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Holiday Decorations – Fourth Quarter Challenge

Holiday Decorations – Fourth Quarter Challenge

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I have been thinking about what holiday decorations that I wanted to make for the Fourth Quarter Challenge. I wanted to do something simple and decided to try creating an ornament with prefelt. I don’t usually use prefelt in creating my designs so I thought I would give it a try. I decided on a snowman design.

I had commercial prefelt in white and black but none in red. So I created a piece of red prefelt as the first step from mixed 56’s hand dyed fiber.

Next I needed a circle of red prefelt from the background. I wanted my finished ornament to be around 5″ diameter so I used this approximately 7″ container to cut around. I used a craft blade and essentially just scored around the container and then finished cutting the circle out with scissors.

I had enough red prefelt for 7 circles. I hadn’t really planned on making multiples but what the heck, I might else well make more, right?

Next I cut out two circles in white prefelt, two black hat shapes and a black circle to go behind the red circle. I decided that my red prefelt wasn’t going to be heavy enough with just one layer. I used black instead of white because I like a deeper red better than I like a pink. I didn’t have enough red prefelt for two layers. Now on to felting.

I had hoped with two layers of white prefelt that I wouldn’t get a lot of fiber migration. No such luck. I did shave a bit off the surface of the white so it wouldn’t look so hairy and that helped. I only felted this one just to see how it would come out. Next time, I think I will cover with a light plastic to try and prevent any movement of red and black fibers into the white. This one was rubbed with my hand so I think that I got a bit of movement of fiber as well as migration through.

Now on to more decoration. I stitched a small piece of sari ribbon on to the hat for a band. The sari ribbon adds a bit of shine. Then I hand stitched the facial features. Now I have to decide if the ornament needs further backing, if it needs an edging treatment and how to hang it. What would you suggest?

Mystery Fiber – Identify It, Felt It, Take it Further

Mystery Fiber – Identify It, Felt It, Take it Further

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Hello all.  My name is Arlene Toth and I am a Fiber Artist.  It sounds like I am owning up to an addiction, and I am.  I am addicted to working with wool.  If you don’t know me already, I have a blog called Adventures in Felt.  I took up needle felting in March 2019 where they were giving a demonstration at my local haberdashers.  The first thing I ever made was a bumble bee from a kit.  From then on I was hooked and it just snowballed from there.  As with any addiction, I eventually got hooked on the hard stuff, wet felting.  The first thing I ever wet felted was a very tiny vessel.  I used to paint for 10 years, but painting hasn’t had a look in for over a year.  I wonder at times how I have lived so long and didn’t know about felting until now.  I feel I have a lot of lost time to make up for.  Starting any new hobby is an adventure and I am always up for one of those.  I love this so much that I have immersed myself in it completely.  I have amassed a library of felting books, watched tons of videos (good and bad), and taken online classes.  I am so grateful to those out there that share their knowledge.  So I blog about what I learned.  As far as I’m concerned, it is all an experiment, and like painting, not everything is going to be a masterpiece.

One of the things I have learned is that making samples is important.  Most of the time I just jump right in, but there is value when making small samples especially if you are unfamiliar with the product you are using or the method you will be felting.  For instance, I bought some Botany Lap Waste from World of Wool.  I ended up with a lot of fiber that I thought was merino as it was so soft and felt like superfine merino, but turned out to be alpaca.  How do I know that?  Well, I initially felted with some of it, but it didn’t felt like the merino.  Fortunately, the item I was making was mostly merino, so this mystery fiber did ultimately felt.  I then decided to make some samples as I had a lot of mystery fiber.

Firstly, you need to identify your fiber if it isn’t labelled.  The first way to check if it is animal hair is to burn it.  Yes, burn it.  I used a fire lighter and took a piece of the fiber and it singed and smelled like burnt hair.  If it does that, it comes from an animal.  It doesn’t matter at this point which animal, but an educated guess reckoned that it was alpaca.  Alpaca is a lovely fiber, but some types will felt and some won’t. I have a lovely knitted alpaca hat I bought in Peru which is so soft and warm.  So either way I am going to be a winner here.

Now that you have determined that your fiber comes from an animal and it isn’t synthetic, you will then need to felt a sample, step two.

I had three mystery fibers in grey and the black is merino that I used for my control.  I laid them out with two layers.  I wet them out with tepid soapy water and started the felting process by sanding on boths sides, rubbing and rolling.  This is what they looked like.

