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Category: Wet Felting

Demo at the Log Farm.

Demo at the Log Farm.

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As some of you know the farmers market I go to is at the Log Farm in Ottawa. https://thelogfarm.com/ Along with the farmers market on Saturdays, there is also a working small farm with the original log house and barns where you can visit and see some animals and enjoy a break from the city without leaving the city.   Last weekend was shearing day for the sheep they have at the farm. They asked my guild to do a demonstration, and of course we said yes.

Here we are setting up under the tents. You can see in the first shot that the styrofoam head and hat had already taken the first of several tumbles with the wind. in the second shot, you can see the container of goodies I brought as a treat. A little bonus for coming out to demo on an iffy weather day.

This is Josee demoing on her table loom.

This is Paula spinning on her electric spinning wheel. She also has her incle loom set up and was demonstrating that too.

This is Maureen Spinning on her wheel, an Ashford Traveler. You can see it in Paula’s picture too. I think Maureen was chatting with someone when I took this.

And to be fair here is a picture of me teaching some girls how to make felted beads using some pencils. I know I am blurry but it was the best shot of the girl’s hands.

 

As I said we were there for shearing day. here are the sheep staying dry while they wait for the shearer.

Here is one getting shorn. They had their own tent so the shearer could also stay dry.  All the wool was donated to the guild and Jan and some others bagged it all to give to fellow members.

Here are some pictures of the surroundings. Some barns were renovated last year. after a few years, they will weather and not look so brand new.

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We had a great time despite the ominous clouds and several downpours. I was surprised at the number of people who attended with the forecast we had but they all seemed happy and I think we gained a couple of guild members.

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched on to hand dyed green background fabric and laced on to matte board.
Felt Tree Trunk Piece Completed

Felt Tree Trunk Piece Completed

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After by last post about creating a tree trunk, I was working on making the leaves a bit more pink. I think it’s a little hard to tell from these photos, but I added pink with colored pencil.

The photo on the left shows the leaves before adding color. The photo on the right is after I colored them with a pink colored pencil. It is much more evident in person that the color is different.

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched in place.

Then I needed to add the branch and leaves. I hand stitched them in place and the leaves are not directly tacked down to the bark. They are attached to their respective branches so they can be moved to different positions or even flutter a bit in the breeze.

Next was to stitch the lichen in place. Again, it is hand stitched down. I orginally had a lot more lichen on the bark but decided I didn’t want to overwhelm the beautiful colors that were already in the bark.

Multicolor wet felted tree trunk with felted branch and tea bag leaves stitched on to hand dyed green background fabric and laced on to matte board.

Then to decide how to finish and frame. I hand dyed the background fabric and hand stitched the bark in place. Then I laced the green fabric around a piece of matte board so it’s ready to frame. This piece is 14″ x 28″. I have decided to call it “Hanging On”. Next up is to take my recent pieces to the framers and get them all framed. I will share the framed pieces once they’re finished.

Decorating a small blanket

Decorating a small blanket

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I spied a small woollen blanket in my local charity shop earlier in the year. I think it probably was used as a cot blanket earlier in it’s life. The blanket measures 38 inches x 46 inches, the colour of cream and has a lovely blanket stitch all along the folded edges.

 

No label on the blanket, but it is wool, and there are one or two nibbled areas from one or two moths.

     

 

I have a plan is to turn this old unloved blanket into a usable blanket for the younger grandchildren when they visit – to use in the house, or as a car rug, or to cuddle up with if tired. I will add a soft backing to one side – either a piece of flannel or fleece, and that should prevent the itchy scratchy feel of a woollen blanket that so many of us will be familiar with.

 

I decided to add some colour to each corner, and perhaps along the sides, throughout the rest of this year, and it may be done for Christmas time. I found my bag of scrap felt pieces and made a few layouts until I was happy with one that provided some colour and interest.

