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Fibre wall artwork by Eleanor Shadow
When things don’t go as planned, improvise

When things don’t go as planned, improvise

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Imagine this: you’ve planned that project in your head. You’ve gone through all the steps and know what needs doing. You have all the materials, and you’re getting ready to work on it. It’s going to be epic!

Except… something goes terribly wrong and the end result is nothing like what you expected.

Sound familiar?

Hand dyed yarn by Eleanor Shadow
This hand dyed yarn looks great at first glance, but in reality it’s “muddy” – the colours have somehow blended into each other in a not-so flattering way.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. Craft long enough and, be it due to bad luck or simple statistics, something will go wrong.

The problem: The yarn above is a colourway of mine called Love Heart Meow. At first glance, it looks exactly as it should, except something went wrong during the dyeing process and the end result is “muddy.” You can’t really tell in the photo, but in real life I can definitely see it and it’s driving me mad.

The solution: I’m going to overdye it. I find that when things don’t go as planned, a blue overdye can save things around. Who knows, maybe I’ll create a new colourway?

(Shameless plugin moment: I’m getting back to blogging in my own website and I’ll be sharing the over dyeing process over there very soon! I’ll of course still be working on new content for our lovely blog here.)

 

 

Silk cocoons

 

A while back I was doing an exchange with a dyer friend of mine and decided to send her some hand dyed silk cocoons. Silk comes at a price for the poor silk worm, so I was very keen to “make it count” (yes, I’m the soppy type).

I carefully dyed each cocoon, making it so that the exterior and the interior were slightly different and adding variation in shade/colour. I was rather chuffed with the result.

Of course, I then proceeded to ruin things beautifully. I don’t know what happened in my brain but I decided to set the colours with more acid… by dunking the cocoons in hot water.
If you’ve ever dyed these precious things, you’ll know they need to be steam set if you want them to retain their shape. Hot water is most emphatically not the right thing to do, as I remembered even as I was dunking them in the H2O.

The problem: I had a hot mess in my hands, the cocoons all melted into each other, were soft and (to me, at the time) completely useless.

The temporary solution: Remove from water and back away from the project! Make some tea. Curse out loud. Come back later.

The real solution: After keeping whole thing away from sight a while, I looked at it again. It was a mess, but I could make it into something different. The colours were pretty. Then it hit me…

Fibre wall artwork by Eleanor Shadow

Tah-dah, wall art to the rescue. The colours are actually brighter in real life.

I sewed the Cocoon Combo to some black felt, added some beads and shiny embroidered stars in gold and silver. The shape of the thing was asking for an oval embroidery hoop, so I bought one in a suitable size and Bob’s your uncle.

It looks like something done on purpose, doesn’t it? It’ll be our secret.

 

 

Now, this wouldn’t be a post by yours truly if I didn’t add a little sewing, would it?

While perusing one of my usual fabric supply sites I stumbled upon the most fun cat fabric. As with most things in the crafty brain, I had the “button” sorted but not the “suit,” so to speak. I had to come up with something to create with that fabric!

I decided on the Metamorphic Dress by Sew Liberated because it looked comfy and, best of all, asked for two complementary fabrics (the cat fabric had a “friend” that I thought made the cats look even cuter. Aaand, I’ll stop using metaphors now.)

Metamorphic Dress by Sew Liberated, sewn by Eleanor Shadow

I love this dress. It works great on its own or as a top layer, making it good for more seasons. It’s meant to be reversible, but this one isn’t (there are reasons but I shan’t go into them).

One great thing about being short is, I never need as much fabric to make something as the pattern says I do. After careful calculations, I knew exactly how much to buy and order it I did.

The bad thing is, if you don’t have extra and make a mistake… well.
I was on the phone with my other half and got distracted. Instead of cutting the top layer a specific way, I did it wrongly. I immediately noticed the disaster, but it was too late. My soul hurt. I didn’t want to order more fabric because of this!

The problem: No extra fabric and the huge unwillingness to buy more. I was doomed.

The temporary solution: The same as with the cocoons! Back away from the project. Make some tea. Curse out loud. Come back later.