B was looking as it should for merino, but neither A, C or D passed the pinch test.  I kept working at the samples and I finally got them to do a little something.

I can honestly say that if you want to become a good felter, you need tenacity as this is not a quick craft!  Not only was this fiber slippery and hairy, it was also squeaky!  You can see my lovely control Fiber B doing what merino is supposed to do.  Neither A, C or D is suitable to felt on its own.  D looked like a complete disaster!  Now, some people might think D was superwash, but superwash will not felt, at all, with anything.

So, I completely wasted my money right?  No!  You can stop right here, but if you know how to spin, you can spin with alpaca to make a lovely yarn.  I don’t know how to do that yet!  I was going to give some to a friend, but then we had lockdown, so I just labelled the bags as alpaca and put them away.  However, if you are like me, you will take it further, step 3.

How do you take it further?  You add wool to it.  Something you actually know is wool that will felt. People in the feltosphere suggested that.  So I did.  I got out the blending board and blended the alpaca with merino.  I used the black merino for the dark alpaca and natural grey merino for the other two.  Here they are all laid out as before.

I then wet everything out and felted as before.  As you can see below, adding the wool made a huge difference and made for a better felting experience.

Here we are above drying out in the sun.  They felted better than expected, especially D.  Here is the final outcome below.

Sample A) From 9 squares to 6 squares square, took the longest to felt, hairy, and has some fine holes in it.

Sample B) From 9 squares to 6 squares square, was the quickest to felt.  Sturdiest and best felted of the three.

Sample D) From 9 squares to 7 x 6.5 squares.  I couldn’t get it down any more than that, but considering it was falling apart on its own, this is a good result.  Has some holes, but more like superfine cobweb.

This is the condensed version of 3 blog posts regarding this mystery fiber.  My conclusion is that I shall only keep sample C as it felted the best with the merino.  The other two will be used for spinning, once I learn how to do it!  So, if you get given some fiber that you are unfamiliar with, make a sample and see what happens!

Slow Stitch Progress – Filling in Negative Space

Slow Stitch Progress – Filling in Negative Space

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Here’s the progress on my slow stitch project. I am still stitching away about 15-30 minutes per day on this piece.

The last time I showed you, it looked like this.

First, I added some more darker values with the deep purple thread in the mid ground area. Then because I thought that I needed a little more contrast in that area, I added some deeper red orange to look like more foliage.

Then on to working on the foreground trees. Here, I was looking at negative spaces and giving some darkness and shadow to delineate the tree trunks. I am continuing to use seed stitch and used a neutralized dark green in between the tree trunks. Since the stitches are so small, this definitely is in the slow stitch category. I am still working on the right hand side. Once that’s finished, I have more tree trunks “to pull out” on the left side.

And here’s how the entire piece looks as of now. I may need to darken up the shadows between the foreground trees and I have to decide what to do on the left hand bottom corner. The foreground trees will get some stitched leaf additions too. Plus the foreground will need work in front of the trees. I am definitely enjoying this project more since I’m not trying to force working on it for longer stretches.

 

 

Third Quarter Challenge Entry

Third Quarter Challenge Entry

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I have been quandering what to make for the third quarter challenge for some time now. I had thought about making a coat for our new dog Edgar but he is so rough and loves to chew everything, so I wasn’t sure it would last long. I don’t wear wraps, scarves, hats or mittens much so I kept putting it off. But it’s getting down to the wire so I decided I would use my layout and differential shrinkage methods on making a hat. I’m not a hat wearer. I always think that hats make me look silly plus I have a really big head. But up in my closet, I have several hat blocks (from Hat Shapers and Frank’s Cane and Rush Supply – I have no affiliation with either of these companies). I thought I should try using things I have learned in my prior experiments to see if I would enjoy the process of hat making more than I have in the past. Plus I had a suggestion for using my leftover prefelt in a way to look like a brain. Doesn’t this sound like a recipe for disaster?

I started out by laying out two layers of red wool. I did the same layout that created a nice bowl shape here. The inner part of the circle is laid radially and the outer edge is laid around the circumference. Normally when I make a hat, I use a resist. But here I just started with a flat circle of laid out wool. I then added the cut prefelt for the “brain” idea. I covered the prefelt with another two layers of red wool. I then started felting and made sure it was all holding together.