             

 

I have stitched these shapes down using my sewing machine. These pieces of felt are left from other projects, and some are prefelt (probably) and are placed with some artistic licence. I used a needle felting tool from Clover (green/yellow) to secure the pieces to the blanket, and I was quite surprised by how well it worked. I also have the fake/copy item (blue).

 

I continued adding to my layout, trying to give an impression of a little piece of my garden.

                 

 

To secure the work thus far, I decided to add some water, soap and some friction to ensure that everything will stay well and truly stuck on.

                   

 

I will continue working on this blanket through the rest of the year, and will show my progress in my posts. I am pleased with it so far, and now I must think of what to do for the next corner. I will also  attempt to cover with some wool or embroidery stitches on the areas where some moths have had a lunch or two. A little needle felting and some embroidery stitches should do the trick.

The garden is looking so nice despite all the rain we have had so far this year. Here is a photo of a bumble bee on one of the alliums, no matter how hard I tried he would not stay in one spot, and my beautiful peony with so many blooms, and keeping fingers crossed that they survive the rain.

 

Five leaves made from painted tea bags and free motion machine stitching that have been burnt with a soldering iron.
Creating a Branch, Leaves and Lichen for a Felt Tree Trunk

Creating a Branch, Leaves and Lichen for a Felt Tree Trunk

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In my last post, I showed you the beginnings of a tree trunk that I have been creating. Next up was to make a branch, leaves and lichen for the trunk.

Felted fringe cut from a scarf above felt tree branch made from similar fringe.

The branch was made from the fringe that I cut off when I felted the tree trunk. There is extra fringe at the top of the photo above and the branch that I created from a similar piece of scarf below. I did a bit of twisting, tacking it down with a felting needle and then wet felted the branch.

Interfacing and nylon organza painted purple.

I painted some lightweight interfacing and some nylon organza to make the lichen. It was fun to make lichen in purple!

Here’s the set up that I use for burning synthetic fabric. It gives off bad odors so I put a piece of glass on my stovetop, turn on the fan in the vent hood and burn with a soldering iron first. Once I get the shapes, then I use a heat gun to further shrink and change the shape of the fabric. It shrinks the fabric down, so you need to burn out more pieces than you think you need. (Make sure to be very careful with the soldering iron and keep it away from your fingertips. You also might want to wear a mask.)

Here’s the burnt interfacing on the left and the result after heating with the heat gun on the right. I usually tear these pieces up into smaller sections as that looks more like the way lichen grows on tree trunks. Do you like the little dog at the bottom? Totally unplanned.

Here’s the nylon organza. I do both the interfacing and the organza because they each give a different texture. That way when mixed together, it looks more like real lichen.

Next up was to create the leaves. I used tea bag papers that I painted. I wanted a soft peach-pink color but ended up with more of an orange color. Oh well, I kept going. The top right shows the tea bag papers layered with two papers and then free motion machine stitched to make veins. Then I cut out the leaves to the correct shape and then used a soldering iron to burn bits away and make little holes. Now they look like fall leaves.

But I was still unhappy with the color. I definitely wanted them less orange and more pink. So I took some leftover tea bag paper and tried several different media to see what I liked best. I ended up using the pink colored pencil. Now to stitch it all together and see if it needs anything else, but you will have to wait until June for that post.

 

Striped felt background with tryout of branch, leaf and lichen.
Creating Felt Artwork from my Fiber Stash

Creating Felt Artwork from my Fiber Stash

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On to a new piece and the thoughts of what should I create? I like to look through my stash and see what I have to use up. I was gifted with a large amount of wool and other finished fiber pieces when my friend Paula stopped felting. What can I find for my next piece?

Dyed silk and striped cobweb scarf

I looked through my bag of dyed silk pieces and also a bag of felted pieces that need to be re-used or cut up or whatever else comes to mind. So I found these two pieces. The stripey piece is a cobweb scarf with a fringe of felted cords. The silk is a piece that I dyed many moons ago.

One layer of striped scarf showing minimal felting and holes.