The real solution: I had a little extra of the gingham fabric. Patchwork to the saving.

Detail of Metamorphic Dress by Sew Liberated as sewn by Eleanor Shadow

I had only made a mistake with one half of the fabric, so that became the back. I cut that piece in two and added a strip of the under layer fabric to the middle. It almost looks like it’s a proper feature, at least to my eyes.

I’ll have to confess I felt rather smug after this. My solution worked, I didn’t have to buy extra fabric and my dress is perfectly wearable.

My smugness was somewhat abated after my mum saw the dress and said it looked like a maid’s apron, but that’s another story…

 

 

That’s it, three examples of things that didn’t go as planned but had a solution. If you let your brain think about it for a while in the background, I bet you’ll come up with alternative endings for your “mistakes.” Like the cliché goes, mistakes can be opportunities to do better later. Beats giving up, right?

 

Finally, the random photo of the day:

Sheep from the Shetland Islands

My lovely osteopath Jane went on holiday to the Shetland Islands and I asked her to send me some sheep pics. She obliged and I thought I’d share them with you.

Enjoy your weekend!

Recycling and Upcycling silk kimono

Recycling and Upcycling silk kimono

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A few blogs ago Welshfelters posted about upcycling/recycling a chinese lantern. That got me thinking about the project I’ve been plonking away on for ages now – recycling silk. I really love silk in almost all its forms, not too crazy about silk noil, but everything else is just lovely, the texture, the colours, the gloss, the sound. I have ASMR, so even thinking about silk gives me a case of the shivers.

When one of our guild members was down sizing and offered some used kimono for sale at an excellent price, I was first in line and happily took home a box of bright red, blue, brown, and orange silky bits. The construction of these kimono was amazing, all hand sewn, all exquisitely designed and all in deplorable condition. The fabric has deteriorated along the fold lines and has some tears, so re-purposing is one of the best options for most of the fabric. Hand washing and disassembly followed, along with a bit of ironing, just to make life a little easier when cutting time came.

A few years ago another friend had gifted me fabric cutters; Bliss and Frazer. They are both vintage models and well loved. When they first came into my care, I really had no immediate purpose for them but knew that ‘someday’ they would be put to good use. Along with recycling fabric, good tools also need to be kept in useful condition, so they went for a spa treatment to a talented gentleman who fixed a damaged bearing, sharpened the blades, retooled the wheel plate and generally got them both up and running optimally.

Silk is brutal on fabric cutters.

The wheel is starting to show signs of wear after cutting silk

The blade is showing signs of becoming dull, so I will probably switch to a rotary blade and ruler, which seems to work just fine. The rotary cutter has the added benefit of replacement blades that can be recycled and replaced as needed. I’ll save the fabric cutters for wool and cotton. Using the ruler and rotary cutter to cut width doesn’t yield consistent results, or as consistent as the fabric cutter, but with silk I don’t think that’s a significant issue. There are a couple of ways I can make the strips of cut silk into a single piece of ‘yarn’.

I can spin it together and then hold it together a little more with a ply of silk thrums thread.

I can do a splice and spin it as a single which allows for the little tails to become a design element in the yarn.

This is the tails and tops method of joining

or I can just weave it in as a rag technique and alternate with the silk thrums. In the end, I’m going to call it art yarn and who will challenge the inconsistency of the yarn!

All fabric that is used in our daily lives will wear out, but when it comes to a fiber that is so costly to make, so valuable and lovely I want to put the extra effort into keeping it out of the rag bag for as long as possible. Most, if not all fabrics can be given a second life before they can be purposed as rags. The ingenuity of our predecessors was impressive and there is no reason not to emulate them. Sheets, curtains, judo gis, towels, suits can all be remade into carpets, place-mats, cushion covers, dish rags, clothing material, blankets, quilts, scarves, the list goes on a long as your imagination permits. And yes rags, that’s a valid repurpose.

My plan for these red and orange silk kimonos and the red silk thrums is to weave material for a medium weight jacket for the winter. Something very simple in design, similar to a kimono but without any fitting or lining. My cousin in Japan is hunting an obi or two for me to use as trim. Hopefully this will be functional and attractive once I can solve the problem of the silk bleeding like crazy. But that is a challenge for another day.

