The title of this post is misleading: although there are several diamonds in this story (in shape, not in value!) there is only one doll. Apologies for this, but “Many Diamonds and Just One Doll” just didn’t sound as good a title to me.
Let’s begin with the first, shall we?
The diamonds
If you use yarn in any way in a crafting project, chances are you end up with leftovers once you’re done. What to do with the lovely remnants of woolly, colourful string? If you’re anything like me you won’t bear discarding them willy-nilly, but keeping them in a bag without a plan also seems like a waste… Enter the Diamond Miner’s Quilt by Lucky Fox Knits.
Photo by Valya Boutenko
This project is not one to be made in a jiffy, rather it is meant to be an ongoing thing, to be added to as the years pass and one is presented with more little bits of yarn that are too precious to not make the most of. It’s a no-fuss, small outdoors knitting project, or simply a quick in-front-of-the-telly-knit when the brain is too tired but the hands are restless.
I currently have two full ziplock bags of diamonds, not nearly enough for a proper quilt, but slowly their numbers have increased and soon I shall have to start sewing some together to show myself I’m not simply hoarding teeny tiny pillows…
What I most enjoy about these is, I can look at them and remember which project they came from. It’s a way to reminisce about a past knit that I find comforting.
The best part? My knitter friends who know about this now have taken to gifting me their own remnants, so now I get to remember them in my future quilt as well. To me, that’s the definition of cosy.
The doll
Now to my latest fun project, Billie the Sheep. I forget how I came across this cute pattern, but it was before Christmas 2023 and I decided to buy it as a present to myself. Of course, this cute sheep would need some clothes and luckily the creator Gabrielle Vézina would provide the dress and cardigan to go with it.
Want to know the best part? This dress comes in a children’s size as well, so if you have a little girl in your life who needs a sheep doll and wants to match with it, you can make it happen! It’s simply too adorable.
All of this project is also made from remnants, the calico fabric I used previously as mock-ups for my own clothing, the threads on her face were gifted by a friend who no longer embroiders, the yarn was leftovers I hadn’t made into diamonds yet. The woolly part of her head is a bouclé yarn I used to knit a friend a cosy jumper and stabilised with some pre-felt (see, there’s felting in this post!). If this isn’t the cutest way to enjoy “leftover” project materials, I don’t know what is.
Have you made anything with remnant materials that you care to share? It doesn’t have to be fabric or fibre, anything goes! I love a good upcycle story, so feel free to share it with me below.
In my last post I was talking (among other things) about a 6-week residency I have in a local Michelin-starred restaurant that starts on 2 April. Here’s a link in case you missed it or want a reminder.
In this blog I’m offering a quick look at the pictures I’ve made (or am part-way through making) since then. I don’t have the space (or time!) to describe the making processes in a lot of detail but do ask questions in the comments section if you want to know more about something.
The restaurant owners suggested I’d need about 40 pictures to fill the 3+ rooms. I don’t have a lot of spare pictures kicking about – my felt picture making is usually fairly hand-to-mouth – so I really have my work cut out to make enough new work to fill the restaurant walls.
At the time of my last blog, I’d made 1 large and 3 smaller pictures. I then did a series of 4 slightly impressionistic ‘estuary water’ smaller pieces. I live on the north Kent coast of SE England and although it looks like ‘sea’, the stretch of water at the bottom of my road is technically the Thames estuary.
Top left to bottom right: Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter
Spring is lightly pre-felted cobweb felts in blue and white laid on a pewter-coloured layer of wool that has a green layer underneath it.
For Summer I made some prefelts which I cut into shapes to try to give the impression of the shifting colours of calm water.
Dry layout for ‘Summer’; a combination of merino prefelt and tops
Autumn is altogether more turbulent with a lot of pewter-colour in the water. The estuary is often quite murky-looking. I’ve used either or angora or wool locks for the small wave crests.
And winter, like spring, is white and blue cobweb prefelt on a pewter background, but this time with more of the pewter showing and with pewter for both base layers, no green.
While rummaging through my extensive fibre collection, I came across a lovely hank of hand-dyed wool and silk fibres that I’d bought while on holiday in the USA. I decided to use this for a larger water picture.
Large sea pattern 2: final picture waiting to be framed, the layout and the fibre. The colour representation isn’t very good – the colours in the finished picture are warmer than they look in the photo.
