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Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.
Miniature Wool Landscapes

Miniature Wool Landscapes

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A few posts ago, I showed you some painted miniature landscapes. Why not try the same idea in felt? So off to my stash to figure out what I had to create these.

Supplies for wool paintings laid out on work bench including various colors of wool roving, locks and colored prefelts.

I found a variety of green wool as well as white, grey and blue for the skies. I also had some locks in black and dark grey and thought they might work well for tree trunks. I had a few sheets of various colors of commercial prefelt to use as a base.

5" x 7" colored prefelts for wool paintings laid out on work bench.

I cut the prefelt into 5″ x 7″ pieces. I thought any smaller might really get difficult getting the wool to cooperate.

Beginning layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I decided to try one first before I made all of the landscapes. I used the pink prefelt and laid out a variety of greens for the foreground and white with a tiny bit of blue and grey for the sky.

Final layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I then laid out the trees with a very small bit of locks for the trunk and a bit of green for the leaves. Now on to wet felting it.

Mini wool painting of landscape after wet felting.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the locks after felting. They went right through the merino and I wasn’t careful enough, as they moved about. Now I had really hairy dark spots that looked nothing like tree trunks. But I was happy with the rest of the landscape. These shrank down to about 4″ x 6″. I probably could have shrunk them down further but since it’s a “painting” and not functional, I decided 4″ x 6″ was a good size. They will fit into 5″ x 7″ frames easily.

Mini wool painting after shaving off excess "hairy" fibers.

Since I wasn’t happy with the hairiness, I decided to shave the piece. I think it looks a bit better now. So on to the other six landscapes.

Final layout of wool on various prefelts for other six mini landscapes.

I laid out the other prefelts and added wool to create more landscapes. Then wet felting them all at the same time. The entire process took me about four hours.

Here they are completed. I like seeing them at thumbnail size as it doesn’t bring out any small details. But I will show you them in a bigger format for those of you who would like to see the details.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on green prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on white prefelt after wet felting.

The plan is to get some frames for these and take them to the gallery. My bigger pieces haven’t been selling very well lately so I thought a smaller size option might be an easier purchase for people.

Experimenting with household/garden stuff …… and fibre!

Experimenting with household/garden stuff …… and fibre!

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I think I might have had too much time on my hands a while ago. As we say here ‘What’s seldom is wonderful!’ So I got a little curious about some things. Fibre of course had to be involved.

We don’t drink coffee in our house – my husband was never a fan and I found myself to be allergic to it after going cold turkey in China back in the 80s. I do love the coffee aroma and I can be sometimes found near one of our oldest coffee houses in Dublin, Bewleys, just sniffing the air.  At this point, I really have to post a link to their rather famous cafe in the heart of Dublin.  It’s a haunt of mine, even though I can’t drink it.  It is worth calling in to if you are on vacation (the food is amazing).  There can be queues so it is worth going early.  Besides the food, the original works of art are breath taking.  https://bewleysgraftonstreet.com/

What has this got to do with my post – absolutely nothing – but I just had to share so you have a special spot to add to your itinerary when you visit Dublin, Ireland.

But, I digress. We drink a lot of tea in the house and while I like lots of different flavours, I tend to consume mostly an Irish brand, Barrys. It, along with an Irish brand of crisps (potato chips) called Tayto are two products most requested when visiting ex-pats. We use tea bags rather than leaf tea and we compost the remainder as the bags are now biodegradable.

My first thought during this time of being busy doing nothing was, would the tea bags (without the tea) felt into merino fibre. Before I could experiment I had to empty the tea bags and wash and dry them. I have to admit this was not a favourite job. The smell of the used bags assaulted my nostrils, so I worked quickly (every cloud, silver lining and all that!). Once dry I divided the bags into two groups and I made marks on one group with what I thought was alcohol based walnut ink and let it dry. Then I went to work laying down the ‘marked’ tea bags and adding 10g of merino fibre on top (4 layers) I finished off with the unmarked tea bags, layering them so that I could see how thick it could make them before the fibre would stop permeating them.