Silk thrums easily dye wool and are difficult to control. Silk kimono also run their colour.

 

Not all the kimono could be cut, at least not by me.  This is going to be a project for another day.

 

Felting Beaches

Felting Beaches

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In my last blog I looked at different ways I’ve tried to represent sea and water in wet felted pictures.

Felting Sea Patterns

Looking back at this link, I realise I sold the sea picture I used as the blog header this week. Happy times! A couple of people asked in the comments if I’d also show how I’ve made beaches, so here we go.

The beaches where I live are mainly pebbles, but there are sandy beaches a little to the east and I’ve used both types of beach in my pictures.

Whitstable West Beach: the pebble beach at the bottom of my road

Here’s a picture of two Sanderlings at Minnis Bay: a lovely sandy beach with chalk rocks embedded in places in the sand.  I’m starting with this as it was an early picture and the first time I thought of using a blue cobweb felt overlay to represent a wet beach reflecting the sky. It’s a technique I like and use quite a lot.

Layout for and final picture “2 Sanderlings, Minnis Bay”

There’s a pewter-coloured base for the sand and light prefelted sections and silk fabric pieces for the chalk with a bit of darker shading around them

Here’s another Sanderlings picture, also at Minnis Bay. This time I’ve used a few different sandy shades to add the idea of shade and texture in the sand.

3 Sanderlings, Minnis Bay

Pebble and shell beaches are more common in my pictures as this is what I see when I walk near home. There are quite a lot of variables in how I create them. Some choices are for ‘artistic’ reasons (how do I want this to look and feel?), some for experimental reasons (what would happen if?) and some are entirely pragmatic (what suitable bits of prefelt and felt offcuts do I have kicking around at the moment?).

This is a Big Wave picture that is now owned by a friend of mine. Here I have cut up felt and pre-felt into pebble shapes and put them on a base of several layers of sandy coloured wool tops. I then laid a bit of blue cobweb prefelt and silk over the pebbles nearest to the wave to give the impression of the remains of a previous wave over the pebbles before wet felting everything together

This is a similar picture where I’ve added more patterned silk scraps (recycled charity shop scarves) which are topped with wisps of wool to help them felt in.

Here I’ve taken a different approach. Whitstable is on the north Kent coast of the UK. It’s famous for oysters and has a very long history of oyster catching and farming. Empty oyster shells are piled up on the beach next to a local restaurant to be reused for farmed oysters. When it’s quiet, turnstones pick over the shells, ferreting out bits of left-behind oyster. I love the turnstones! You can see one in action in this video and hopefully see where they get their name from.

Turnstone picking over the oyster shells

I’ve made a few turnstone pictures. In this one I prefelted lots of oyster shells for the foreground then snipped up loads of different coloured tapestry wool for the beach as I wanted a more distant background impression rather than individual pebbles. The tapestry wool is all from charity shops: I really like recycling old and second hand materials.

It took a surprisingly long time to snip all that wool into a large plastic washing up bowl ready to mix it up and lay it out on top of sandy wool layers. It also made a bit of a mess as the felting threw up lots of loose wool strands because the fibres were very short.

“Turnstone Dining at the Royal Native Oyster Stores”

Another experimental approach was a picture I made earlier this year using pieces of recycled silk (cut from charity shop scarves, of course) on top of a couple of layers of wool tops with some wisps of wool on top for colour and to help attach the silk. This gives a different feel – more impressionistic – but still (I hope!) the impression of a pebble beach.

This penguin picture was a commission. Unusually I was working from someone else’s photo rather than my own observations and pictures. By necessity the felt picture is similar to the original photo (though I had to give the penguin on the right a proper head!). I custom made various sheets of light grey pebbly prefelt which I cut up to make this beach as there’s quite a lot of it so I couldn’t just rely on scraps.