I thought it was time to have a go at a larger bird picture. I’ve previously featured lapwings in a felt picture and thought I’d like to have another go at those. Lapwings are beautiful birds with iridescent feathers that appear to change colour depending on the light. I’d seen a large flock of them at a nearby nature reserve at Oare Marshes. Sorry the quality of these photos is poor, and you can’t see the birds’ colours, but I wanted to show you the lapwings I saw and what their environment looks like.
I started off with some nuno prefelt for lapwing 1 to try to capture that iridescence. These are mostly silk but the black is velvet devore, which I thought might work for the neck feathers. I laid out a bird-shape in white then cut the coloured prefelt to make wing feathers. While I was on a roll, I made another 2 lapwings, testing out different ways of trying to capture the birds’ colours.
Left to right: the layouts for lapwing 1, prefelt for lapwing 1, lapwing 3 and lapwing 2.
Here are the wet-felted bodies that I will needle felt into 2 backgrounds as I add the features: eyes, beaks and legs.
Top to bottom: lapwings 1, 3 and 2.
Oare Marshes is a fantastic place to see birds – with a great variety of migratory, overwintering and breeding wetland birds. However, as you can see in my photos, it’s not a conventionally ‘pretty’ place. I want to locate the birds properly so there’s a challenge in making a picture that is appealing while also being representative of the nature reserve.
This is the background for the solo lapwing (lapwing 2!). I’ve used 2 different sections of recycled silk scarves for the land section and merino wool for the water – with a few strips of one of the scarves to look like pebble and mud outcrops. Next comes the lapwing which will be needle felted into place and have its features added.
And here is the final picture
Lapwing, Oare Marshes
For the other two lapwings I decide to focus on the water rather than the land. Here’s the finished picture, with the lapwings needle felted into place.
I really love watching the birds that visit or live along the coast here. Oystercatchers are very distinctive black and white birds with bright orange eyes and beaks. This is the layout of a coastal background for an oystercatcher. The foreground is made from cut-up prefelt pieces that I’ve made, including some recycled silk fabric; the background is a piece of a beautiful charity shop silk scarf, and I used mostly kid mohair for the wave foam, with a few wool locks.
Here’s the oystercatcher’s body, needle felted into place, then given its eye, beak and legs. The beak is some orange felt I’ve made previously and the legs are recycled tapestry wool. I like how the kid mohair has a wiggly texture.
With an eye on getting the picture numbers up, I branched out a bit and decided to make some smaller monochrome pictures using a commercial merino and silk prefelt with a recycled wool scarf for the foreground. I then printed tree silhouettes onto them.
Once I’d pretty much used up the wool fabric, I tried out some pieces of monochrome silk. This is work in progress as I haven’t yet printed trees onto the other pieces. These aren’t my usual style but it’s good to mix things up a bit and they are comparatively quick to make. I may not put all of these into the restaurant but it’s good to have some options.
In the interest of continuing to mix things up, I then made a larger sea pattern, trying to capture the light and reflections that dance across the water.
And then, most recently, another big bird picture, this time of a curlew. Curlews are the largest European wading birds. They have long, curved beaks and very patterned feathers. Like oystercatchers, curlews can often be seen within a very short walk of my home. The best time to spot them, and lots of other birds, is as the tide starts to go out. They feed along the line of the retreating water. They have a very distinctive call and you can often hear them before seeing them. Unlike oystercatchers, curlews’ (and lapwings’) UK conservation status is ‘red’, which means they are either globally threatened, have a long historical UK population decline or there’s been at least a 50% decline in the UK breeding population over the last 25 years.
Here’s the final curlew picture: cut up prefelt for the pebbles; blue cobweb prefelt over a pewter background for the water; the bird wet felted separately then needle felted into place and given an eye, beak and legs. The beak is made from short lengths of variegated wool yarn and the legs from tapestry wool. The yarn, tapestry wool and silk fabric in the pebbles were all bought in charity shops. I really like the idea of recycling whenever I can, and it’s great that the charities benefit as well.
In the last couple of days I’ve been making 3D oyster and mussel shells. I haven’t decided exactly how I will use these yet, some kind of pictures.
Today I made a light background for one of the mussel shells. It’s still damp in this photo. I think the sea foam area will become lighter as it dries.
I’m still a long way from 40 pictures, although I did have a few already made before I started this picture-making marathon. Now I’ve more or less cleared my diary and I’ve got the rest of March to make more pictures, and to frame them all. I wonder what I’ll do with my spare time?!
I’d be really interested to know what you think so please do leave comments if you have them.
