Browsed by
Category: Year End Round Up

Year End Roundup 2020

Year End Roundup 2020

The year 2020 has been a strange one for many of us. For me, I sold The Purple Pomegranate, the craft gallery I have owned for 20+ years, in mid March just before the pandemic hit here in Montana, USA. It has been a bit of an adjustment for retirement, pandemic and continuing my Level 3 Stitch course online. I have learned new ways of communicating with Zoom and GotoMeeting as well as working out the best way to stay on track with my artwork and playing with fiber.

So is it a curse or a blessing? “May you live in interesting times.” I think it’s all in the attitude and I have tried to see the positives in the past year.  One of the positives for me, has been spending much more time in my studio creating. I haven’t shown you my work for my stitch course but I have spent many hours working on homework and I’m currently creating a large wall hanging. I won’t be showing any of that work until after the course is completed but much of my year has been spent enjoying the exploration into design, learning new stitches and creating multiple samples to move forward with my wall hanging.

Each year I like to look back over my posts and remind myself what I created that year. Many times, I have forgotten all the details and it’s good to see the projects and ideas from the year.

Differential shrinkage and wool layout experimentation was a big part of 2020. I had started these experiments in 2019 and continued looking at different methods throughout the year.

Some of these ideas worked better than others but I learned something with each trial or sample.

I also looked at adding texture with machine stitching but never ended up making a pod with this texture.

I took a break from experimenting on shrinkage and created a felt necklace for the first quarter challenge.

Nuno felted landscapes are one of the items that I sell in a gallery in Bigfork, MT and I decided to create more. The first was this Whitefish River landscape.

The next was of Flathead Lake.

Then another idea for differential shrinkage for the second quarter challenge.

Then I got back into another nuno felted landscape. This one turned into a very slow stitch project that is still ongoing. Some people have asked why I don’t use a different technique that is faster than the tiny hand stitches. Of course, it could be done much faster, but for this year, it has been a nice change to spend the first 30 minutes of my day, by adding seed stitch or detached chain stitch to this slow moving landscape.

So here’s the last iteration and there is more to come so you’ll be seeing this slow stitch project going into 2021.

There was one last nuno felted landscape which was based on Montana wildflowers. All of the landscapes are still sitting around because I haven’t done the finishing and framing bit. I have to quit procrastinating and get that done!

I then went back to experimenting with differential shrinkage and using felt rope. This was the first try and a bit of a disaster.

This was the next try that ended up looking like a felt dill pickle.

The next two experiments turned into yard art and finished up the experiments with felt rope and how it affected structure. I decided that I liked using prefelt better than felt rope for structure in creating differential shrinkage.

For the third quarter challenge, I created a hat that included some differential shrinkage that actually didn’t work out all that well. But since I don’t wear hats, it wasn’t a real loss.

Here’s an experiment with a mystery fabric and nuno felting that I created to sample laying the wool only in one direction and how that affected the shape of the scarf.

For the fourth quarter challenge I made a set of snowman ornaments. These made great gifts for friends for the holidays.

This is the card I created for our annual holiday card exchange. More plans for this design in the future!

That concludes my journey back into 2020 and I am looking forward to an exciting 2021 where I might be able to venture out of the house at some point! All the best to you and yours for a wonderful holiday celebration (even if it’s socially distant) and a wonderful new year for more creativity and fiber goodness!

 

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone.

I hope you had a great time ringing in the new year and are enjoying the first day of a new decade.

Time to think back to what I have done and what I want to do.

Last year I did some experimenting with pots.

Did some more artwork

Took a few classes

And taught a few classes.

I took on organizing my guilds annual sale and exhibition with the help of an amazing group of people.

Next year, I am not really sure. I am chair of the sale and exhibition again this year.  I know I am doing more teaching (LINK) and I need to update and sort out my website.

Plans early this year are to get the pictures done for an online class. Jan is going to help with this so I have to get felting to have different stages so we can film more in one day. I am sure Ruth has lost hope of me ever getting it done.

I want to do more artwork with hand stitching. I really do enjoy sitting and stitching. It looks so nice on the felt. To that end, I made a few picture blanks between Christmas and new year. Sorry Its not a great picture I just did it quick while writing this.