Once the piece was at prefelt stage, I got out the Hat Shapers Shaping Dome. I worked the felt around the circle to get it to shrink and fit the dome shape. Once it was fitting that shape a bit better, I switched to the final Hat Shaper.

This one is called Flanged Brim Cloche. I soon realized that my circle wasn’t big enough and also that my ring of circumferential fiber/wool should have been larger. I worked and worked on getting it to shrink down, but it was done shrinking and very stiff. Perhaps I should have just turned it upside down and called it a dish at that point!

So what to do? I put it on the Frank’s Rush and Cane Supply high dome hat block. I just started playing around with different ways to decrease the circumference where the hat sits on your head. So I ended up with the back looking like a bonnet from Little House on the Prairie (a television show in the 1970’s for those of you who aren’t in the US). But I took a problem and made it into a design feature. I did stitch the back together after the hat was dry to keep the folds in place.

And here it is after I dressed it up with a felt flower that was hanging around the studio. And remember the yellow prefelt? It hardly made much difference in the shape at all. I didn’t double it up like I had in my previous experiments, nor did I stitch it down. So it gave just a small bit of shape and color to the end result. You can see the yellow best in the hat photo from above. And guess what? The hat doesn’t fit me, it’s too small and very shallow so it sits on the top of my head and looks ridiculous. It was so bad, I didn’t even take a photo. You’ll just have to imagine it.  Anybody need a hat?

At least I have an entry for the third quarter challenge and now I remember why I don’t make hats.

 

Danish Style Shawl

Danish Style Shawl

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This post is written by Teri Berry, just a little confusion on the publishing so it shows up under my  name. Ruth

Every few months (before Coronavirus blighted our lives) I used to meet with a couple of friends for felting play dates, where we share what we have been working on, discuss ideas for future projects and teach each other new skills. Last month we had our first felting play date for more than 6 months. It was just so lovely to chat woolly gossip while working on our own projects, Janine all but had to throw Nancy and me out of her gorgeous studio at the end of the day!

During our show and tell Janine shared a gorgeous wrap-around shawl she had knitted, it was based on a traditional Danish design that is tied behind your back so you do not need a hand or shawl pin to hold it in place, ingenious!

I took one look at Janine’s shawl and knew I wanted to make a nuno-felt version.

As the pattern of this shawl is symmetrical, it was an ideal candidate for laying out over a resist. Unfortunately I did not have the foresight to measure Janine’s shawl but manage to fudge my calculations based on my own body measurements and created a resist allowing for 50% shrinkage.

I laid out a very pretty piece of blue and pink silk chiffon over both sides of the resist, wetting it so the fabric adhered to the resist and then trimmed the silk to the size of the resist.

Then I laid out 2 layers of merino on each side of the resist, adding a felt rope to each side of the pointed tip before rubbing and rolling until the wool was starting to shrink.

To remove the resist I cut along all of the curved edges, leaving only the straight edge intact.

Some more fulling and trimming later, this is the result:

It is far from perfect, I have a long list of changes to make for the next iteration but this design definitely has possibilities…. coming to an Etsy shop near you before Christmas! (sorry, I know I should not mention the C word this early in the year! 😉 ).

Speaking of shops, another piece of good news is that the Craft Coop in Camberley are hosting a mini exhibition of my work this week (on now until Sunday 20th September), if you are in the area please do pop in, we are in the Square Shopping Centre.

Online Classes

A friendly reminder that registration for the Concertina Hat and Felted Bags classes is now open. This will be your last chance to take these classes this year, please contact Teri if you would like to participate.

More information on these classes can be found here:

Felted Concertina Hat with Teri Berry

Felted Bags with Teri Berry

Happy Felting!

Prefelt and Structure

Prefelt and Structure

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If you have been following my experiments lately, I have been trying felt rope as a base for structure. I had a request to try the same experiment with prefelt to see if there was any difference between the two.

I made  a piece of prefelt and cut it into strips with a rotary cutter. I decided to use two strips to give the same weight as the felt rope in my prior experiment. I also covered the same resist with two layers of wool laid perpendicular to the length of the resist.

I used two strips of prefelt and wrapped around the resist. These were stitched in place with yellow 30 weight machine thread. It was easier to stitch the prefelt than the felt rope.