Ions ago, I purchased all the bits and pieces that I needed for acid dyeing. I never lost my enthusiasm for it (in principle!). I listened to my textile friends waxing lyrical about dyeing. If I am to be perfectly honest here, I lacked both the knowledge and the confidence to try it. So when I came across a dyeing course which was being run over the four Tuesdays in November, well, I didn’t have to think twice, I immediately booked it. The workshops were run by an Irish Textile Artist and all round nice person, Sharon Wells (https://www.sharonwellsart.com/). Sharon provided all the equipment and fibres but mentioned that we were free to bring along any fibres we wished to experiment with over the course of the workshop and of course our limitless curiosity!
Week 1:
During week 1 we worked with Jacquard Acid Dyes. Once Sharon explained the basics of what would and would not work with these dyes, she set us to work, initially teaching us how to secure hanks for the dye pot. We were each given our own pot to work with. Then we got down to the fun work of choosing dyes, testing fibres and dyeing.
Our first experiment was with solid colour. We each threw a variety of fibres into our respective pots and got to work. It was great fun watching as the colours developed. I had chosen orange for my first test and it was just so exciting watching the different hues develop. I have prepared short slideshows of the results of each of the experiments over the four weeks. Details of the fibres are included in the captions.
Kerry Mountain sheep – I carded the dyed sample which was a mistake as it blended all the lovely colours
Silk yarn which I bought in the Silk weaving shop on Granville Island Vancouver
Chunky woollen yarn, I don’t know the breed but I love the range of colour!
Locks again I love the way the dye has taken here
Three plant fibres. Not sure which is which but we have nettle, viscose and rose
This was given to me to tie my samples and I thought I would dye a sample. There’s definitely some wool in the yarn
Next, to some of my fellow participants horror, we saw Sharon cut into an old shrunk felted jumper. We were each given squares and shown how to randomly sprinkle the dye powder onto the surface. This time we used a minimum of 3 colours on the sample. Once prepared it was popped into the dye pot and other fibres were thrown in not to waste the dye that came off the sample. Here are my results.
Front view A cut off a felted jumper. We sprinkled various colours of dye powder on this before it went in the pot
Back view of the sample
Various locks: I love the way the colours took
Kerry mountain sheep breed: this time I did not card it so we can see it unblended!
Yarn: variety unknown
The chunky wool yarn which I threw into a different part of the pot
By this stage we were all getting really excited. This was like alchemy or as one of us said, witchcraft (which is possibly a more accurate description as we all gathered round one of the cauldrons (yes there was one, the rest were pots)) and saw the reactions of the different coloured dyes we were adding to the pot full of fibres. We were learning (among other things) how to control where the differed colour dye permeated the fibres and how the colours mixed throughout the process. Here’s what I produced.
Industrial prefelt I tie dyed it for a bit of fun. Gorgeous results!
Kerry mountain sheep. More exciting colours
Locks from the same pot
Front view: Silk fibre. I can’t help thinking about Hubble when I see this photo!
Back view of the silk fibre
Nettle: same pot
Front view: Merino 19 micron roving (tops). More Hubble vibes coming through here
Back view: Merino roving (tops)
Week 2:
It is amazing how disciplines have their own languages. Mordants; fugitive colours; substantive dyes – Sharon quickly demystified all the terminology – a real confidence boost – then she produced a vat of fibres which she had been seeping in the mordant for some days. She also gave us a variety of pots which we could work from. Then came the fun ‘show and tell’. Sharon had been growing and collecting various flowers and plants over the summer months. She dried these especially for the session so we each got one to work with. We had dried containers of marigolds, rose petals, sunflower petals, sunflower heads, and ground up nettle. I got the nettle to try. One of the participants opted for fresh eucalyptus. We set pulling the dye out of the plants, straining it and then to dyeing our fibres. Here’s our progress and the results:
A huge vat full of mordanted fibre Aluminium sulphate steeped for a few days in preparation for the course
The ground nettle which was dried over the summer
Dried roses, the dye produced a lovely perfume
Rose petals produced a really exciting pink colour dye
the lovely colour extracted from the sunflower heads
Here is the sunflower petal dye the final results were vibrant
The straining stage for one of the dyes (sorry can’t remember which one!)
Loki oversaw all work and every now and again figured his new friends should stop for play
Everyone’s finished work laid out in the sun to dry
Result from dyeing with the dried nettles. Not very exciting
The marigold petals produced a delicate creamy result which differed in shade depending on the fibre used
The gorgeous results from the dye extracted from the sunflower petals
Lovely shades of yellow from the Sunflower heads
The pink was lost during rinsing which was a bit disappointing
The fresh eucalyptus produced a delicate green/yellow result which differed in shade depending on the fibre used
Then as a further experiment we took dye from a couple of the dye baths and added different components to see how the dye reacted. We used tin, chrome copper and vinegar. The results were surprising.
