations 1 — Rehearsing placement of decorations 1

testing placement of decorations 2 — Rehearsing placement of decorations 2

Testing placement of decorations 3 — Rehearsing placement of decorations 3

Testing placement of decorations 4 — Rehearsing placement of decorations 4

Attaching the front shield and joining the side pieces, seen from the inside of the crown — Attaching the front shield and joining the side pieces

A "splash" of PVA glue containing the yarn to be attached to the crown pieces — The edging cord is in there somewhere

Showing the shields with edging cord held in place with coloured clips, and the 3 cabochons — Glueing the cord edging to the Shields

showing the front of the crown being attached with feathers and cabochons attached. — Glueing the front shield to the back shield to sandwich the feathers after sewing on the cabochons

showing the centre shield and two side monogrammed shields attached and held by clips — 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.

completed King's crown — The King’s Crown

Characters dressed as King and Queen of Gooseland — King & Queen of Gooseland

Characters dressed as dame, Mother Goose, the King and Queen and daughter Priscilla — King and Queen with daughter, Princess Priscilla, (who laid the golden eggs) and Dame, Mother Goose

Now I can go back to thinking about bees.

Ruth's stitched down branch with fly stitch leaves.

Hand Stitching on Paper

October 13, 2025 ruthlane Comments 20 comments

Our group meeting this month was inspired by some Instagram tutorials that we saw by Neha Sachan. Here’s her Instagram if you want to see the videos we followed.

We started with white or painted heavy watercolor paper cut into approximately 5″ x 7″ pieces. I had collected a variety of twigs and sticks. Everyone chose their twigs and our friend Deb had donated some dried grapevines that were such fun shapes we had to use some of those too. Then on to punching holes into the paper and stitching. It’s really fun and relaxing to sit and stitch with a group of friends.

Here’s Louise doing a bit of stitching. She’s doing backstitch in between her fly stitches.

Here’s Louise’s finished piece. I love the lichen that’s growing on the branch.

Here’s Louise’s other stitched down vine. The seed pod was a separate piece that she added as it seemed to fit perfectly. Not much stitching here besides couching down the various pieces.

Here are Sally’s two pieces. She hadn’t finished the bottom piece but had attached a twig from a Tamarack/Larch tree.

This is the beginnings of Paula’s piece. She has since added a bunch more French knots but I don’t have the finished picture.

Here’s a closer view of the French knots.

Ruth's branche with fly stitched leaves made into a greeting card.

Here’s photos of my piece with the twig, fly stitch and back stitch. I made it into a greeting card. I tried to send it in the mail but got it back as it was “unmachinable”. I had to add more postage to get it sent. Always fun at the USPS.

Here’s my final piece with grape vine and little balls of wool stitched down.

We had a great time stitching together and once you have the holes punched in the paper, this is pretty simple. We have decided that this coming year, we will be working on creating a fabric book. We will be doing quite a few dyeing and surface design techniques to create our book pages. Our next meeting, we will be clamp dyeing on felt.

Cyanotone print on paper then felted with Fiona Duthie

August 14, 2025 Jan Comments 16 comments

08-06-2025 Cyanotone print on paper, then felted with Fiona Duthie – fine felt

On August 6th 2025, The Great Canadian Felt Project, using Cyanotype paper dying with wet felting, arrived in Ottawa, Canada. This is an ongoing project moving across Canada, starting in the Maritimes (east coast) and moving west. Small 3-hour mini-workshops are set up as Fiona and her husband travel across the country in a vintage VW bus. The workshops are being arranged on slightly short notice, due to allowing for travel time to reach the next area where felters will be gathering. (If you are west or north west of us, you can see if she is heading your way. She has a web presence, you can try to connect with her as she is moving west. https://www.fionaduthie.com/great-canadian-felt-project-2025/)

Liane contacted her and ultimately arranged for two sessions in the OVWSG guild studio for Wednesday.

