Cotton dyed and some new fibre.

Cotton dyed and some new fibre.

Comments 8 comments

This week I dyed the cotton for the guild poker challenge and 3rd quarter challenge. The cards I picked for the poker challenge are cotton, blue, and metallic.   I didn’t want a solid blue so I used blue purple and blue/green. The blue cot absorbed into the green and purple and pretty much disappeared.

I thought I would overdye it with some blue. I just wanted to shift the colours. If you look carefully you can see blue water in the middle.

it didn’t really work. it may be a little more blue but I am not sure that isn’t just wishful thinking. Oh well, both blue/green and purple have blue in them.

I also received the Art Batts I bought in a friend’s online auction.

and this one

It is nice that they are so similar inside and out. Some I have bought have been completely different on the inside with different colours and/or fibres. I think these will be fun to spin.

 

Autumn Nuno Slow Stitch – Considering Value

Autumn Nuno Slow Stitch – Considering Value

Comments 16 comments

I updated you about my autumn nuno landscape project about one month ago in this post. I had been discouraged with the project and it was languishing. So I asked for suggestions and I appreciate all the support. I decided to go ahead and keep working on it but only doing about 15-20 minutes a day. (Click on any of the photos to enlarge.)

Here’s what it looked like one month ago. I decided to start filling more of the middle ground with a combination of neutralized red and green seed stitching.

Here you can see how much seed stitching can be completed in short spurts. But I was still dissatisfied with the piece. Why was that? After working on it steadily, I took some time to look back at my reference photo and see what I had missed. Then I realized that I didn’t have enough dark values to show the shadowed areas in the landscape. Aha!

I started by adding a more neutralized green in the area between the aspen trees. I used a much thinner thread (1 strand floss) and smaller stitching. It darkened up the area a bit but that wasn’t enough.

So then I started adding a dark brown in the same area. Again, I used one strand of floss and smaller stitches. I am still essentially doing seed stitch but piling it on top of other seed stitches.

So here is how far I have gotten with my slow stitching. I am happy that I figured out what was bothering me about the piece. There are still lots of more shadows to add in to give the impression of lines of trees. I also think that I will add a more neutralized green over the distant pines in places. The more stitching I add, the more it seems to need. But at least I am moving forward.

Can you see the difference when you compare the piece side by side, before adding darker values and after? Do you think about value contrast when you’re working on a composition? Do you have any tricks for seeing value contrast better?

Little 12″ x 12″ samples

Little 12″ x 12″ samples

Comments 16 comments

I was watching a video where Jenny Grant, a mixed media artist from Sweden, https://www.jennygrantart.com/ was using a credit card to push paint through a stencil onto paper. It made me curious about trying the same method on fabric. I have used acrylic paint on fabric before but thought I would try out some PROfab Transparent Paint I had purchased a while back and never gotten around to playing with. I’ve been making 12” x 12” size quilts to donate as fund raisers for a quilt guild I belong to called Contemporary QuiltArt Association https://www.contemporaryquiltart.com/. They are a nice size to be able to try out new techniques. I searched through my stencils and found this large one. Surprise, surprise it reminds me of my tile quilts. Right up my alley!

IMG_4320

I have been using a fabric called Radiance for my tile quilts. It is a fabric made by Robert Kaufman and is a 45% silk/55% cotton blend. I like that it is shiny and puffs up quite nicely to form what I call the grout in between the fabric tiles once they are quilted down. I used two different colors of blue for this one. This was my third sample. I kept smudging paint onto the edges so I decided to put masking tape around the edges of the stencil before painting to try to keep the sides free of paint, but then I was having trouble pulling the tape and the stencil off the fabric. Next time I’ll tape the fabric down first and see if that helps.

paint #1 original

Next, I copied the stencil onto heavy butcher type paper so I could number the pieces. These would become my pattern pieces. I wanted to make more than one sample, so I wanted to be able to reuse the pieces. Once numbered, I took a photo of it to keep as my reference master.

pattern pieces

 

I cut my fabric patterns out smaller than the painted shapes so I would still see the paint behind the fabric. I cut these out using an Xacto knife. Not very big pieces!

cut pattern pieces

I just started playing with colors that spoke to me. I seemed to focus mostly on fabrics that had circles or dots on them.

Here is the finished 12” x 12” quilt. I fused the fabric pieces onto the painted areas and then quilted them. I found that the PROfab paint was much easier to quilt over than acrylic paint and had a much softer hand as well. I’m a convert! It was a fun experiment and hopefully it will sell at our fundraiser. The exhibition is called Big/Little and we are to make a 12” x 12” quilt and a larger quilt for our entries into the show. I think I will now make my own stencil for the larger quilt and use this same method. I like how the paint peaks out behind the fabric.

Painted blue

Here is another one where I had used black and red PROfab paint. I used the same stencil and got to reuse all my numbered cut out templates for the fabric pieces. This one was really smeared around the edges so I had to put additional Radiance around the edges of it to try to clean it up a bit.

I am trying to educate myself about the Black Lives Matter movement and found myself working through some of the emotions that came bubbling up. What I am reading today is much different from the American history I was taught when I was in school and I find all of it quite disturbing.