It was a successful experiment. The bags fully felted into the fibre and the sample shrank by 45%. The marks, however disappeared, so I will add them again. It turns out the ink was acrylic – note to self: next time, read the label before buying!   

I do like the textural finish on this piece and it is good to see that something as mundane and ordinary as a used tea bag can yield a successful result.  Here’s a very quick peak at the bags and outcome:

Marking on teabags with ink

Felted sample plain tea bag up

Felted sample mark side up – lots of the marks washed out

Recently, I’ve been doing a bit of reading up on the science behind making felt. What we usually do is add soap to water, in my own case, I use olive oil soap which has a pH of 8. The paper I read maintained that wool fibre would felt once the pH value was moved from neutral. This meant that I should be able to felt a sample by adding an acid solution to the fibre. I was keen to try it to see what would happen.

First of all, I rinsed off all my equipment, my water bowl, ball brause, bubble wrap and fulling cloth to make sure there was no soapy residue around. Then I laid out my sample (4 layers). I checked the pH of the water, which was neutral. I then added a quarter cup of vinegar to my water and checked the pH value which was now 4. The water was tepid. I wet out the sample. The first thing I noticed was that the water did not soak into the fibre as it usually does when soap is added and it took a lot more water and pushing on the fibres to encourage them to soak up the water. When I turned the sample over, there were still dry patches so even more water was needed! That (plus the smell) were the only differences I noticed. It felted easily and shrank down 47%. When it came to fulling the sample, I heated up the water/vinegar solution in the microwave. One advantage of using the acid solution is that the ‘water’ could be used for the next project. That said, I reckon it could be very hard on the hands if this was my main way of making felt. So I am going to decant it into a spray bottle and use it to clean windows, no waste!

  • Sample of layout for acid experiment
  • Checking the PH of the water before I start
  • Ph of sample during felting

We have a beautiful Norweigan Spruce tree growing in our front garden.  I like to refer to it as the gift that keeps on giving because it constantly suprises us.  For example, last year, while I was mindlessly staring into the garden, it launched a pollen bomb.  For those of us (this included myself up to this  point) unfamiliar with the term, the tree released it pollen all in one go.  So the whole tree was suddenly surrounded by a yellow haze.  In an instant, the haze lifted into the sky and was carried off in the wind.  It was truly spectacular.  I have lots of allergies and pollen would be one of my nemesis but I would put up with the discomfort to see this again.  Here’s a short Youtube video on the topic.  Our tree did it on its own while this one was shook but you will get the picture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2Da8Ms45M

Anyway, back to my story.  I found I had lots of fallen pine cones at the base of the tree so I gathered only some of them and put them on to boil in my dyepot.  The house was filled with a gorgeous pine scent during this process. Once I had extracted the dye from the cones, I filtered the mix through some muslin to remove the resin. The colour was absolutely stunning – a jewel red. I used it for four experiments; first of all, I extracted a litre of the liquid to make a pigment, then I used the remainder of the dyebath to dye some fibres (unfortunately I do not have a photo of the results and they are now added to my mountain of experiments (unlabelled – what was I thinking!). Experiment number three involved adding some of the leftover dye bath to citric acid to make a pigment. In the last experiment I left the liquid alone and just added the alum and soda crystals to separate the dye from the liquid base. Once separated, I filtered the liquid out of the pigment, then dried and ground all the results. So, I ended up with three different pigments and some dyed fibre experiments. I have inclluded a photo of the pigment made last summer and the result of the latest experiment in winter. There is quite a difference in the colour as you will see from the slide slow:

  • Gathered pine cones in the dye pot
  • Filtering the resin during dye extraction
  • Glorious colour from the cones!
  • Catching the dye colour in the sunshine!
  • Making pigment
  • I threw a variety of fibres into the dyepot
  • Cone pigment before it dries
  • Not sure which experiment with pine cones this photo related to
  • The filtering process with the pine cones
  • pigment comparison on pine cones: summer one is to the right winter to the left – same tree, different result
  • Pine cone – liquid extracted before using the dyebath.
  • leftover dye bath from the pine cones with citric acid added
  • pine cone pigment from leftover dye bath

There’s a back story to the last project. We have a number of fruit trees in our garden. Unfortunately we lost one of our plum trees last year. This was despite our eldest son’s (naturally green fingered which he inherited from paternal grandmother having skipped a generation) efforts to save it. Finally, there was no other option but to fell it. He also decided to remove the roots which was a big job as the tree had been there a number of years. It became the focus for my last household and garden project. I wanted to find out if the dye from plum tree bark differs from the dye from plum tree root. To find out, I decided to peel some of the bark off one of the branches. I did the same with the outer cover of the root. I soaked these in different containers for up to a week. Now, here’s what I found interesting. Whereas I needed to heat the pine cone liquid to extract the dye in my previous project, this was not needed for the bark/root projects; the dye naturally extracted sitting in its vessel and the high tannin level meant that all I needed to do was soak my fibres and fabric. It was like magic! I wanted to use the dye in some small vessels I made for the 10g challenge I spoke about in my last post. Then, I took what remained in the dye pot and made pigment from it. I found it interesting that the result from the plum bark dye yielded a lighter colour dye but a richer pigment – the root was the opposite. The fabric/fibre experiment produced is a lovely rich golden hue on the different surfaces. Also, it turned out to be another gift that kept on giving as each time I used up all the dye, I added more water to the two mixes and it kept extracting dye – I could not even notice if the dye was weaker in the second round than it was in the first. In the end I composted the bark and roots as I needed to move on with life (I got busy again!)

Here’s a quick run through in photos:

  • Paring back the plum bark
  • Paring the plum root
  • time to play with dyeing fibre plum root
  • Trying Shibori – not particularly satisfactory when opened up
  • sample of all the different fibres I played with – plum root
  • Dye -v- pigment comparison plum bark
  • dye -v- pigment comparison plum root
  • Plum root final colour when rinsed and dried – Yum!

Do you use household or garden items in your textile practice? Have they ever surprised you? I would love to hear about your experiences.

Helene x

Vessel Class

Vessel Class

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I taught a lovely and fun group of ladies how to make a vesel. One of the ladies made a really nice Instagram reel. I am going to try embedding it here. Fingers crossed. It was hosted here https://hookingoutsidethelines.com/  I will share stills of the finished vessels below it. If it doesn’t work, then try this link:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI7Voy2xnr2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

Here’s a group shot,

Here are some closer pictures of the vessels.

This one was cut across the circle about 1/8 of the way down to get the resist out, so she has a flat coaster, too

 

This one was also cut about 1/8 of the way down, but she opted for a shallow dish.

This one was cut just about halfway. She has two similar-sized bowls. Here, I was showing her how she could reverse them to have the pattern on the inside.

A nice round green one with lots of sari silk waste

Pretty pink with silk hearts on it

Jan told you about the sale we went to a little while ago. I was much better behaved and only bought a few things. Two small sample rolags and 3 bags of slubs. I have been wanting to try slubs. I know the neps are very hard to keep in the yarn when spinning, and do not like to stick to a felting project. I am hoping slubbs will stick better in both. If they do, then I may have to order some and dye them myself. One more thing on the to-do list.

Edge Exhibition

Edge Exhibition

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

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

Edge 1

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

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

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

Home-dyed Corriedale wool and charity shop silk scarf

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

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

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

Edge 2

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

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

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

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

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

Book resist
Starting to full the shape

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

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

Edge 3

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

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

Layout for Edge 3

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

Adding ‘stuff’

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

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

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

This Weeks Felting

This Weeks Felting

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This week, I managed to make a few small felt pieces.  My husband has been asking me to make some more handle covers for his cast-iron pans.