I have worked in a darkroom at university, so I am familiar with the concept of Cyanotype printing. It’s a little like playing with the enlarger in the dark room, but more blue. I also preferred keeping my fibres dry when I felt. Since I can have fabulous fun with photo-documenting the event, I suggested I photograph and let someone else enjoy the fun of felting. (If they were short students, I could switch, and there would be fewer photos.) There was a lot of enthusiasm for such a short notice, mid-week event, and we wound up with 2 groups of 11 students, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. We only had a few days to get it all organised. The guild is also in the middle of moving rooms and looms, so tables had to be tracked down, a quick clean-up of the studio, and we were ready to have fun. You may recognise a few of the students from previous times you have joined me on shopping and at guild activities!

By the time I arrived early Wednesday morning, hoping to get a tiny bit of library work done before starting the photography fun, Liane had the room all set, ready for the workshop. She arrived shortly after I did, and was quickly followed by the teacher and her husband. The students arrived soon after that. Everyone was very excited, and almost everyone was early.

FIona and husband arives in OVWSG Studio with tables set up ready for teaching 1.1) The room arranged, and the teacher and her TA setting up

Fiona Duthie and her husband both used to work in Ottawa, but are now located in BC. They had been on the East Coast, giving a felting workshop and visiting family. She gave a brief overview of the order of operations, and the students quickly got into laying out their local plants and other objects they had brought.

on table covered in striped blue and white plastic cover Trays (cat litter trays) for rinsing, hand laundry scrubbers, Ballbrasa, Soap and water buckets 2.1) Equipment: Trays (cat litter trays) for rinsing, hand laundry scrubbers, Ballbrasa, Soap and water buckets

2.2) close up of the hand laundry scrubbers. I think these were made in Germany. They remind me of a sewing clapper (it’s used on seams to flatten them)

2.3-2.4) the magic chemicals that make the wonderful blue colour (Chemicals: The primary chemicals used are ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. These are mixed to create a light-sensitive solution.) She had examples of two ways the chemicals were sold. Fiona pre-prepared the treated paper for the class.

The Cyanotype printing process uses a light-sensitive prepared paper, with something that will block light, making a silhouette, in this case with local plants and found objects. The paper with objects sitting on it is then exposed to (UV) light, which will create an image on the paper. The students were instructed to lay out their designs on the Plexiglas, then, when ready, the light-sensitive paper would be provided and the plants/stuff would be moved to it. But first, get the design they liked laid out.

Fiona gave an the overview of what they would be doing today shows 2 previous prints on felt 2.5) The overview of what they would be doing today

morning and afternoon students for the workshop 3) the morning and afternoon workshop groups

Laying out the design on the plexi

A board, a piece of plexiglass and bubble wrap were at each spot. Students brought plants, lace, stones, weaving tools, and found objects.

4.1-4.6) laying out the design

Magic Paper time!

When the composition was the way the students wanted, Fiona handed out 2 sheets of the pre-prepared light-sensitive paper. (Note she has it hidden from the light between two boards.) One page the students will keep, and the other will go into Fiona’s Group project.

Since as soon as the paper is exposed to light, it will start to etch (like photo paper in an enlarger). So pre-laying out the design made it faster to get the composition moved from the plexi, which had been moved out of the way, so the magic paper on the wooden board could be quickly covered with their selected stuff. Fiona was very calm, and although it is time sensitive, no one seemed to be looking rushed.

The paper itself is also important. Fiona talked about what she had found most effective that allowed the wool fibre to bond with the paper (I promise I will get to the felting!). She mentioned my favourite place to get paper when I was taking Printmaking at the University of Toronto, the Japanese paper shop in Toronto (Queen Street West). A couple of the papers sounded familiar, so I probably did use them for school. Alisa remembered Lokta paper and Kita Kata paper. There was another suggestion, but I should have been smart and taken notes, not just photos. You will have to take her mini workshop to get a list she has found works with felting, or Ann says Ruth does felting with paper, too.