Top is the rose dye middle L/R vinegar, tin, chrome, copper Bottom is the Sunflower petals
I was disappointed with the colour of the nettles which were a murky colour. Also the powder from the nettles made the fibre really grainy and unattractive. I thought I would see if I could use fresh nettles from the garden. Sharon had offered me some mordant to bring home for this experiment and like an idiot I forgot it. So, based on an earlier comment she had made during the class I decided to try using aluminium foil as a mordant. I steeped the fibre overnight and made up the dye which I strained. Then I dyed the fibre. The result is a beautiful soft green which I am very pleased with. I am not sure that the mordant took as only time will tell if the fibre loses its colour but it did not happen when I rinsed it. The grains from the original nettle powder were still scattered throughout the wool fibre so I took my carders to the Kerry sheep fibre. Although I have yet to be convinced that natural dye is an avenue I want to pursue further I really enjoyed the day and the learning.
A sample of the nettle dye from the fresh nettles
Overdyeing with the fresh nettle dye. I left it to cool in the dye pot overnight to give it the best chance
Result from dyeing with the dried nettles. Not very exciting
Final result with the fresh nettles lovely shades of green. photo taken before dyeing
The final result for the fresh nettle dye. I love the variety of tints!
I have so much to share from these four weeks that I will save weeks 3 and 4 for my next blog post. A million thanks to Sharon for facilitating such an interesting set of Tuesdays last November.
I often work on the needle felting part of a project at home or at the guild. I end up with bags of possible fibres I might need and they usually hang around longer than the project. Every once and a while I have to gather them up and return all the wool to my studio. Then start again for the next thing I am working on. As you know I tend to work smaller, postcard and trading card sort of sizes. That means I don’t need a lot of any one colour. Somehow I always grab way more fiber than I need.
I keep looking at the little boxes of fibre that Ali Express and Amazon sell as part of felting kits. I don’t need the wool or the needles (I have my own local, very knowledgeable, needle dealer- Jan) So I went searching for the boxes. I found them on Ali Express. ali express box for sale I bought 2 Like this.
The boxes snap together so I took the lid of one and snapped them together.
Inside there are removable dividers.
I started adding small amounts of wool, a different colour group in each tray.
And this is what it looks like now. I do still need to add a few more colours but these are the ones I had handy in the house. I left the bottom one empty so I can add tools to it, needles, holders, and scissors to start. I need to sort my needles so I have a few of each in the tray and some of the handles.
Do you have a good portable storage system for your wool and supplies?
After having a green Christmas, winter has arrived in Canada at last. In the past week Ottawa has received a few dumps of snow. There is definitely an Arctic chill in the air. As a result I have been firing up the wood stove and layering up to try and keep warm. One of my favourite winter indoor accessories are these Possum Merino fingerless gloves. I have a couple pairs of these and sadly at some point some hungry moths have eaten some holes into this pair.
Pair of fingerless mitts with holes in them from moth damage
Moth hole in cuff of the mitt
Moth hole in the glove
Moth hole in the glove
A few years ago I repaired my husband’s fingerless gloves by darning them with embroidery thread. The repairs were functional but overall I was unhappy with the results. This time around I wanted to try a felted repair. Unfortunately I could not find my felting needles. I am sure they are safely stored somewhere in my house.
Luckily I was able to purchase a few needles from Jan.
Next I needed to find some wool. I picked out this lovely Gotland fleece from Dover Farm Canada.
I quickly carded up a few locks using my hand cards.
I now had a mass of loose wool to use for my felt repairs.
With my tools gathered it was time to start work. I placed the glove onto a piece of foam (pool noodle). Then added some wool and started poking away with the felting needle.
And here is the first hole after repairing it with wool. The felting needle shows where the hole was. Now I have a nice solid glove again.
Here I have turned the glove inside out and I’m showing you the back of the repair. You can see the grey fuzz of the new patch of wool.
After I completed the first hole, the new few were quite easy to do. I will include a few more before and after photos below.
Starting patch 2. In my hand is the small bit of wool I will use for the repair.
Patch #2 after fixing. No more hole. Yeah!
Hole#3 before fixing.
Patch #3 repair in progress.
Patch #3 after a bit of poking.
Patch #3 on the inside of the glove.