 

Second. I have a wrap for my travel mug.  I don’t really like the feel of the metal of the mug, especially in the cold. I have several travel mugs, but only one cover.   I have been using the same one for about 10 years. It still looks good, but I thought I should have more than one. I wanted it to be a little longer and wider than the one I’m using at the moment. The one I have now is purple and blue. This one has a green background. The colour is shartruse, I think. The curls are Blue Faced Leicester.

Then I flipped it over and folded the edges in neatly.

This is the finished piece. It still needs a couple of buttons and some elastic to hold it on.

sheep curls felted int the green back ground A close-up of the curls.

close up of curls on green background

Lastly, I finished the strange-looking book resist. This was round one. At the time, I thought it was stiff enough, so I went ahead and rinsed it out and added lots of clothespins so it would dry correctly.

green 5 pointed 3d sat shape with clothespins outside of same piece with clothespins

After opening it up, I was not thrilled with it. It opened wide. I thought maybe ironing it would help. I was showing it in a Zoom chat, and Karen asked if it was completely fulled. My first thought was yes, it was stiff, but as I played with it, it got softer and softer. So I wet it down and kept working it while watching a cosy mystery.  It shrank more and is much sturdier. I needed a lot fewer clothespins. So I rounded the bottom of the arms.

same piece fulled again with clothespins . much stiffer

This is after it was dry. It doesn’t stand on its own. I will need to flatten the bottom or make a little holder, if I want it to stand like this.

same piece, dry without clothspins

Next, I thought I would try partially turning it inside out. I think I like it better this way.

same piece semi inverted, top shot same piece, semi inverted, bottom shot

One not felt thing. Spring is here, Lambing has started.

This little lamb was born on May 2. he will end up cream coloured. You can see the true colour past the dark tips.

wooly sheep and lamb

 

 

A surprise at the party

A surprise at the party

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Over the last few years, I have been regularly following a couple of you tube channels on Felting. I occasionally trip over others too, but if Sara from Sarafina Fiber Art or Marie from Living Felt are doing a live chat or felting video I try very hard to toon in. Unfortunately the last couple months, I have been randomly surprised as to what day it is, which has made watching live chats much more challenging.

I defiantly have vague memories of Living Felt talking about having their 21st anniversary party for the company, but could not remember the date, but I knew it would be on a Wednesday! I just had to figure out what day Wednesday was, and pick the right one. Thanks to my Computer, who kindly will tell me what the day is, if I hover over the date!,  I was able to attend the virtual party they were throwing.

Party invitation and photo of Marie and her felting Fairies in Texas1.1) Living Felt 21st Online Birthday Party,  April 9th 2025.

Marie Throws a fabulous on line party! Instead of the guests bringing Living felt presents, she was drawing names, from those who had commented on 2025 videos after they aired, and those in the live chat and giving them presents!  There were various fiber packs, wet or dry felting kits, I think there was a workshop and i defiantly saw felting tools.  There were many comments of Congratulations, Ooh-ing, and AHh-ing at the prizes! They were very generous too.

Marie showing the huge basket of names (about one thousand) 1.2) About a thousand names of people who had commented on 2025 videos in the you tube comments.

hand adding slips of paper into a mettle decritive drum to be mixed and then she can draw the names 1.3) Names from the live commenters are being added to the drum. (My name is in there, somewhere).  More names being added to the drum!

Then the party began! With presents randomly dawn for the party gests. They started out pulling names from after video commenters, from the basket. As you can see above, the basket was huge and Marie had mentioned she thought there were about one thousand names in it.

a few of the different presents Marie gave, fiber fiber and fiber with something else in a small box.1.4) various presents that valorous names received.

At about 20 minutes into the party, Marie turned to the mettle turning drum, to pull names of people watching live. One of the name papers from the drum tried to leap out as they opened the drum. She joked about it for a moment and then read “Jan Scott”. OH! That was a surprise! I wonder what is in the bag? It a big pink bag, maybe Maori or burckshaft fiber? Or a wool Wow mat, maybe with a topper?  Ok calm down, and wait for them to open the bag.

pink paper bag held a Blue nilon bag1.5) 20:05 name trying to escape the rolling drum as the door was opened, a large pink bag appeared from under the table.