And finally, I think this is my favourite beach so far (maybe apart from the oyster shells). It includes several of the techniques I’ve described. I pre-made some shell shapes and used prefelt pieces for pebbles. There’s lots of silk too – I think I may have put down a whole sheet of silk on top of wool layers then added the rest on top of the silk. This gorgeous ringed plover was standing on a shingle spit that juts into the sea just along from my house and I felt this was a good representation of that particular terrain.

Do you have a favourite? Or anything you don’t think really worked? I’d love to hear your views.

Time for a new hobby

Time for a new hobby

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For many of us going into lockdown meant we suddenly found ourselves with lots of free time. For the first month I carried on felting and stitching, working on a few projects I had planned for Summer exhibitions. By the time we got to the end of April reality had hit home and it was looking less and less likely that those exhibitions would be happening before the Autumn, if at all this year! For ages I’ve been wanting to take up dressmaking and it suddenly dawned on me that I’d now got the time for a new hobby.

I’d only tried this once before when I made my “duvet dress”, a tunic made from an old Ikea duvet cover. It was a very simple pattern, bought because I liked the style but also because it said “Yes, It’s easy” on the front of the packet! I was pleased with the result but never got around to doing any more.

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    The design was customised by adding “saddle bag” pockets and horizontal tucks, inspired by another tunic

What I really wanted to do this time around was to make a pattern taking inspiration  from a Masai dress I particularly liked that was well worn, and accidentally splashed with bleach. I took it apart, laid each section onto lining paper and traced around, adding half an inch all round for seams. I found some 3/4″ elastic for the sides of the hem but didn’t know how to create the elasticated band across the back of the dress. In the end I figured, as it was such a loose fit, an elasticated back wasn’t really necessary. Instead I cut a pattern for a plain band, the same width and depth as the elastic panel, and gathered the excess fabric onto it. I didn’t have any dress fabric, and besides I wasn’t sure if the pattern would work, so used the old left over Ikea duvet cover to make a toile, or muslin.  

Back of the Original Masai dress
Home made version

This was quickly followed by a couple of camisoles. The pattern was created by tracing over the top section of the See & Sew tunic pattern.  I took the bottom of the armhole and the centre fold as my base.  It didn’t want to be as loose as the tunic so the side seam was narrowed, the neckline lowered and the shoulders were shortened and narrowed. A quick search on YouTube provided techniques for adding facings and for making and inserting thin straps. Once I knew the pattern worked a Principles skirt was cut up and used for the second cami…..nothing will be safe in my wardrobe any more!

The next item was based on a favourite jacket. It’s had a lot of wear and become very pilled and bobbly but I was determined not to throw it out until I’d found a replacement. This was a bit trickier to trace around as it’s stretchy and I couldn’t bring myself to take it apart! There are lots of Youtube videos showing how to fold items to trace around them…..it’s easy enough as long as there are no darts involved…..nothing I’ve traced so far has had darts! One thing I learnt from drawing around the jacket sleeves though is that it isn’t enough to simply mark the fold line…..you need to allow a little more width when dealing with thicker, folded fabric. My first attempt resulted in the sleeve being a little too narrow. The other thing to bear in mind is your choice of fabric. It was quite a challenge searching the house for a fabric with similar properties to the original to make the toile. It needed to be thickish, stretchy and ideally something that wouldn’t need hemming. The nearest match I could find was an old fleece blanket with a pattern of enormous spots! I’d no intention of this being a finished item, it was just meant as a trial, but since the weathers cooled off I’ve worn it twice already!!

  • Original jacket
  • Home made version

Another project has been this midi length dress, recycled from a charity shop buy. It was four sizes too large for me but I loved the fabric and knew it would come in useful sometime! After taking it apart the sleeves were used to made saddle bag pockets, the side seams were taken in and the hemline scalloped. I’m not normally a flowery type but it’s worn with a pair of wide leg linen trousers and I absolutely love it! 

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I’m loving my new hobby and getting a bit obsessive with it….these items are just a few of what’s been made so far from recycled fabrics.  Although our shops are not fully open yet, last weekend I did manage to pick up a couple of new dress fabrics, neither are quite right for the Masai dress but it will be fun making something from them! 