Patch #3 from the side. This shows how fuzzy the inside of the mitt after adding the felted repair.
It only took me a couple of minutes to repair my gloves. Gathering the supplies (felting needles, wool and foam) took more work than the actual repair.
My fingerless gloves after being repaired. I fixed three moth holes and one thin spot that I found when checking over the mitts.
After the repair the gloves look a bit shabby.
But they feel comfortable.
I am delighted that my fingerless gloves are fixed and hope they give me many more years of service. I also hope the hungry moths stay far away. But if they don’t, at least I know I can fix any damage they do.
I was asked to give a Valentine-themed workshop, specifically hearts. No surprise there. This is a short evening class. I am teaching in person in Ottawa at my guild on Feb 7, 2024. https://www.ovwsg.com/events/event/2407-felted-hearts/I had no pictures to put with the workshop so I had to create something. I decided on heart-shaped baskets with rope handles.
I started by finding a heart shape on the internet and sizing it up to about 6 inches across. I decided to do one this size and one bigger to end up at 6 inches.
they will fit nicely onto my rolling mat. I need to keep an eye out for a bigger one of these. This one is supposed to be for drying dishes. It might do for one person for their lunch dishes.
I decided on one in red and one in this year’s Pantone colour of the year coral pink. The colour doesn’t show well wet but you will see it when it’s dry
Next was adding embellishments. Coral pink is one of my least favourite colours so I added some sari silk in the colour Salsa. It is primarily red with bits of other colour in it.
The red looked pretty plain so I added a pale pink heart
Next of course was all the rubbing and rolling and cutting it out and rubbing and rolling and fulling. The red one is now 6 inches across and the pink one is 4 inches across.
I rolled a couple of snakes for handles. The idea was to poke holes in the hearts to poke the snake ends through and tie a knot. the pink one was okay, but the red one wasn’t long enough so I just felted the ends in. Jan thinks they should have a bell on the tip but I am not sure. I think I will offer them to the student but I don’t think I will add them.
And here they are on Jan’s new photography backdrop which I am sure she will be telling you all about in a later post.
Tada!
I like the picture of the pink one best. The angle is good. The red one is more from over the top of the heart. The chocolate hugs are some Jan gave me as a librarian present. Perfect for a Valentine’s photo shoot.
Having just read Kiki’s tutorial https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/11/19/left-overs-yessss/ on using up prefelt scraps, it occurs to me that I may not have mentioned something we used to do at our Guild (Dorset Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers) mainly to raise funds for the Guild but also for fun.
When I attended the Stitch and Creative Crafts Show at the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet (Somerset, UK) back in 2010 – I saw a stand selling (for £8.00 each) bags containing 35gr of silk fibres, yarns, fabrics scraps, carrier rods and cocoons in various colours, left over from old projects which, when put together, made a fascinating collection for future projects. So fascinating that I bought three of them.
They must have made quite a bit of profit on them because they appeared mainly to be the “waste” from artwork.
At that time (when I was part of the sub-committee organising the Guild’s Exhibition and Sale of Work) we were looking for a Guild Project which could be part of the exhibition or something hopefully to help raise some funds. Well, I thought, our weavers must have lots of off-cuts of hand woven fabric, not to mention warp ends. Then there were the spinners who would have odd bits of spun and unspun fibres of all types and colours. We also had members who were dressmakers, beaders and embroiderers, and a soft furnisher, who were bound to have the odd bits and pieces that they didn’t really need. So, with the blessing of the committee, I put it to the members in the next newsletter that if they would donate to the Guild any odd bits of fibres, yarns, threads, warp ends, bits of fabric, beads, button, feathers, felt, cords, braids, tassels, sequins, sequin waste, ribbons, silk flowers and any other bits and pieces they could think of, we could make up some “Bags of Inspiration” and sell them to members of the public at our open days and outside demonstrations. (I don’t know about in the rest of the world, but in the UK the word “bags” means “lots of” as well as “containers”, so the punning name “Bags of Inspiration” seemed apt.)
We used A4 sized polythene bags (which I was able to buy quite cheaply from our local green grocer) with an A4 sheet of card inside for stiffening, and I made up some stickers with the Guild’s logo on and a brief description of the contents, and posters also giving details of the contents.
Bag of Inspiration Poster
We arranged a few bag making days at a pub in the village where our then President lived. She had persuaded them to let us use their skittle alley at no charge, and we had a great deal of fun making up the bags and tucking in to “refreshments” from the bar and kitchen.