Beyond that, I really haven’t planned much. Do you have plans for the year, big or small we would love to hear what they are? We would also love you to share pictures and chat about what you are doing over on the Forum. (LINK)

 

My Year End Round Up and A Big Thank You

My Year End Round Up and A Big Thank You

Each year towards the end of the year, I like to go back and review what I have created throughout the year. That is one reason that I like blogging. It helps keep track of what I have done and many times, by the end of the year, I have totally forgotten some of the things that happened at the beginning of the year. Does that happen to anyone else?

One of my themes this past year has been to “use stuff up”. My studio room is filled to overflowing and I need to get some of that stuff out of there. So many pieces were made to work on that goal.

These are some of the pieces that I created in the first quarter and used stuff up each time.

I completed my Level 3 Art & Design class with Gail Harker Creative Studies Center and we had our graduation in March. I really enjoyed this class, a lot of work, but fun!

I had two sessions of my online classes this past year and want to thank all my students for such a great job. It’s always fun to see what others create from online classes.

Another thing I experimented with this year was differential shrinkage with fiber layout and prefelt.

These were great fun and I plan on continuing with these experiments and perhaps adding some free motion machine stitching into the mix.

I did an experiment with Sulk Sticky Fabri-Solvy with machine stitching wool pieces together. I have also tried it as a pattern transfer with hand stitching and found it to be way too sticky to use with hand stitching. It makes me want to never hand stitch again! So I will stick to machine stitching with it.

This fall, my publisher reworked my original felting book into a new book called First Time Felting.

I reworked this still life into a new piece as I wasn’t happy with the original. This was part of the using stuff up movement 🙂

This past fall, I was ‘poked’ by one of Antje’s post to create a fabric collage landscape. This was inspired by a lake in Glacier National Park and I really liked the result even though it took quite a while to complete. I will probably do more of these types of collages as I have tons of dyed fabric to use up. So the theme of using stuff up will continue into 2020.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lyn and Annie’s quarterly challenges this year. Thanks for the challenges and I look forward to next year’s challenges.

And just to make things exciting, I started a new two year course with Gail Harker, Level 3 Stitch. I have been doing tons of color studies. You can see those on my personal blog Permutations in Fiber.

I would like to thank all of our contributors this year for all of your wonderful posts. We will be continuing with guest contributors in 2020 and if you have something to contribute, just let me know. You can also join our free forum to share your work. We love to see and hear about what all you felt and fiber artists are creating.

I would also like to thank everyone who gave to the “Zed Needs Your Help” campaign. We raised over $1,500.00 US and I am so grateful to all of you who helped out either by a donation or by purchasing an item from Felt by Zed. It was heartwarming to read all of your comments and to feel the love from our fiber community. Zed was overwhelmed by the response and will be writing a thank you to everyone soon.

Here’s wishing you a happy and creative year in 2020.

 

 

Year End Review and Giveaway Winner

Year End Review and Giveaway Winner

I’m always surprised when I look back on the year and see I achieved more than I thought, even this year when I know I haven’t had the opportunity to make things as often as previous years. I’ve had quite a lot of changes this year, including an additional 2 people in our household, so I’ve had less space, and less time to make things. And, like I mentioned in a blog post not so long ago, production anxiety has made it difficult to just enjoy making things. Luckily, I have the Well Being centre sessions which help with having a nice space to be productive/creative in and the time set aside nearly every week to do it. I liked Ruth’s idea of splitting the year’s creations into two slide shows, so I’ve borrowed it! Here are some things I made in the first half:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The plan is for a couple of people at our house to move out before too long, and, I don’t want to count my chickens, but I’ve pretty much redesigned the spare room in my head to be my new studio! It’s a great room too, upstairs and facing South-ish, so it gets more ‘daylight’ than any of the other rooms at this time of year. I started working on a nuno workshop during the Summer, but just haven’t been able to get very far without space or light for taking photos and video, so hopefully, I’ll be able to work on that before too long. As well as liking Ruth’s idea for the slideshows, I like the recommitment to a daily dose of fibre too. I’m sure I must spend at least 5 minutes a day doing something to do with fibre, so I’m going to start keeping a log of what I manage. It might make me feel less like I’ve done nothing! Here’s a slideshow of stuff I made or did during the 2nd half of the year:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Thanks a lot to everyone who entered my Giveaway, and thanks a lot for all the really nice comments. If you’d really like to buy a copy of the book, it’s available via my blog: http://feltbyzed.blogspot.com/p/the-right-fibre.html or via the Shop here https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/shop/felt-by-zed/

The winner of The Right Fibre e-book is: Barbara King! I’ll email you via the e-mail address you used to comment, Barbara 🙂

Finishing Up Some Spinning

Finishing Up Some Spinning

 

In the spring I borrowed a blending board from my friend Carlene. I made rollags at guild social meetings and at demos.