As you can see in this photo, the scarf was very lightly felted and had lots of holes in it. I thought that the scarf was more like prefelt than completely fulled. So I decided to cut it into three pieces and layer them together so the felt would be more solid. I left the fringe off and thought I could use it later. I then added the piece of silk to one side as I thought the combination of the two would give an interesting surface to work on.

Nunofelted wool and silk (whites, browns and yellows) with silk side on top.

So I felted them together and the silk was barely attached after much work. Hmm… Plus you can’t see the stripes from the wool through the silk since it didn’t penetrate very well.  What to do?

Felted three layers of striped scarf.

I turned the piece over and liked the back side much better. It looks like a tree trunk to me! I pulled the silk off the back which came right off and decided to work on the plain felt instead. I’m sure I will be able to use the silk piece for something else in the future.

Multicolored striped felt with fiber branch and tea bag leaves placed on top.

So thinking tree trunk, I thought perhaps the cut off fringe could be made into a branch. I have rolled the fringe and edge up a bit and I’m trying it out on the tree trunk. The branch of leaves to the left is one that I made last year with wrapping yarn around wire and stitching and burning tea bag leaves.

Striped felt background with tryout of branch, leaf and lichen.

I had a few bits of “lichen” that I made from painted interfacing so I added those into the tryout. So now I have a direction to go with this piece. Next up will be painting the tea bag paper and interfacing so I can make more leaves and lichen. I think I will jazz up the color a little bit since the tree trunk is so colorful. I’ll let you know how that goes in my next post.

 

Exhibitions

Exhibitions

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In my previous blogs this year, I’ve charted my progress in preparing for a big exhibition of my work in a Michelin starred pub/restaurant (The Sportsman, Seasalter) along the coast from where I live.  Making the work was a big undertaking. Since I last wrote, I’ve set up the six-week exhibition and as I press the button on this blog, it still has a few days left to run.

I confess I’ve done no felt-making since I set up this exhibition so I’m going to show you what I have of this event, plus a few photos of another exhibition I had at the same time.

I’m apologising in advance as these aren’t great photos.  I took them more as a record for myself rather than trying to capture the feel. The light is very yellow and they don’t do the venue justice. Once I’d set up the pictures, I had a lovely private view with about 35 friends and family.  Alas, I took no photos of that as I was thinking about being the host.  I did, however, get a nice picture of my daughter and husband in that uncomfortable space when you’re waiting for things to start and worrying in case no one comes to your party

Waiting for the party to start

The Sportsman has 3 linked dining areas & a corridor

These are some images from room 1

Room 2 is the largest room

Room 3, which backs onto the kitchen garden

And finally the corridor

Looking at these, I haven’t included everything but I hope you get the idea.

I’m delighted to say that 6 pictures have sold.

While the Sportsman exhibition was in progress, I also had a week in the hut in Whitstable harbour. I was a bit short of felt pictures so I included some 3D work and some of my photographs.

I’ve been thinking about what to do next and pondering some more 3D work. For now, I’m really happy to have got these exhibitions done.

April round up.

April round up.

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April is now gone and May will hopefully bring more sun and more flowers.

I started the month with some felt stars. It was a fun little project and might work for a fast free workshop. Maybe at a guild social. You can read about how I made them here

wool and silk felted stars. Green and Yellow

Next was an eyeglasses holder for beside my bed. It was an interesting project with some strange wool. Here it is hanging up beside my bed. I didn’t realise how dusty the bookcase was until I took a picture. Then I had to dust and take it again. The things I do for our followers. LOL

wet felted hanging eye classes case.

 

I taught 2 workshops this month, Nunofelt Scarf and  Felt Birdhouse/Feeder workshop. We had a lot of fun. Here are the ladies with their finished scarves. Sorry, I forgot to get a group shot.

And the finished Birdhouse/feeders.