The members who came to these, brought with them all sorts of goodies which we spread out on tables, so that we could make collections of pieces which seemed to go with each other. Those who didn’t think that their colour theory was good enough, could pick out a picture from a selection of magazines and have a go at matching colours from this It was amazing how compulsive making the bags became. You could pick up a piece of fabric that looked so dull and dreary and be amazed how it perked up and positively shone with life when paired with different fabrics, yarns, trimmings etc. You just couldn’t stop picking up likely bits. The difficulty was keeping the weight of each bag between 80gr and 100gr, so we quite often ended up making up at least 2 bags with similar contents.
Equipment & Extra “Bits” for making up Bags
Prospective contents of at least one Bag of Inspiration
We put a price of £3.50 on each bag and they went like hot cakes – we sold out on their first appearance at our exhibition and sale of work. Embroiderers and mixed media artists in particular liked them.
After a couple of years, we didn’t get so many volunteers to make up bags but we still had mountains of “stuff”. So we added another string for our open days – Pick and Mix Your Own. I had remembered that Woolworths (now there’s a blast from the past) used to have a counter full of different sweets and you could take a bowl and pick and mix what you wanted, and in the process buying a lot more than you would have if just buying a ready filled bag.
Pick and Mix Sweets.
It worked with our stuff too. We gave the visitors the polythene bags and they could wade through all the bits and pieces picking what they needed, and we weighed them when they’d finished, charging £3.50 for 100gr.
We had had a lot of fibres donated so we started making up what are now called Art Batts and selling them as “Batts of Inspirations”, but because we were mainly selling these to Guild spinners and felt makers, they didn’t do quite so well as they were mainly able to make their own.
In all we made around £1000.00 for the Guild in the four years we were doing this. Eventually though the members got fed up with spending time on making up the bags and the whole thing was shelved, as the Guild seemed to be relatively well off at the time.
Some time after that I took the idea back to myself and I was making up Batts to sell at Guild meetings, using luxury fibres as well as merino and synthetic fibres. I made up some bands to fix around the Batts detailing the various fibres included in each.
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I was also making up and selling Bags, mainly at a Needlework Festival in Dorset where most of the vendors were selling materials and equipment for crafters, as well as various craft fairs and so on.
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I was getting the odd question like “they’re lovely but what do you do with them?” and “can you make a bag out of what’s in here?” So I made a sign from images of items that I’d made myself over the years and that helped.
Some of the things I’ve made with the contents of BoI over the years
However, once Covid started causing problems, my selling opportunities dried up. I had been intending to try selling Bags and Batts via my website, but it was very difficult and too time consuming to photograph the Bags so that the contents were visible, because of reflections on the polythene bags. So that sort of died a death too and I’ve now shelved that project, and am using the bits and pieces I’ve collected over the years on theatrical costumes and props.
Perhaps some of our readers’ organisations, like Ann & Jan’s OVWSG, might use this idea to raise funds?
This is a guest post written by Bobbie Herrick, my friend and level 3 stitch classmate. You can see some of her beautiful work here in my post about our exhibition. Bobbie is from the Seattle, Washington area and recently went to the Shetland Islands for Wool Week. I hope you enjoy her post.
My friend Dorothy and I had wanted to learn how to do Fair Isle knitting as well as visit the Shetland Islands. We thought SWW would be a fun way to do both. We knew our adventure had begun when we met Val, from Cleveland, Ohio sitting beside me on a flight from London to Aberdeen, Scotland. This was her first time to SWW as well.
After a day in Aberdeen we checked in at the ferry terminal in the evening for our ferry to the Shetlands. We found the waiting room full of knitters. Many of them were wearing the 2023 SWW design for the Buggiflooer Beanie. Buggiflooer is the Shetland word for a sea campion which grows around the Shetland coast. The travelers were from a great variety of places including Missouri, Texas, Canada, Australia, Poland, Sweden and Japan. Excitement was only temporarily dampened by the rough overnight crossing of the North Sea!
We arrived in Lerwick in the early morning and walked to our “Introduction to Fair Isle” class taught by a delightful, skilled tutor, Janette Budge. There we were given wool to make a small Fair Isle piece. There were experienced knitters as well as beginners.
Later in the week, I was able to visit open houses of several local guilds and some designer studios. Old and contemporary work was on display. There were spinners, weavers as well as knitters.
We had only selected a couple of events out of an extensive list of exhibitions, talks, tours and classes. Many events were at different locations on the islands. The SWW ‘Hub’ located in Lerwick was a great resource for finding directions, events, and provided a comfortable place to knit and relax. There we were able to find additional sites and studios to visit. It also had a map showing where participants were from.