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3D wet felting experiments (part two)

3D wet felting experiments (part two)

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In my last blog spot I showed how I made a sprouting seed pod as part of a group of 3D wet felted objects I’m calling ‘Lifecycles’ that I am submitting to an open exhibition.  You can see that blog here if you missed it or want a reminder https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2020/01/13/3d-wet-felting-experiments-part-one/.

The second piece is a fallen tree branch with fungus and lichen. My ideas is that as one thing dies (the branch) it gives life to others (fungi etc). This will tie in with the sprouting seed pod (a new tree) and maybe I’ll add a couple of other things too, yet to be decided.

Wondering where to start with the texture I take myself off to the local park to look at different types of bark.

I am particularly taken with these very ridged examples and wonder how I’d go about creating that texture in wet felt.  I happen to have some off-cuts from the seed pod on my work table – a piece of fabric, probably linen, I found in a charity shop and felted –  so I decide to see what it looks like if I lay those under some new felt.  Keen to do things properly (and not waste time) I make a sample.

I am still experimenting with using wool batts from different breeds of sheep (rather than merino tops) so put together natural brown and grey Shetland and Finnish wools plus a little dyed green Perendale including a couple of bits of prefelt. You can just see the ridges when felted but I want more so try cutting into the surface. I really like that effect.

Sample of recycled scarf felted to become lichen

I try out some pieces of a (charity shop) hand dyed silk scarf for lichen and like those too so decide to get on with making the log.

I make a sheet of nuno felt using the recycled fabric which I cut into uneven strips.

Using a large rectangular resist I lay out 3 layers of wool on each side, wet it down, and add the felted linen strips on one side in what I hope is a bark-ish pattern. 

I cover these with two more layers of mixed brown and grey wool then add the surface decoration including prefelted discs for fungus and some marbles under the largest green section.

Surface of side one laid out

I would normally lay out the whole thing before starting to felt but there is a lot going on by now that I don’t want to disturb by flipping it over so I start working the first side to try to get it stable before finishing the second side layout.

On the second side I add yarn, locks, nepps, slubs, silk noil, nuno prefelt, pieces from a striped charity shop silk scarf….I am really starting to enjoy this. It’s a good job there isn’t a kitchen sink nearby as I might throw that in too. I’m thinking that as the log will be lying down, this will be the under side so it doesn’t matter if I don’t like everything. I could even cut bits out.

It takes quite a long time to rub and full this woolly smorgasbord, working hard into all the grooves. As I finish working it I decide it looks better standing up and so the log becomes a tree stump. 

Final tree stump from the front

In the end I decide not to cut into the surface as there is plenty of texture and I also leave the marbles in as I like the green knobbly bits (visible in top picture). 

What next? I’ve been mulling over how the pieces will be displayed together and decide to make a flat piece of ‘woodland floor’ felt for them to stand on.  I start with a piece of mixed leafy-coloured prefelt.

I cut the prefelt into rough leaf shapes and lay them on some layers of brown wool.  I can’t resist adding a little bit of 3D so felt some thick green rope to look like new shoots emerging from the ground. 

Finally I make an autumn leaf to highlight the annual cycle of a tree’s dying and renewal. 

Here’s the final piece.  Have I captured the idea of life cycles?

Final “Lifecycles” piece

And yes, Lifecycles has now been accepted into the exhibition so will be on display at Beach Creative in Herne Bay from 20 March to 2 April as part of the 3 gallery exhibition ‘Map’. If you’re in the Whitstable, Faversham, Herne Bay area do pop along to the Fishslab, Creek Creative and/or Beach Creative Galleries and check out how other people have responded to the Map challenge (dates vary slightly). I know some of my friends have fabulous work in the exhibitions so I think they will be hugely varied and interesting shows

Halloween for Christmas 2019

Halloween for Christmas 2019

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As you may remember, my Halloween Ghost Girl was lonely and I created Werewolf boy to keep her company. I was thinking of my niece and nephew while I was creating them, which may be why they seem to be wearing Kamiks,  a northern boot.  Def- Mukluks or Kamik (Inuktitut: ᑲᒥᒃ [kaˈmik]) (singular: ᑲᒪᒃ kamak, plural: ᑲᒦᑦ kamiit) are a soft boot, traditionally made of reindeer (caribou) skin or sealskin, and worn by Arctic aboriginal people, including the Inuit, Iñupiat, and Yupik.).  Since I had the kids in mind as I made them, I hoped that my sister in law would enjoy them.  I was sure they would have a good home there.