From the pink bag a blue bag appeared, ooh I like blue! Marie explained it was the Wet Felting Tools Bundle. Well that is a surprise!

I suspect this is a sign I will be visiting Ann for some wet felting fun as soon as she is off work! We have a couple purses to make and maybe I can sneak in a pair of slippers? It will help me get out of my dry felting comfort zone again!

The presents continued but I was kind of in shock! I won? Really?  Well that cheered me up! I have been a bit glum, being stuck at home and looking forward to pain meds is a bit of a downer. (I am getting out a bit now but I take a few days to recover, but I think it’s worth it)

About 2 weeks pasted and anesthetic brain fog ate my memory of winning.  So when, on the evening of April 22nd, Glenn walked in with a big box, I immediately thought, “ah he must have being doing another board game trade”. No, it was for me. Oh no, did I ordered something and not remembered? NO!! it’s from Living felt in Texas!!! Yah!!!! (now i remember)

Drat! It’s much too dark to take pictures tonight, I want you to see what’s in the box too. I must be patent and wait until tomorrow, when, hopefully, there will be light. (I’m optimistic the light will return tomorrow.)

a large cardboard package i dont remember ordering2.1) A Mysterious Box, for me?

So now that its tomorrow (time is passing randomly quickly in this blog, just as it has been for me lately. Is this Tuesday? I will ask the computer, no it’s second Tuesday which means its Wednesday.) Lets open the box!! I Can’t wait any longer!!!!

i found a slitly squished pink paper bag in the box!2.2)  A large, slightly squished, Pink Paper bag!

card with note from Marie thanking me for cellibrating with them!2.3) there is a card and note! That was so kind!

OH the pink bag!! What’s in it? It got a little smushed in the box but I found it has a lovey note in it!

Let’s peek inside the pink, its Blue!! With another present beside it! the pins are quite cool and there is a small note book too!

blue nilon bag with close up of pins and note book2.4) the blue bag is actually a backpack! “Living Felt BFF Backpack, Quick Dry Nylon”. 2 cool pins and a small note book! with pretty cellophane ribbons!

Let’s investigate further, what’s in the blue bag?

vasrious itums sticking out of the bag, hard to tell what they are execpt for the bambu rolling mat and probubly a ball brausa2.5) first peek in the blue bag,

Wet felting supplies! Too many to see while there in the bag! Is that the nose of a ball braus? Also, what is that box shape I feel at the bottom? So many questions, I should unpack it and we can find out.

its a bit easyer to see now that everything is out of the bag but sitll a lot of white things and a pink ballbrausa 2.6) what’s inside the bag,

You still can’t see exactly what all this cool pack has. Let’s look at things in smaller groups.

Ball Brause for wetting the fiber and “Nuno Felting resist small bubble 24" x 36"”2.7) the Ball Brause for wetting the fiber and “Nuno Felting resist small bubble 24″ x 36″”

“Wet Felting Thin Resist”2.8) this is the “Wet Felting Thin Resist”

more of the items in the blue bag displayed on white fabric. see parigraph below for list.2.91) more of the items in the blue bag displayed on white fabric

Inside the From Left to rite and back to front; “Bamboo Mat” (Fabulous my last one died ages ago!).  “Premium Mesh 54”x 1 yard” and “Thin plastic sheeting 9′ x 12’”.  Orange ties, (these are the same material I use to tie up the loom for warping, but the warping ones are mostly blue), and finally “Olive Oil Soap” we should probably take a peek inside the box and see what it looks like. I tried some very cheep olive oil soap the last wet felting project and liked it, so this much nicer one should be wonderful. its also Much bigger!

olive oil soap sitting beside its empty box, soap still wraped in plastic2.92) olive oil soap, I am looking forward to trying this!