And spinning here and there.

I finally got around to plying them all.

Then I needed to be washed to reset after being tight up in skeins for ages. this is before washing. I spent an evening tying the skeins up so they wouldn’t be a mess after washing.

This is some of them soaking.

And after all the skeins where soaked this it what the water looked like.  I couln’t believe how dirty it was.

then I had to hang them all up to dry. excuse my shower backdrop. we don’t have the new tub surround in yet so it is just orange construction plastic so we can shower.

And the finished yarn. I am making the skeins into center pull balls on my nostepinne. I am mostly done. I am getting better at them.  I didn’t realise how often I do thick and thin yarn until I started winding the balls. It is fun to do.

So thats one thing finished up from 2017 and only 2 days late.  All ready for embellishing some felt.  I hope you all have a fibery new year.

 

 

 

Pandagirl’s Year End Round Up 2017

Pandagirl’s Year End Round Up 2017

I’m always amazed at what I accomplished at the end of year. This year I took a few classes in order to expand my creativity in addition to experimenting on  my own. I also tried to use up more materials and finish some UFOs.

Here is a bedside case for odds and ends made with some merino inside and unknown fiber batt with silk embellishment.

Experimenting with different types of yarn to make a table runner.

Our First Quarter Challenge – Fauvism.

Weaving then felting.

A Valentine gift for granddaughter Lisa.

 

Teri Berry’s Snail hat class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finishing and hanging an eco print.                                                  Crochet around wire bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Framing the felted weaving.

I did a lot of experimenting with crochet stitches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practicing for Ruth’s Free Motion Embroidery class.

Crochet hats for my granddaughter and her new premature brother Ken.

A dimensional potholder.

Learning more crochet stitches.

Making a crochet hook case from a crochet sample.

A bowl for the Second quarter Challenge – Celtic

Using yarn on a resist for a vase cover.

Adding dimension to the hummingbird/tiger lily picture.

Crocheting scrubbies.

Felt and crochet earrings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crochet beaded bowl with stiffener.

A Pumpkin for Ken.

The Third Quarter Challenge – Edo Period; felt and hand embroidery Sakura.

Ribbon embroidery and framing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing with thickened dye for Ruth’s class on felt.

 

Finishing  a case from UFO pile and FME Butterfly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maneki-Neko for Third Quarter Challenge Edo Period.

Framing the Rooster.

More stencil play with acrylic and thickened dye.

The Fourth Quarter Challenge — Suprematist

Penguin’s Poinsettia Holiday card.

A couple of scarves for my daughter in laws parents in Japan where it’s as cold as Chicago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to let everyone know I am taking a leave of absence to focus on my health and family.  I will be around just not posting weekly.  We have a lot of talented artists that will be filling in starting with Tracey Thompson next week.

I want to thank everyone for helping out to give me this time.   If you or someone you know has something to share — it doesn’t have to be felt but anything fiber related including paper, please contact me or one of the other moderators on the forum and we’ll get you on the schedule.

I hope everyone has a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!  Happy Creating in 2018!

Year End Round Up

Year End Round Up

I hope everyone’s enjoying the Holidays 🙂 I have one more scarf and scarf sample left to show you. This first one is a grey marl Merino on hand dyed cotton gauze. I blended up 4 shades of 18.5 mic Merino, 2 greys, a duck egg and black. It wasn’t very easy to get photos, they kept turning out blue!:

The sample is a fabric which might look familiar as I bought 3 scarves with the same design in different colours. I think this is the first time I tried it with 18.5 mic Merino:

Whenever we do posts looking back over the year, I think I haven’t done much, but then get surprised! I think there was a definite theme of texture and surface design for me this year, so, here’s a slide show of some of the things I’ve enjoyed making this year:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Thanks for reading over the past year and leaving comments, I hope to see you in the New Year!

Happy Holidays from All of Us at The Felting and Fiber Studio

Happy Holidays from All of Us at The Felting and Fiber Studio

Here’s wishing all of you, (no matter what part of the world, or what holiday you prefer to celebrate), a wonderful holiday season. I find it hard to believe that we are already through 2017 and on to 2018. Time really seems to speed up at the end of the year for me.