 

1              1 Kamik

 

I had a problem on how to present them.  In this case, lucky for me, I have dyslexia and was unable to do any of the normal jobs my friends had, (since no one is dumb enough to hire me as a secretary or receptionist, although the guild kept electing me as librarian).  Instead, I wound up being a picture framer as my first career. Lots of archival work, French matting,  shadow and plexi boxes. So I know how to present a 2 or 3 dimensional piece.

But a plexi box is not always the solution. Sometimes it’s good to think outside of the box even if you are thinking of a box.

Solution 1 Michael’s Art store carries shadow boxes and plexi display boxes, that would be perfect! So I’m off to Michaels.  No, they don’t carry that size of plexy display box anymore, would I  like the one for basket balls or there is this lovely one that holds base ball cards that lights up?  They did have an “open”  Shadow box (ok, it is just a deep plain molding without glass that hangs on the wall. Only barely deep enough for the figures, and a bit high. …..but that would work for those trees I want to try later, …….. and its on sale …… ok, I cave. On to Ikea which for me is in the same mall.

 

Ikea has a large table top miniature green house that might work and it would keep plants or Halloween figures safe from cats. But it’s a bit too large a foot print for just the two figures. But it would be a good back up plan.  It’s still sitting in the back of the car.

2 2 Ikea; Width: 17 ¾ ” (45 cm) Depth:  8 ¾ ” (22 cm) Height: 13 ¾ ” (35 cm)

 

Over at Walmart I spotted a tall, glass and black metal pillar candle lantern.  The base might be a bit squishy but it’s worth a try. Oh look, no price but it has a bar code. No, scanner is broken at the self-scanning spot…. again…. (Mutter) it’s a bit pricier than I had hoped but it’s worth a try. I got it home and realized the width was not adequate for both figures.  However, the lantern concept was excellent! Just what I sort of envisioned for presentation.

 

33 Walmart; 5″ x 7″ x 19

Back to Ikea for their big white lantern (much cheaper in price than Walmart’s), return the lantern to Walmart and drive over to pick up Glenn from work. Just in time to Drive to Oakville for the weekend. (That was the trip that the last post about the Mouse Angel happened on)

 

44 Ikea; 17 1/4″ (44 cm)

 

Along with Xmas presents and necessary visiting stuff, I had packed Ghost Girl and Werewolf boy, more of the Shetland fleece from last summer (Dark and light sections), the Bee combs and an assortment of needles still stuck in my garden kneeling pad I use as a work surface. I did not pack a ruler. I wanted to do a bit of finishing touches on both figures before they ended up in the candle lantern and off to their new home.

 

I wanted to add a bit more firmness to the Kamik like boots and give Ghost Girl her Mitts (she did not hold her Ghost Balloons quite as well but I bet her fingers are warmer now!)

565-6 Mitts to keep her hands warm

7 7 Boots to keep her toes warm

 

My plan was to use the foam pad to anchor the figures in  then cut the foam to fit the inside of the lantern. (that’s where the missing ruler might have helped) but due to my skills with non-math solutions to measuring I had a piece of yarn and pins to solve this dilemma. Dyscalculia is not all bad really! The foam cut easily and with a tiny bit of trimming fit into the bottom of the lantern.

88 Ikea Solution in Oakville (there are more angels in the background!)

9109- 11 foam base and using the sting to measure and the pins to mark

11

Time to drive back to Ottawa and continue work on the base

 

On Dec 23rd the Guild had a Potluck and Social for those still in town and needing a fibre related escape. I continued with the base. I started with laying out wisps as when wet felting. Then started to use the needles to create adhesion. I layered in a darker path and then added a bit of undulation to the landscape.  I kept to the same colour scheme easily by using the same fleece. This time I deliberately felted into the foam as I worked around the edges to keep the blue from being visible.