After teaching I decided to treat myself to a Workshop. I signed up for Helene’s Felt Spiral Workshop. I really enjoyed making my spiral. I learned a lot along the way. It is wonderful to see how different people do things. It would be wonderful if we all lived close enough to get together regularly.

I am full of ideas for more spirals now.

purple spiral movie

I couldn’t get the movie to work so here is a still.

With April finished I have another completed page for my slow stitch collection.  I decided to include a little needle felting this time. I included some flowers but also the solar eclipse we had here, a cloud and rain because we have had a lot of April showers and my purple umbrella to keep me dry. I really do have a purple umbrella. I added the Autism Awareness infinity symbol because it is autism awareness month.  Then I was left with an empty spot at the bottom and I couldn’t figure out what to put there. I did a special days in April search and on the last day of the month, I was reminded of the first day of the month and added the fake glasses nose and moustache for April Fools.

a piece on hand made felt with needle felt and stitched pictures for the month of April

and lastly, because it is spring this last week we have started having lambs.

Lambs and moms in a group pen

And these are my current bottle babies. Sven( thanks to Jan for the name) who no one would claim. He is doing a good imitation of a Valies Black Nose with his black nose and knees.  And Henna whose mother hates her( probably because she is really good at yelling at the top of her lungs for no reason) Once they are both drinking well and down one feeding per day ( they are on 5 times a day right now) they will go live in a lambing pen until they are a little bigger then they can join a group.

 

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.
Red Tree Landscape Completed

Red Tree Landscape Completed

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Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.

When I last posted about my red tree landscape, this is what it looked like. On to adding machine stitching. My goal was not to add “too much” stitching, just a few branches,  darker shadows and some highlights.

Wet felted landscape, tree branches added with machine stitching.

First up was adding a few more branches to the tree. I was happy with that, so on I went.

Wet felted landscape, dark brown added into shadows with machine stitching.

Since I had the dark brown thread already in the machine, I decided to add some into the bushes and greenery to make some branches and shadows. Here is where I started going wrong. I need to remember next time, not to make a “solid” line fully across the piece. I needed to leave more gaps in between the dark brown areas.

Wet felted landscape, more dark brown added with machine stitching.

Then I added even more brown stitching into the green bushes on the right. This was definitely overkill and I wasn’t really happy with the result. But I kept going.

Wet felted landscape, grey green added into foreground with machine stitching.

I decided to add some grey green into the foreground so I would have some line added but not as dark as the brown. Again, I should allow some spaces in between instead of one complete line. It’s not a straight line but it does need some breaks.

Wet felted landscape, light green added into foreground with machine stitching.

Next I decided to add light green into the foreground lighter bushes. I did a better job breaking these up a little bit instead of going all the way across the bush.

Wet felted landscape in closer view showing machine stitching.

Here’s a close up and you can see the areas that I was not happy with, the dark brown over the light green bush and some of the dark brown under the red bushes. So I started unpicking stitches. This was painful since I had stitched pretty densely in areas and back over some areas. This was the reason for less stitching, I did okay, but still could have done better with less stitching.

Wet felted landscape with machine stitching completed.

Here it is with the stitching and unstitching complete. I considered taking out some of the dark brown on the right side by the further green bushes but decided to just leave it. Hopefully, it just gives it a bit more distance. The lesson for this one was that even less than I think, is enough stitching!

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.

Here’s the piece after stitching it down to brown “matting” fabric. I still need to lace it over matt board but it’s pinned and ready to be laced. Then it will go in the pile of pieces that need to go to the framer.

I haven’t come up with a satisfactory name for this one yet. Do you have any ideas?

 

Eye Glasses Holder

Eye Glasses Holder

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Sounds like a quick and easy project, right? I thought so too. This is a case for my glasses to go in when I’m in bed. It will hang off the little bookcase beside my bed. Probably better than on the edge of the bed where they sit now.