Earlier this month, I showed you the beginnings of these three cards. I picked the card on the left to send to Tracey for our forum holiday card exchange. It’s been machine stitched and then I painted the berries. I did the same with the center card and I painted those berries too but somehow forgot to take a photo before I sent it off to my mom. And the last one is hand stitched. I actually liked how they all turned out and Tracey was very kind in her comments about the one which she received.

This is the card that I received from Tracey. Isn’t it beautiful? It looks like my neck of the woods and we probably have at least that much snow or more. The cabin looks so warm and cozy all lit up for the holidays. Thanks Tracey, I love it!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I have had a busy year in 2017. I thought I would show you a slideshow of some of the pieces I have created. I am also taking Level 3 Art and Design at the Gail Harker Creative Studies Center.  I don’t post very much about that here but if you’d like to see what I do for that class, you can follow my personal blog here. I am halfway through the class and having a wonderful time with that.

It’s cold and snowy here, the temperature was three degrees F when hubby took Symphony for a walk. She started out on the leash, here she is when she got back!

Thanks for visiting us throughout the year, we appreciate all of our followers and would love to hear from more of you. Please leave us a comment if you have the time. Or if you have an idea of what we should post about, we’d love to hear your thoughts. All the best from The Felting and Fiber Studio!

 

Pandagirl’s Year in Review 2016

Pandagirl’s Year in Review 2016

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and are ready for the New Year.

It’s almost the end of 2016 and looking back on the things I’ve done, there seems to be a few themes.

I did a lot of natural dyeing.  Avocado skins, pits and the combo.

20160125_113312

Cochineal

20160701_155219

Alkanet/Logwood20160701_154915

logwood iron top wo bottom

Osagealkanet with iron

Madder

20160622_123212

Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

20160703_115005 20160701_155539 20160907_124311-1

 

Eco printing

img_7161

Resists

20150501_152541

20160301_164851

20160326_121301

20160322_113050

20160506_142241

Under the sea theme20160429_160634a_edited-1 20160526_155222

2nd Quarter challenge working with scraps – the former credit card case turned into an ear bud case.

20160506_122938

Then the cityscape with scraps.

20160523_142107

A scarflette with locks

20160125_111403

Ginkgo stitching

20160123_152812

Crochet piece felted and embellished with stitching

20160823_134235-1

Felting wit my grandsons

20160807_152216_001

Silk scraps into a free motion stitched vase

20160708_142758

3rd Quarter challenge adding dimension from Kristy Kun’s class

20160924_155325-1 20160924_155038-1

Ruth’s Paper Lamination class

20160614_153320 20160720_173749

20160609_122027

Teri’s hat class

20161012_152103 20161012_151800

Mini weaving wall hanging

20161113_151758

More work with scraps for a sewing machine case

20161204_142831

4th Quarter Challenge with embellishments for a coupon case.

20161107_164205

And blue booties for a shower

20161208_165948

Of course, there were also plenty of samples during the year including using the needle felting machine to felt some unfeltable fabrics.

A big thank you to Cathy Wycliff for her post on weaving and felting; my sister Carol Olson for sharing her new sheep with us;  Nada for sharing her workshop experience in Slovenia; Zara for her posts on Felting on a Trampoline and her Yak, Mongolian, Churro and Zwartables samples; Leonor for her soap tutorial and Terri Simon on sharing her projects from Kristy Kun’s class.

It was a great year for me in terms of learning new things and doing some recycling.  How was your 2016 year of fibers?

Happy New Year and Happy Felting in 2017!

 

 

 

2016 Year End Round Up

2016 Year End Round Up

Whenever I do a Year End Round Up, and look back over my posts, I always think ‘Was that really this year?’ I thought the same this time then realised I was looking at 2015! I seemed to have lots of stuff going on outside of felting and creating this year, so unlike Ruth, blogging frequently hasn’t really been able to keep me making things. But having to think of something to blog about has had me trying to be more observant, and think about other things fibre related to post about rather than finished items like I usually would. And looking back at the things I did make, it seems that experimenting, sampling and making ‘scruffy’ pieces of felt have been my ‘theme’ this year. I liked Ruth’s idea of a slideshow, so here’s some of my favourite photos of 2016:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

%d