During our week on the islands, we found the local people resourceful, warm and welcoming. They are proud of their rich Scandinavian and Scottish heritage.
Shetland artists often get their inspiration from the natural environment and incorporate traditional and contemporary motifs in their lovely work. There is much more I would have like to see and explore, so hope to return!
As avid wool enthusiasts (including a few shepherds) most of us are all too well aware that the cost of shearing a flock of sheep is rarely ever covered by the sale of the fleece. In fact the financial return on many fleeces is so poor, I know many farmers end up composting what should be a valuable and eco-friendly product.
Woven and felted wall hangings
Part of the problem is that many of these under-valued fleeces are typically at the coarser end of the spectrum, shorn from sheep bred for the meat industry. In some cases the situation is further compounded by farmers deliberately selecting sheep with coarser wools for their breeding program because their logic dictates, coarser wool = a heavier fleece per sheep and since wool is sold by weight, a heavier fleece = more $$$.
If, like me you make mostly wearables from wool, you probably see the fault in that logic, I know I value the lower micron wools far more, cheerfully paying a premium for them because they are less “scratchy”. However, this doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for the coarser wools too and as felt-makers and spinners perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss them….
These coarser wools, also known as “strong wool”, have traditionally been used for various industrial applications that require padding that is fire resistant, for home insulation products, even the pads that piano hammers rest on.
In previous decades, one of the largest buyers of strong wools used to be the carpet industry, unfortunately the move towards synthetic carpets has seen the use of strong wools for carpets go into a steep decline. Currently there is a drive in New Zealand to support rural schools to replace their flooring with wool carpets, rather than the imported nylon carpet tiles the government wants them to use.
Large felted wall hanging
I fist met Liz Mitchell MNZM when she joined the Auckland Fun Felters (AFF), just a month or two after I did. Already a wool enthusiast, she was on a mission to discover new ways to use this fabulous, natural material and her enthusiastic interest quickly evolved into a dedicated promotion of strong wool.
Felt illuminated
Liz has had a very interesting textile career, as a fashion designer, with her own label, she was primarily focussed on hand-made couture and in 2005 was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the fashion industry and to this day she is one of the best known names in New Zealand fashion.
A series of large wet-felted vessels
In recent years Liz has expanded her repertoire to include working with architects and interior designers to use strong wools, still in their natural colours, for a mixture of wall hangings, rugs and soft furnishings. Her diversification from haute couture to interior design is beautifully documented in her current exhibition, “This Raw Material” on show at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in West Auckland.
This exhibition is open until 9 December 2023 and is well worth a visit, I particularly enjoyed the interactive room where you are encouraged to touch, feel, sit on and even smell the pieces. When was the last time you went an art exhibition where they encouraged you to sniff the exhibits?!! 🙂
Biker jacket and hot pants – Agate wool Jacquard
We were all very proud to hear Liz has secured a grant to set up a “Wool and Natural Fibres Textile Hub” in Auckland, which will serve as a hub for wool research, education and creative exploration. An endeavour I am very keen to support. She has also set up a Wool Revolution PledgeMe to raise funds to support the new Hub.
September has been a busy and exciting month in contemporary textile art (specifically felting art) in Ireland so I thought I would feature what I got up to, I will call it my September Adventures.
Weather wise, the month started as we hoped it would continue (it didn’t by the way) with a return to fine warm weather – something we had not seen since last June. So I took the opportunity to visit our National Botanical Gardens (https://www.botanicgardens.ie/) which are situated on Dublin’s north side. The gardens (there’s free entry, if you ever visit Dublin, Ireland) opened in 1800 and are an oasis of calm with restored glass houses, magnificent specimens, bee hives and, of course, a tea room. There’s also a pedestrian access to the historical cemetery next door which I suspect is not seen too often. Glasnevin Cemetery also houses a genealogical archive for anyone wishing to trace their Irish ancestors (https://www.dctrust.ie/genealogy/home.html).
But, I digress. Let’s go back to the gardens. My visit coincided with their annual exhibition ‘Sculpture in Context’. The exhibits feature artworks in various media including ceramics, wood, metal. I decided to focus purely on the textile element of the exhibition and to photograph any pieces I came across as I wandered around. I was aware that some of the members of Feltmakers Ireland had pieces accepted for the exhibition; Clare Merry (http://www.merryland.ie/index.htm) an exceptional artist who quietly creates her pieces was featured. If you would like to see some of Clare’s work please check out her website, which, she tells me, is not really up to date, or Google her and feast over the images; Fiona Leech(https://www.instagram.com/feltathome/?hl=en) had three beautiful pots which were originally housed in the cactus house. Annoyingly two of the three pots were stolen within a matter of hours of their arrival and the remaining one was moved to a safer spot in the garden’s gallery. I thought I would show you the three pots as they were originally grouped together.