5.1) Handing out the magic paper

The plexi gets used again:

Once the foliage and other items were transferred to the magic paper, the plexi sheet was put on top to keep anything from shifting. A couple of boards had things that were lumpy; some were placed on top of the plexi, others were under, but a bit of masking tape was added to ensure nothing shifted.

plexi is now used to hold the plants down on the paper so it wount shift 5.2) Plexiglass added to keep plants in place

Now it’s time to face the sun!!

Since I was just doing the photo documentation, I was volunteered as Door holder. Unfortunately, this presented a problem. I know the rules, no but shots!! I had a lot of trouble trying to get shots that kept to at least the essence of the rule.

students putting bords with paper plants and plexi on ground in the sun 6.1) putting the light-sensitive paper in the sunlight

As with photo paper, Cyanotype is activated by light. So the prints were left out for the required time. (It was sunny and the smog from forest fires was less today.) Let’s take a peek at a few of the cooking prints.

6.2- 6.4) sitting in the sun

When the time was up, the boards were carefully brought back into the studio. (trying not to move anything) .

bringing the plexi covered paper and plants on board back into classroom 6.5) back into the studio, leaving the plexi on and trying not to shift the leaves and objects

A couple of students at a time would remove their objects from the papers, then add them to the first of two rinse baths. After the correct time, it was transferred into the second bath. This was to remove the extra active chemicals. This took a while to get through, 22 pictures, 4 at a time, but it was very interesting to see what had been created by the cast shadow of the plants and other objects.

the rinces baths of water and placing the papers back on the board after the rince baths 7.1- 7.2)

Felting!!

When most of the images were through their baths, it was time to set up for felting. (I bet you didn’t think I would ever get to the felting!) Fiona explained which direction to lay the paper images down on the bubble wrap, then demonstrated laying out the wool, which was limited to a measured amount, so all the pieces would be close in weight.

holding combed top and showing how to pull out shingles of fiber to lay on paper 8.1) explaining laying out fibre for wet felting.

continuing to demonstrate laying out the fiber on the paper 8.2) Laying out the fibre demonstration

Then the students worked in white or blue Merino wool. Most had combed top, but one had merino that may have been a batt at some point, but was now more tufts and clumps.

the students start to lay out fiber, teacher helps as needed 8.3)

wetting the fiber covering with buble wrap and then gently rubbing with landry scrubber 8.4)

Water was added, then gentle rubbing (effleurage), then gently using the scrubber. Once it was starting to hold together, it was time to roll, first one way, then rotate and roll again. They were not wanting to make a hard felt. The students will be stopping at the pre-felt stage, so Fiona will have options as she felts all the pieces together when she gets home.

rubbing on bubble wrap and students on far side of table rolling 8.5) various stages of rubbing and rolling

Rolling must be done carefully so the paper doesn’t wrinkle as the wool starts to felt and the paper gets entangled with it.

various students rolling felt 8.6) more rolling and rubbing

gental tugging with flattened palms to remove wrinkles 8.7) Gentle persuasion removed a small wrinkle that was developing

Sander

We also got a demonstration of using a sander for felting. This speeds up the felting, but especially with this, you can not drag the sander, or you may damage the paper.

demonstrating using sander while felting 9.1) Fiona shows the Makita sander

close ups of sander working 9.2) Sander working

showing under side of sander with ikea shelf liner instead of sandpaper. there is tuck tape under the plate to keep water from entering the main part of the sander 9.3) Under side view of Makita sander

Makita, variable speed sander, with tuck tape applied to the under plate and Ikea Shelf liner where the sandpaper would go. This is the Expensive model, but it’s much quieter than the less expensive version. (Or the little one I have.) I was told they go on sale around Father’s Day if you are wanting to go hunting for one.