  12- 14 Covering the base with felt

 

Yes! that is sort of what I was wanting. I wish the lantern had been just a bit bigger.

Wrapping – I failed utterly at wrapping since I didn’t want to put the lantern on its side and possibly have unwanted movement occur. So basically unwrapped presentation I will just have to focus next year’s attention all on the wrapping and not on the content to make up! (Maybe a spectacularly wrapped but empty box? Dante the cat would like that.  Maybe I will try that for him next year!)

15-17 the delivery My Niece with the ghosts on stings. i will have to make her bigger ghosts!!

(These pictures were off Glenn’s camera.  Sorry, they’re a very grainy.)

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1919 The bell jar I used with the Angel Mouse was also from Ikea. It was called a  BEGÅVNING Glass dome with base, 10 ” (26 cm) high.

 

Having the felt figures under glass decreases the need to dust and keeps cats from trying to play with the mouse!  Framing felted pictures is a bit more problematic not for the dust protection which can be excellent. The problem can be the same as photos against glass. If the owner used an excessive amount of glass cleaner, the liquid can wick in behind the glass and affect the photo making it stick to the glass or wetting the felt. The use of a mat or a spacer gives a space between the Glass and the art which will reduce the effects of wicking wetness (the best idea is spray the cloth to light dampness and then wipe the glass so no liquid runs behind the glass) but we can chat about framing some other day.   For now I have glass-less shadow box, an extra BEGÅVNING and a SOCKER Greenhouse to fill……another weasel dragon or maybe a small hippogriff? That’s what I love about felt you can make anything!!!

Todays task is dryer balls

Todays task is dryer balls

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I got a call form one of my outlets that they are out of felted soap and dryer balls so todays job is dryer balls.

First I make middles out of old or failed felt experiments. They might as well help make some money.

Next is wrapping them in some wool and popping them into the cut off leg of some pantyhose.

I do 3 white and one with coloured stripes per set.

The coloured ball doesn’t nothing different but looks more attractive when they are bagged for sale.

Next is a trip through the washer and dryer.

When they come out you have to peal them out of the nylons.

Once they are all peeled its back into the nylons to go through the washer and dryer again to get rid of the fuzzies.

I will bag them and put a simple topper on them. Sorry no picture as I haven’t got that far yet.

Next is the soap. I get really clean hands.

 

Heart Cards

Heart Cards

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Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who celebrate it. I have been working on creating some simple heart cards from felt and fabric in my pursuit of “using stuff up”. My stash includes hoards of printed felt and fabric. So I decided to combine the two with a bit of free motion machine stitching to make some Valentine’s Day cards to sell.

I started with a pile of fabric from orange to purple. I thought it would be good to have some contrasting fabric for the hearts.

First I cut out a stack of felt backgrounds that were the right size for my cards. The cards are smaller than I usually make and the pieces of felt were only 3 1/4″ x 5″. The photo on the right shows one of the pieces of felt sitting on the paper note card. Next I chose the fabric to go with the different colors of felt. I then put fusible web on the back of the fabric with the iron to give the fabric a bit of stiffness. I wanted to be able to free motion machine stitch hearts on without using a stabilizer and I hoped that the fusible would give enough stiffness. I ended up leaving the paper backing on, then stitching and then removing the paper backing.

I then free motion machine stitched the cards. I was using white bobbin thread and didn’t have the tension exactly right but it’s good enough for me. The photo in the middle shows the back of the stitched fabric with a portion of the paper backing still in place. I removed all the paper backing and then cut out the hearts. Then I fused the hearts to the felt and fused the felt to the paper card. Fusible web sure does make things easier.

And here are the cards after I finished fusing them all together.

I put them in cellophane sleeves, luckily I had the right size although the envelope was a tight squeeze. Now they are at the store ready to be snapped up by customers (hopefully). Do you make cards for specific holidays? How do they sell for you if you sell them? Or do you just give them to friends and family?

 

A Felt Christmas Card

A Felt Christmas Card

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I sent a card to my partner for the Christmas card on the forum. holiday-exchange-2017   She has it now so I can tell you all about making it.