I then covered this with two more layers of wool over the prefelt strips wrapped in the same direction as the first layer. The photos above show the piece after I removed the resist and the photo on the right is a closer look at one of the prefelt strip areas. It definitely shrank differently than the felt rope. The rope got very wavy under the felt.

And here it is after fulling and shaping. The only different thing that I did this time was to continue to stretch the prefelt areas into circular shapes as I was fulling. I think that helped to smooth out the circles compared to my last try.

And here are the two together. The one on the left is made with felt rope and the one on the right is with prefelt. Essentially the same thing. As you can see, the rope is a bit wavier but that might have been avoided if I have stretched it more during fulling. The thing I like about this experiment is that the prefelt works just as well as the rope and for me, it’s much easier to make. So I think my experiments with felt rope are over. 😉

Felt Rope and Structure Part Three

Felt Rope and Structure Part Three

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I have been continuing my experiments with felt rope and structure so here we are at part three. (Part One and Part Two, if you missed them.) I had gotten so many different suggestions that I wanted to try out a different method. This involved stitching the felt rope to prefelt so it would stay in place.

Luckily, I found some already made felt rope so I didn’t have to spend time making it. But, it wasn’t long enough to spiral around the resist but I had three pieces that would work. My resist is bigger than the last one where I made the felt “pickle”. It’s about 8″ x 15″ (20 x 38 cm). I covered the resist with two very thin layers of wool and laid all the wool perpendicular to the long side of the resist. This is the opposite direction to what I used on the the felt “pickle”. I then wet down and felted the piece to prefelt.

Here it is. If you look carefully, you will see a few holes. But I decided not to worry about it since I was adding a second layer of wool over this one. I put the felt outside and it dried in just  a few minutes. It is 96 degrees F (35+ C) here today.

Now to stitch the felt rope to the prefelt. I used a matching color machine weight thread and hand stitched the ropes in place. You can see them stitched on in the right hand photo. I stitched the ends of the rope together so it would be a continuous circle around the wool.

Now to add more wool over the top of the stitched ropes. I kept the wool running in the same direction as the first layer of wool and covered with another couple of thin layers of wool. Then to start rubbing and getting everything to hold together. I did appreciate that the ropes were held in place well and didn’t shift or move during the felting process.

Here’s the piece after felting and beginning to full. The resist is still inside at the moment. I just snipped off one end to pull the resist out.

Next up was fulling. Here is the piece after I finished fulling. The felt rope got really wavy and wasn’t staying firm enough to hold a circle. I’m not sure why but I completely forgot to stretch the felt rope as I was going along so it would stay more circular. But then I had an “Aha” moment or a “Duh” moment (whichever way you like to think about it) and I thought I would try and stretch out the rope so it would dry more round.

Here’s my felt yard art on a stick. The rope didn’t stretch out completely but it is circular enough for me. Another fun experiment completed and the stitching worked perfectly to keep the rope in place while felting. I just need to shave off the fuzzies once this has dried. What should I experiment with next? Any good ideas?

Felt Basket #3

Felt Basket #3

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Yes, I made another felt basket. this one is with some Bergschaf Tyrollean wool I got from Lituania when it was on sale and had free shipping to boot. I don’t know if its the same as the Bergschef that DHG sells.  https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/532965567/one-of-the-best-wool-for-wet-felting?ref=shop_home_active_7&frs=1&crt=1

I used a little over 300 grams.

I repaired the resist from the last basket with some sheep duct tape.

The wool was in a bat as you can see. I  am not used to working with them. But even with splitting it and fiddling to make it all even, it was faster to lay out.

 

I rubbed a bit and then rolled it as usual until it was shrinking then cut it out and cut the handle. I didn’t realize how much it had shrunk until I pulled out the resist. this blue foam is much softer than the white I get and you don’t feel it bunching up the same way.

I have a washboard for rolling on but this was t wide for it. I have a great car floor mat that works great. it has a great texture. I wrap the piece in some plastic to protect the surface while I roll.

I also beat the basket into a nice round shape after blowing up a 24-inch beach ball inside it. Beating it with a pool noodle worked great.

I popped it outside to be another alien.

When it was dry I decided it had not been fulled enough. I wet it down and put it in the dryer with some bumpy balls. It shrank some more.

I dried it on a 20-inch beach ball this time. It is nice and sturdy now.