The final result

When the images were the requested size, and had reached the pre-felt stage (holds together but is not yet fully felted, so she can join them together when she gets home, they were finished.)

meusing to make sure size was correct, cutting excess and finished pices more finished pices checking out eachothers pices 10.1-10.3) the finished pieces

Samples with this and variations on this technique

Fiona brought with her some samples, which she shared with the students

11.1-11.4 samples

Fiona has not made a final decision as to how she will put all the pieces together when all the group projects have been completed. I think either a medieval rose window, adding felt to make the stone traceries, or maybe a tall Gothic medieval stained glass window, which would give an interesting grid pattern and could be done in a series of windows. (a tryptic or more?) It will be fun to see what she decides to create.

You may have noticed I have a new camera, a Nikon with a wicked zoom lens and extra stabilising. It’s a steep learning curve from my Lumex, but I am trying my best to climb it! You may be muttering about my love of words (many of which I can’t spell), but also my love of photos. I did have a bit of restraint. For this event, I took 618 shots; there were a few with focus problems (stupid essential tremors), but also a few more with odd facial expressions that I ignored. That still left a lot of photos to choose from!

This was fun to photograph, and it looked like the students had both fun and learned a technique they can add to their felting skills. If you are somewhere West or north-west of Ottawa, check and see if Fiona will be somewhere near you too! (Her web contact is at the top of the post.) Have fun and keep felting!

The handsome Hector the white alpaca, fleece shaven, looks straight into the camera

My first foray into plant print screening

August 6, 2025 Leonor Comments 17 comments

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 used for eco dyeing on plastic trays — Plants ready to be chosen and laid out

A strip of fabric with plants on top in an "aesthetic" way — 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.

A hand rolls up a strip of fabric and paper with plants sandwiched in — Step 1 – roll the plant sandwich

A hand holds a roll of fabric and paper ready to be tied up — Step 2 – don’t let go of the plant sandwich

A roll ready to go into the dye bath to transfer the plants as prints — Step 3 – tie up the plant sandwich

Partial view of a lady laying down plants on her strip of fabric for eco printing — 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.

Giant rhubarb plant — Giant rhubarb. I mean giant.

Dye plant with yellow flowers (sorry, natural dyeing enthusiasts, for the lack of more info)

Eco printing dye bath — Meanwhile, our printing was simmering

A peacock roaming — 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.

A collection of natural dyes in jars on a wood table — Spoiled for choice

Natural dye in jar, with label explaining what it is and what it does — Elderberry – one of the dyes I used

A hand holds a glass jar with two tiny skeins of yarn ready for solar dyeing — 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.

Leonor feeds Hector the alpaca through the fence and has a very goofy smile whilst doing so — 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.

Full length of my two eco printing strips — Unravelled strips

Detail of eco printed fabric — Detail. Love the oranges and yellows

Mirrored eco printed strips, one paper and one fabric — Mirrored printing

Detail of eco printed paper — 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).

Four skeins of alpaca yarn, hand spun from Hector — I hope you like my cat socks, I left them in for your enjoyment.

Thanks for reading!

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.

Altered Tree Book Page Spreads

June 11, 2025 ruthlane Comments 18 comments

I have been slowly working on my tree book and got a few more pages completed. You can read about the beginnings if you missed it here and here.

I start with pages from the old tree book that have been gessoed and then painted or dyed. I used walnut ink on most of the pages but I decided I would try the tumeric ink we made a couple of years ago. That was so bright yellow, I added a layer of walnut ink and it is still candescent. I will have to cover up most of the yellow so I don’t overwhelm the book with so much yellow. I have a pile of painted papers and some of the mark making we have been doing over the last 3-4 months.

Then I move bits around until I am happy with the outcome. You can see that I tried adding my little landscapes that I painted recently but I didn’t end up using them. They didn’t feel right to me, most likely because of the very white borders.

Here’s one of the pages before I glued things down. The yellow and black paper are shreds left over from our paper layering experiments.