First I went through my old felt bin to find a thickish piece of felt and cut out a tree shape. It’s a blueish green even if it doesn’t look like it.

I then cut out some red prefelt I had for the background. I did 2 layers for each of these. I did the extra on so if this didn’t turn out I could go with plan B. 

Then I roughly cut out a tree shape form a silk scarf I got at the second hand store. I then layers the pieces and wet it all and trimmed the silk a little.       

Even with 2 layers the prefelt is not very thick so I added red merino to cover the extra silk and make it thicker and more sturdy. I cut the wool to give it a nice straight edge to put up against the tree and give a nice clean line.

After that was done I flipped it over and wrapped the excess around to the back. I wanted to make sure the tree would stick to the finished felt  so I did some poking with my felting needles.

This after the fulling.  I blocked them to square them up. The blue colour of the tree came through the silk more than I wanted so I gave it a shave to bring the green back.

I went through my stash looking for some fuzzy gold yarn to use as tinsel but instead found this yarn with beads that I think looks like lights. I sewed it on and then added some shiny pony beads as Christmas balls and a star.

I thought it looked ok but lacking something.  So I added some 3D sheep. I think they improve it and make it look finished.  

I printed off a post card template from the internet and using fusible web ironed it to the back of the felt. I forgot to take a picture of that but I am sure you all know what the back of a postcard looks like. I like it and my exchange partner seemed to be very happy with it. No I just wait for Canada Post to decide to get mine to me. I am hopeful it will arrive before Christmas.

Here’s  wishing you all a great holiday season,

Ann

 

Felted Mistletoe Ornaments

Felted Mistletoe Ornaments

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I hadn’t done much felting lately as I have been trying to get all my Level 3 Art and Design homework completed. So I decided I would make a holiday wreath because I had lots of nice Wensleydale locks that were already dyed green from making my umbrella tree. I thought I had a wreath form so I went out to the garage to get it and lo and behold, no wreath form. Instead I found 9 whiffle balls with jingle bells already inside them that I had used for Christmas ornaments a long time ago. So I decided maybe I could cover them with felt and still make a wreath by attaching them together somehow. I wanted to use things that I already had without buying anything new.

I searched through my wool and found a variety of yellow, yellow-green, green and blue wool. I created three batts on my drum carder. I took photos but none came out so I’m sorry I can’t show you a photo of the batts. I covered the whiffle ball with a portion of batt, tacked it in place with a felting needle and then covered that with Wensleydale locks.

Here’s a photo to show you how much wool is on the outside of the ball before felting. Very squishy!

Next I tied them up into a leg of pantyhose. This is the same way I make cat toys. Then I threw them in the washing machine with a load of wash.

Here they are after felting. I was still thinking that I would make them into a wreath but when I laid them out, I just wasn’t impressed with it.

Here’s a closer look so you can see the locks. So what to do now? I definitely needed to add more color than the green so I went to my studio to see what I had in red. I found burlap ribbon with red threaded through it that I was sent to try several years ago. You can see more about the burlap here. I decided I would make individual ornaments and make them into mistletoe.

So I machine stitched the burlap together around a hanging ring. The rings were actually the only thing I bought for this project. Everything else I already had in my studio. The little snowflake “buttons” were stitched on by hand.

I then cut some mistletoe leaves out of several pieces of hand dyed felt that were left over from making a couple of hand stitch books. These I hand stitched together and added a few clear E beads to represent mistletoe berries. I used beading thread for the stitching and to put all the parts together. It was interesting threading a big long darning needle up through the whiffle ball to connect the burlap ribbon to the top of the ornament but I got the construction all worked out in the end.

I connected the ball to the ribbon with some pewter beads that I had in my stash and added the red bow from scrap felt left over from some felt poinsettias. This is a link to the tutorial on how I made the poinsettias.

And here they are, felt mistletoe ornaments to hang and steal a kiss from your sweetheart. I’m selling them in the shop so we’ll see how they go. I still have no holiday wreath for the door but I did use up some more scraps and supplies languishing in the studio.

What are you felting for the holidays?

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