Not great pictures but it is thundering and we are about to get a downpour so I had to be quick about snapping a couple of pictures.

the handle is quite straight across when I roll it up. I think I may have to steam it and let it cool in a rounder shape.  Also, it is quite hairy. part of that may be the fulling with the bumpy balls. Tennis balls would have been a better choice, I think.

Anyway, I like it but the next step will be to try doing what they do for felt carpets in the middle east. use a blow torch to burn off the fuzziness. I was hoping to have pictures of that for you today but I have run out of time. so hopefully next week you will have some pictures of me trying that.  Anyone else ever tried to burn off the fuzzies?

Felt Rope and Structure Part Two or How To Wet Felt A Dill Pickle

Felt Rope and Structure Part Two or How To Wet Felt A Dill Pickle

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I showed you my first failed experiment with a felt rope and using it for structure. I got loads of good ideas on how to improve the experiment and took those suggestions and came up with a plan.

First off, I decided to work around a flat resist and use the same kind of wool for the felt rope as the rest of the surface. So I used mixed 56’s that I hand dye. I dry felted a felt rope from the yellow wool. I didn’t add any water at all but just rolled it dry until it was holding together. It wasn’t firm at all. I left the ends loose so that I could make sure the rope was well attached.

I covered the resist with light green wool with a couple of thin layers all running lengthwise to the resist.

I then wrapped the felt rope around the wool covered resist and added a couple more thin layers of wool in the light green. I added a bit of darker green to the ends.

And then I rubbed and felted and began fulling before removing the resist. Here it is after I took the resist out.

And then I fulled it into submission. You can see how much shrinkage there was in comparison to the resist. It is very hard and certainly won’t lose it’s shape.

And here it is after I shaved the surface a bit. It could use a bit more shaving but I haven’t had time to let it dry yet. So once it’s dry, I will shave it again. To me, it looks like a dill pickle or perhaps a small minnow? It is much more in line with what I was thinking when I first tried the experiment. I will have to try it on a larger scale. I’m not sure that the felt rope adds any advantage over prefelt cut in a strip. Perhaps if I have gotten the rope a bit harder, it might have effected the shape more. Next time, I think I will lay the resist wool going around the short side of the resist instead of lengthwise. I would also use less wool on the ends of the rope or just use a cut strip of prefelt.

 

 

3rd Quarter Challenge and Summer Poker Challenge in One.

3rd Quarter Challenge and Summer Poker Challenge in One.

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My guild does a summer poker challenge every summer. first, you pick weaving or spinning or new this year felting. You pick 3 cards from a deck of cards to find out your challenge for the summer. The idea is to get you to try something you wouldn’t usually do.  I picked my card in June. I got blue, cotton and metallic.  Then Lyn and Annie announced the 3rd quarter challenge of a personal item to keep you warm. There is more about the challenge here:

2020 Third Quarter Challenge

The first thing I did was dye some open-weave cotton I had.  You can read more about that here in this blog post I did:

Cotton dyed and some new fibre.

All the pictures will open larger if you click on them.

My plan is to make a lightweight poncho for cool evenings. This requires a big layout. the start is 4feet by 4feet. I put the first layer of cotton down and decided to use thin plastic for the resist so it would roll up easily. I don’t need to feel the edge of the resist like you do making a hat.

I added the second piece of cotton and sewed around the edge using big basting stitches.

Then I took it all out and overlapped the edges and sewed it up again. The edge will be visible on the inside and I didn’t want the seam sticking out.

All sewn together

Next, I added a very thin and not perfectly neat, layer of medium blue. I want the cotton to show through. Then started adding the embellishments. Sorry about the pictures not being great but I am holding my phone as high up as I can, trying to get an overall shot.

This one is a bit better. Mostly the embellishments are wool in different colours.  I added the metallic threads to take care of that part of the poker challenge but didn’t get a good picture.

These are the 2 sparkly nylons I used for the metallic part of the challenge; bronze and steel. I only used a little. I don’t want to sparkle very much.

Next is wet it all down, and start felting- rubbing and rolling.

When it was starting to shrink I opened one corner to be the hole for the head and opened the bottom 2 sides.

Here it is finished.

And the cotton sides

Here are some closeups

The cotton side

The wool side

And the metallic bitts, they don’t shrink so they get wiggly.

I am very happy with the result. The wool separated out and let the cotton show through. It has a nice light feel and I think it invokes the feel of moving water or ripples on a pond. It should work well for cool nights.