Here’s a finished page spread. You can see the same paper layering end product on the right. This is the candescent yellow background page. It has been toned down by layering tissue paper over it.

Here’s one that I used one of Paula’s eco prints on the right. It was perfect for my color scheme. The left reminds me of a feather but it is torn paper that accidentally turned out that shape.

Here’s another layered paper one with some other off cuts and mark making.

And here’s the layout I showed you above once it was glued. I like how the tissue paper allows you to see through to the original book page. I am enjoying the imprecise nature of this book and playing with mark making, color and shapes.

Painting Miniature Landscapes

June 1, 2025 ruthlane Comments 16 comments

Our art group had another meeting and this time we painted miniature landscapes. These were so fun. They are quite small, only 1.5″ x 2.75″ in the painted part and the paper is cut to an inch bigger than that vertically and horizontally. These were painted with a limited palette of mainly greens, little bit of blue, browns, white and if you wanted, an accent color. Because they are so small, they don’t take much time and you can work on multiple paintings at one time.

Here are Louise and Paula at the start. I didn’t get a lot of process photos because I got too busy and forgot.

Here are my first two pieces of watercolor paper taped down to a plastic board. The tape is right up to the edge of the paper so that a border of white is left after removing the tape. We used acrylic paints, small brushes and palette knives to paint with.

Paula was painting three at a time and has the most experience in painting these. It’s just a few swipes of green for the foreground and then painting in the sky with scrumbled blue and off white (or you can use other colors as you like). You are supposed to deliberately be “vague” with your mark making to give a resemblance to trees and other landscape such as bushes or mountains. Because the piece is so small, it is difficult to get too precise anyways.

Louise's paintings in progress taped to board.

Three of Louise's finished paintings on brown board.

Here are Louise’s three. She used a bit larger piece of paper on two of them. It’s amazing to pull off the tape and the painting looks better.

Sally's mini landscapes taped to plastic board.

One of Sally's finished mini landscapes.

Here are Sally’s landscapes. The one in the middle is framed by a white matte.

Three of Paula's finished mini landscapes.

Here’s six that Paula painted. She is very good at the abstract methods of painting these.

Here is one of mine. I put the US penny in to let you see the scale, very small!

Here are the other three that I painted. I enjoyed making these. Because they are small, I didn’t feel like I was “wasting” a canvas or watercolor paper like I sometimes do when creating/painting at a larger scale. This small, thumbnail size might be fun with wool too.

Paper Layering Experiment

May 12, 2025 ruthlane Comments 14 comments

My local group had another “play” day and we created some layered paper experiments. We got the idea from this video. I immediately thought it would give a good texture for representing bark and we decided to give it a try.

It’s a really easy process. Start with a background paper and then add layers of string and thin paper with matte medium glueing them together. By using different values and colors of paper, you can get an interesting look. We used painted tissue paper that we already had in our stash.

Layers of different colors of paper and string glued together with matte medium.

You can put as many layers as you would like but remember to leave the strings coming out the edges so that you can pull them once everything is dry. You also need to try and figure out what strings are the top layers and pull each layer of your strings as you work down. Use different thicknesses of string and thread and it gives different looks once the strings are pulled out.

Here’s one of mine when it was finished and drying.

And here are both of mine once dried completely. It took about 24 hours to dry completely.

Then you gently tear the strings out or rip them out. It helps to hold the paper around the string as you go so you don’t pull off too much paper. But you can’t really control what tears so it is very organic looking when you’re finished.

Here’s one of the results that Louise achieved.

Paula was very productive and took her photos with a matte around the pieces.

Here are my two pieces. I left the curly bits and they are quite textured.

You can see how textured with this close up angled photo. This was a fun process and gave interesting results. Now I have a few more pieces to add to my book.

One paper mache bowl with outside covered with multicolored paper mache.