It’s been a rough couple months here, and it will be a bit longer before I can get back to normal. So this was a wonderful boost to my spirits and gives a focus to look forward to later this summer.

Marie has been a great enjoyment through this, even if afterwards I am a bit unsure of what the chat had been about, and was a source of inspiration before surgery. She tends to have more introductory felting topics but many of them have inspired something different from what she had intended. If you have felted before or felted a lot, you can take the idea and run with it in a different direction or if you are new to felting you can follow along as suggested. You may remember my Bat on a stick (ok it’s a mettle chopstick) let me show you what I should have been making first, then show you what I did with the instructions. (I got distracted and added an armature for wings, with muscles.)

Maire's cute bat, my cute in a very different way bat, realy i was following instructions till it all went horribly rong and i added an armature for wings! i still think mine is cute too.3.1) Needle Felt Simple Animals: Bat, Owl, and Red Panda Forest Friends! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vePY10Y72U&t=19s

What my bat looked like. I gave him arms and added biceps, triceps and deltoids.

This was a fabulous surprised and really cheered me up. Thank you to Marie who is inspiring so many people to try felting, wet or dry.

______________________

Off topic, I was starting to suspect that we would never get spring. (Someone was hogging it!!!) Well I think it may be arriving, I saw scilla, crocus and lungwort in the front garden!  The weeping pussy willow even has kitten(?) on it! There is No sign of the tree migration yet, but any day now I’m sure! We even have a new side-door-rain-cover, which we found at Ikea. Here are a few shots to inspire you, in case you are still waiting for spring too. Soon we can all set up our outdoor studios, wash fleeces, and have fun!!! Happy felting!!

4.1-4.3)

scilla excaped my garden and are attacking the nabours lawn, white crocus and blue and pink Lungwort4.1- The Scilla has escaped the flowerbed and attacked the Nabors grass! A single white crocus.

Purple crocus and close up4.2-The purple Crocus are coming up. Part of the front bed and a close up. note the aggressive flower attacking that leaf!

a portable forest is a bunch of trees in pots. unfortuantly the rabbit has been nibbleing over the winter and i am unsure if my horse chestnuts and one of the poplars will make it.4.3- the portable forest awaiting the beginning of the migration. The weeping pussy willow has had kittens!, the new sun shade by the side door(the garden bench will get moved back on the weekend).

Another book resist shape sample

Another book resist shape sample

Comments 8 comments

This is the shape I am currently working on. It started as half circles with a section flattened so I could tape them together the other way around.a resist shape made out of flour underlay

I have a flower shape in my head.

The same resist with green wool wrapped around and wet

I didn’t get very far before life interfered again. We had all the snow I showed you last time melt, and then another dump of snow and melt. Now the scillas are out.

Scilla's blooming in the garden

 

Sometimes, when I think about the cuts I am planning, I think it will work, and then other times, I think no, that’s not going to work at all. Then, I started thinking about how to figure it out. The best way for me to do that is to write out how to do it. Then I had to sort out what would be the best way to try it out without having to actually make it.

I figured out a good way to model the shapes and wrote that out, but now I have to do a trial run to see if it works and if I missed anything.

paper patten shape

It mostly worked the way I think it will, but I have another idea I am thinking about that may work better. Thinking is as far as I have gotten with that.

So far, I think the online class will be a 3-week class, with several weeks of after-class help access. How long is normal for after-class access?

 

 

Two samples finished and some Canadian Weather

Two samples finished and some Canadian Weather

Comments 14 comments

Before talking about felt, I just wanted to share with our friends who have mild winters. It is March here in Central Canada, and there is very little snow left. But as I said, it’s March, and March is a fickle month.  This is what I woke up to last Saturday.

15cm of snow on a table March 29 snowfall.

Followed by freezing rain overnight Sunday.

ski powl braking through freezing rain on top of snow. March 30, freezing rain on top of snow.