Fiona Leech’s three pots (source: Fiona’s Instagram page)
I searched but could not find Leiko Uchiyama’s beautiful work but here is a link to her website if you would like to check her out: https://www.leikofelt.com/my-felt-work/ I found two other exhibits from members of the guild. Their featured work while not through the medium of felt were equally stunning. Congratulations Mel Bradley (https://melbradleysilks.ie/) and Mette Sophie Roche (https://metteroche.com/)
I put together a slideshow of my textile finds in the gardens which I hope you enjoy.
Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi
Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi (detail)
Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi (detail)
Fiona Leech; Drought
Fiona Leech; Drought (detail)
Frances Crowe; Terrain
Frances Crowe; Terrain (detail)
Frances Crowe; Terrain (detail)
Claire Merry; Floral Path
Claire Merry; Floral Path
Ella Quinn; It’s nothing but a dead fish
Niamh O’Connell; Cocoon
Mel Bradley; Grasses
Mel Bradley; Grasses
We had our first meeting after summer in Feltmakers Ireland and as usual the committee put an incredible amount of preparatory work into making it successful. It was a busy morning as everyone beavered away felting flowers to create a tapestry as part of the 20th anniversary celebration for the guild. Much to everyone’s delight, the guild’s founder Elizabeth Bonnar joined us. I thought I would feature Elizabeth here as without her it is doubtful that there would be such a vibrant community of feltmakers today. Here she is with her granddaughter and with the committee.
Feltmakers Ireland founder Elizabeth Bonnar and her granddaughter
Feltmakers Ireland committee with founder Elizabeth Bonnar (3rd from left)
Here are some photos taken on the day.
Feltmakers hard at work
Breda and Elizabeth hard at work!
Lots of flowers were made that morning by members
Suzanne, Breda, Deirdre and Elizabeth catching up
The finished tapestry was revealed at Feltmakers Ireland ‘Bountiful’ juried exhibition which opened on 30th September.
Feltmakers Ireland members: The Floral Tapestry to celebrate 20 years.
The exhibition also saw the launch of the new book “Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking” The book is the product of a collaboration between many members of Feltmakers Ireland guild, sheep farmers, shepherds, shearers and suppliers and not forgetting the various washers and carders who took the raw fleeces, converting them into usable fibres for testing. I think this approach was quite unique and it will certainly be a worthwhile and useable addition to any textile maker’s reference library. Understandably it was a huge project so congratulations are due to all, especially Annika (Berglund), Breda (Fay) and Sinead (Doyle) who collated all of the findings into an invaluable resource on Irish wool. It’s so full of well written practical advice and it was made extra special by the presence of one of our Government Ministers, Pippa Hackett an ardent supporter of the project, who officially launched the book and the exhibition . Here is a quick look at the contents page to give you an idea of the scope of the book:
Exploring Irish Wool Contents page
An added bonus is that feltmakers/wool artists can now make direct contact with numerous artisanal suppliers so there is no excuse for any of us not buying closer to source and of course for anyone overseas who wishes to use Irish wool fibre in their work purchasing from source.
I hope you have enjoyed my September adventures. It has been an exciting month. Once again I would like to thank Feltmakers Ireland and their hard working committee who work tirelessly to maintain this vibrant community – it makes such a difference that, as textile artists, we can gather together and create regularly. I take my hat off to Elizabeth Bonnar and her decision to found Feltmakers Ireland twenty years ago; the catalyst for lifelong friendships, masterclasses, collaborations, exhibitions, networks and travel.
To complete September’s birthday celebrations, I thought I would produce a slideshow of the Bountiful exhibition which is running for the month of October in Phoenix Park, Dublin Ireland. I took photos on the day so I apologise where the light may be shining on the artwork. There are over 30 pieces of art and it will give you an indication of where Ireland’s vibrant felting community is at in its journey. I hope you enjoy it!
Annika Berglund: Variations on a Green Theme II
Astrid Tomrop-Hofman: Positive Vibes
Deirdre Crofts: A good Day’s Catch
Clare Brophy: Share the Bounty!
Helene Dooley: Visualizing the beauty of the Sunflower Field