I picked up some very pretty little batts at a local fibre shop. It is a combination of Canadian Ramboullet and Merino. It is sold as a wet felting wool, among other things. . The colours I picked were mottled and it is quite a short fibre. I did not do a sample as this is such a small project it is the sample. The batt is 50 grams and I don’t think I used half of it.

The other factor in doing this now was I knew I was going to the store to pick up wool for my workshop on the weekend and could pick up more if I liked it. I thought this small project would be just the thing.

 

This is the shape of the resist. I will fold the long part over to make a loop and use a button to hold it in place.

                                    

I split the bat so I could keep it thinner and still have it go in 2 directions. I am not used to using batts but they are a fast way to do simple layouts. After the first layer, I added some offcuts of cotton batting I thought might make an interesting raised texture. I wet it all out. It took a little more soap than expected to wet it out. I think there is some lanolin still in it but it is not greasy feeling.

I rubbed it for a while. it did get a skin but wasn’t starting to tighten up. I did a bit more and switched to rolling. I did that for a long time, flipping and changing direction, rolling on a ribbed mat all the usual stuff but no shrinkage. This was after about an hour rolling. You can see that it hasn’t shrunk at all

 

Next was heading home to the kitchen to rinse with hot water and get tough with it. I scrunched and rolled it in my hands and threw it in the sink. Maybe a little bit of shrinkage. It is definitely felt. It is holding together and I have removed the resist and the insides are not trying to stick to each other.

So what next? Time to do some laundry. I put it in a small delicates bag and tossed it in with a load of laundry, and then into the dryer. No pictures of that, I was too frustrated by then. I was also thinking that I would take it out and it would be 3 sizes too small.

This is the result, a very small amount of shrinkage, mostly in height. This is actually after it was dry and I had turned it inside out and then back because I forgot to take a picture.

I turned it inside out which made it stand open more so that is better for the purpose. I had to smooth out the edge divot from turning it inside out . the felt is quite thick.

                           

 

It will work for the purpose. My glasses ended up a little too far down in the holder so I stuffed a little wool roll in the bottom so my glasses are easier to get hold of. It’s not a big difference but I can grab them a bit better. more wool may be added.

                                    

I just need to add the button and I am good to go.

I did let the store know that the wool is not good for wet felting. They said the mill is trying different ratios of the wools to find what works best. I suggested it would be good to make socks that would be fine in the washer and it is still good for needle felting.

Spring is here, My hubby has veggie growing fever. He has half my table as one of the few cat-free areas. Why do cats like to lay on top of seedlings?

Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.
Wool Landscape with a Red Tree

Wool Landscape with a Red Tree

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After finishing my embroidered tree, I needed a new idea for my next gallery piece. I took a look through my pile of sketchbooks and found a few options that might work for a wool “painting”.

Watercolor painting of tree with red leaves on a hill.

I decided to use this watercolor painting for inspiration. Now to find the right colors to create this idea in wool.

Work table with variety of wool colors and hand carders ready to mix wool colors.

 

Here’s my work table with my wool choices ready to mix. I used the hand carders to mix up some “variegated” colors. I find that using a dyed wool that is solid really doesn’t look much like nature, especially the greens. The solid colors look really flat. Most of the wool I am using here is short fiber merino and it mixes very easily. I don’t card it completely so I have a mix of two to three colors in each little batt.

Piles of arded wool after color mixing.

Here’s the colors I mixed up. I was thinking of using some orange locks on the tree but ended up not using them. The brown is pre yarn that I will use for the tree trunk. The plan is to do the majority of the scene with the wool and then add a few free motion machine stitched details.

Colored wool laid out in landscape with red leafed tree.

Here’s the scene after laying out the wool. I can see why some people like to just cover this with glass and be done. It has such a wonderful texture and looks like real foliage.

Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.

 

Here is the piece after wet felting. The felting definitely flattens the scene. Now to decide where to add the stitch details. And not to over-do it. I always feel like I do a bit too much stitching on pieces. I’m planning on just adding some branches to the tree and a few light and dark highlights. But that’s for my next post.