Do not be feeling sorry for me. This is fairly normal here. We expect it, but I am envious of you sitting out in your gardens enjoying the spring flowers.

Now some felt. I finished up the pink sample for the book-resist workshop. I finished the pages 2 different ways just to show them. I think it might look nice with a light inside.

         pink, round book resist with fat and flat fins. pink, round resist closed end.

I made a second sample using a football shape. It is smaller.

football shaped book resist

The resist was fiddley to get out because I didn’t want a hole in it. So, didn’t want to cut a hole in the end.

football shaped resist with gold fibre on it and hole cut to take resit out.

After removing the resist, I sewed up the hole.

whole sewn up after removing the resist. Stitching up the hole
stitching after finishing the felting and fulling. Stitching after fulling.

Here is how it looks finished. I am really pleased with it. The stitching was resistant to being pulled out, but I did get it out.

finished piece

I may have to make another one.   I may just have to stitch on this one. I have the wool ready for the next sample. I hope to have it done for you to see next time.

A little Progress on the Workshop and Some Nice Yarn.

A little Progress on the Workshop and Some Nice Yarn.

Comments 13 comments

I have finished the first draft of the resist workshop. 6 pages, and I haven’t added any pictures yet. I printed it out, and I am working on the first sample. I will add notes to the draft and add in anything I missed. The first sample is a circle resist.

stack of wool resists
All stacked and ready to go

stack of resists and rubbing tool
Time to start rubbing

That is how far I got, one set of all the surfaces rubbed. I am going to have to find my studio microwave and set it up so I can reheat these when I get back to them.

 

The only other fibery thing I have done lately is spin on my drop spindle. I do this mostly when I go to guild socials. It’s a nice, portable way to work.

Here are some balls I made earlier,

 

The dark pink has some silk in it, I think it came from Louet a long time ago.  The light blue and purple is from a batt I bought at a fiber show. The other three I made on my blending board. They are meino and sari silk. I like the pops of colour and slight slubbiness it gives the yarn.

Now, I am working on a sample pack from World of Wool. I got it last year. I am just getting to it now. They no longer sell this wool. It is Merino and Stelina (metallic-coated nylon). The Stelina is very sparlkely.

                       

 

I did the yellow first, mostly for a change. I don’t do much yellow. It is hard to get the sparkle with the camera but there is lots of it.  As usual, I found it stuck to several things when I pulled my laundry out of the dryer. It really does get everywhere.

That’s it for my fiberiness for the last little while. I hope everyone is coming out of the winter blues and into the joys of spring. I am looking forward to being able to sit in the garden, in the sun and enjoy my felting and fibers among the flowers and bird song.

Working on new workshop samples

Working on new workshop samples

Comments 9 comments

When teaching my vessels workshop a few weeks ago, I was showing the class pictures and talking about some more advanced vessels. They expressed an interest in all of them but especially in the book resist vessels. It got me thinking and now I am planning to give an intermediate vessel workshop later in the year, or maybe the new year, depending on scheduling.

At this point, my plan is to make 3 samples. That will help me write down the order and figure out how to teach it. I need to work out the materials list and timing, as well as how to teach it. Making them will also help me think of where things might go wrong.

I know there will have to be a prerequisite of having made at least one item, and preferably 2 or more items over a resist.

I plan on 3 different vessels. The first is a simple 6-sided circle pot.

 

The second one is more oval shaped vessel, I cut down the paper template from the circle so they will be about the same height when done.

And the last has an “odd” shape, again I used the half circle from the circle to draw the new shape to keep them about the same size.

As with most best laid plans, I discovered all I had for tape was narrow painters tape. So I will have to head to the store for some wide, strong tape that will hopefully stay stuck through the wet process of making a vessel.  In the meantime, I think I will start writing the instruction so I can jot down additions as I go.  I am not sure how long it will take to do all that. If I want to teach it in the fall through my guild, I will need to get the proposal in when the call for workshops goes out in the spring.