Paper Mache Bowls

April 2, 2025 ruthlane Comments 18 comments

Quite a while ago, my local art group made paper mache clay and then created some bowls. They sat drying in my studio for a long time but then I finally decided to decorate them. If you’re interested in making paper clay, there are numerous videos on YouTube explaining the process. Here’s one that shows how to make it with supplies that most people will have in their own kitchen.

This video is not actually the one we followed since we used matte medium as the glue. You can use your own homemade paste, wheat paste (that you can buy and doesn’t need to be cooked) or some type of acrylic medium such as PVA or matte medium as the glue. We used egg cartons for the paper but you can use whatever paper you have on hand.

You can shape the clay over a plastic or silicone surface. I used plastic bowls for my mold and covered them with plastic wrap (thin kitchen plastic) before applying the clay. The clay takes quite a while to dry but you can speed the process up by putting them outside in warm weather under the sun. You need to make the paper mache thick enough so that it won’t break easily if you are making a bowl.

Here are the two bowls after drying. The color comes from the grey egg cartons. These don’t have any extra color added. You can then paint or add painted paper to the bowls to decorate. I decided I didn’t want the shiny surface of acrylic paint so “what to do”? I had some natural inks we had made (again a long time ago). Amazingly, they were still good and not moldy. I had stored them in the refrigerator and we had added a small piece of clove which keeps the mold away.

Here are the bowls after I painted them with the ink. The bowl on the right is walnut ink. As the ink soaks into the paper, the bowl gets a little mushy until it dries again. I used a heat gun to dry it out so that I could go on to the next step. The bowl on the left is one layer of walnut ink and then one layer of walnut gall with ferous sulfate ink. I really liked the darkness that resulted and I’m thinking about using that bowl to display some 3D felt objects that I made for my Level 4 Stitch class. Hopefully, you will see those in the future when we have our exhibition.

I was left with deciding what paper to add to the outside of the brown bowl. I searched through my huge box of painted papers and right at the very bottom, I found an old “drop cloth” that was originally brown paper but had multiple colors of paint and prints and whatever got on to the paper as I painted other things. I liked that the paper when torn up, would not give any distinguishable patterns. Some people use torn single layers of napkin to decorate bowls but that looked way too commercial for me.

I made up some wheat paste, tore my drop cloth paper into strips and did more paper mache on the outside of the bowl. The process reminded me of my childhood making pinatas over balloons – messy hands but fun!

And here’s the result. I left the inside with just walnut ink.

And here’s the bottom view so that you can see more of the paper that I added to the outside. The randomness of the colors and the printing on the brown paper really worked to get the look I wanted.

Green "branchy" background added to purple ornament card.

Painting Christmas Cards

December 21, 2024 ruthlane Comments 23 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 30+ Day Folding Challenge

March 4, 2024 teriberry Comments 20 comments

If you follow my personal blog you probably already know that I set myself a challenge at the end of December:

To explore a different folded / pleated shape every day

In common with a lot of creatives, I tend to flit from one project to the next, not always finishing the first project before the next exciting, “new shiny thing” catches my attention. By setting myself this challenge I hoped to focus on one topic for a while and really push the boundaries to develop some new ideas, shapes and designs in felt-making.

This post is my edited highlights from the first 30 days of this challenge, if you would like to see the whole journey, all of the different shapes and more of the thought processes involved behind each piece please start here:

I have long been inspired by Andrea Noeske-Porada, a felt artist best known for her origami pieces. For years I had believed her to be the designer of the kaleidocyle:

This is my attempt to make one

But after my first post in this series, Henny van Tussenbroek got in touch, it turns out Andrea was just the first person to make one in felt, the original designer was in fact a Dutch mathematician-artist, (MC Escher) and author of this book:

Thank you Henny for sharing this information and correcting my assumption!

This book is a quite a slim volume but it is a fascinating read. I was lucky enough to find a second hand copy here in New Zealand and it is one of best creative books I own. If you would like some help to figure out the pattern for a kaleidocyle, I highly recommend getting a copy.