No More

It’s not bright and cheery like the first one. I’m not sure I will offer it up for my guild’s fundraiser. What do you think?

As a footnote, I had mentioned in my last post that I was going to fix my dog’s eyes on my Saint Koko quilt. Well, that has not happened yet. Maybe by my next post!

Stay safe!     Tesi Vaara

 

 

The Mysterious Package! Is it a wool bomb?

The Mysterious Package! Is it a wool bomb?

Comments 9 comments

As Ann mentioned in her post we caved and succumbed to our basic default settings, BUY MORE WOOL! There was free shipping if you ordered enough.  We both wanted footwear and Ann spotted these lovely colours natural and unnatural!! Did I mention there were colours and some were BLUE!!! How could I say no? ( Please don’t buy all her blue I would like to get a bit more!!!)

 

We spent a long time debating amounts and colours eventually settling on Grey, Really Dark Grey, some more Grey and some natural cream in the large 500gr batts as well as a Purple and a Blue, both over-dyed on Grey.  What can I say? There was a sale, we got excited. We spent a lot of money at the on Etsy.com. (Remember don’t buy all the blue please.)

 

I got an email (Hotmail is sometimes intermittently working and then sends mail the long way around the planet) a couple of days after we had placed the order, requesting a phone number for shipping. I seemed to have missed that in the order instructions.  3 days later, while working in the side yard studio, a nice man from Fed-X came up the driveway looking a bit confused by the potted trees and the rest of the garden. Sharkette and I put on masks (you saw the photo of her mask not fitting her well) and received the mysterious black taped package…insert spooky music here… OOOOH! Now I have to wait for Ann so we can open it together!!!!

11 Wool bomb?

Oh, the stress of waiting! So of course I dropped it off to her at the farmers market so I would not be tempted to peek! I was the mother of Evil, he was so cute and had such soft fur, so I left the temptation for Ann. She promised to bring it on Monday for the Great Unwrapping!!

 

2 2 Due to the stress, I’m sure I also picked up two fleeces at the other end of the market, a Shropshire and a Canadian. Both were large Rams and were much softer than I expected.  They are now waiting for the humidity to drop so I can skirt and wash them!

3-5  I hid them under my studio table so no one would know they were there.

   6-8  I re-bagged them into the giant ziplock bags from Dollerama it definitely needs a lot of skirting but it should be worth the work!

The day of the Great Unwrapping finally arrived.  Well the package arrived Friday morning and this is now Monday morning so you know the agony we had to endure waiting 3 whole days; the same length of time it took to get here from Lithuania!!!

  9-10 Ann in the guild library

We were both in at the guild studio, wearing our masks, to finish pulling books for guild members, update the library cards to match the membership list and receive library books that were still out with members. (There are a few that are now overdue! You know who you are!  Please follow the instructions on the guild web page and arrange to drop them back into the studio)

 

We were very good and got the books pulled and cards updated before we carefully approached the package.  Now we would find out the burning question, is this all the wool we ordered?  It seems so small?

500gr / 17.6 oz each of Bergschaf Tyrollean Wool   – 2x  Light Grey 1 X Dark Grey and 1x  Natural white(cream) =2000gr

Plus

100 gr / 3,52 oz each of Dyed Bergschaf Tyrollean wool   – 1x Blue, 1x  #56. Purple Grey Mix

Total of 2200gr of wool!! How can all that wool be in such a small ball?

 

After a quick debate, I had the camera.  She had scissors! We got to work. Ohh I should film this!

Video 1 – getting through the outer layer

Video link to YouTube  https://youtu.be/NAemxDW5GH0

 

Video 2 – the bag inside

 

Video 3 – commentary on contents

Video link to YouTube
https://youtu.be/JoEzh_-0uxY

 

11 11

 

Here is the 100gr of natural grey overdyed in a beautiful blue. The black plastic and tape outer wrapping can be seen to the right of the table it’s amazing all the fibre fit into it!

 

I am planning boots with mine.  I think Ann will be making slippers. I have to look at soles and see if I can get rubber soles or if I should go with leather. My feet have been freezing lately and I am planning them as indoor boots. I had a pair of outdoor mid-calf boots about 20 years ago that were slit at the sides with the front and back overlapping. They were easy to put on and were great with calves that use to do horseback riding ( so not twigs). I want to try to recreate something similar.

 

I am suspecting more fibre will be required after looking at Ann’s sample so I will hope there is another sale happening Soon at

 

Now I better get back to working on Mer-pet two!!

Some more interesting samples

Some more interesting samples

Comments 10 comments

This week I made some more samples. The first is a sample of California red that my friend Bo gave me to try. the wool is an oatmeal colour with red hairs in it. There is only a small amount she had combed.

It felted quickly and well. It is fairly firm. I don’t like the hairs init. I am sure they will shed out. They are not held in the felt very well at all and slide out without and force. it might be good for backing a fake sheepskin.

Finished wet:

Finished Dry

The next one I did was some wool I just got from Lithuania. Jan and I ordered some wool while there was free shipping. Jan will show you the unboxing in her next post.

This sample I am very happy with. It felted quickly and very firmly with no stretch. Usually, when a piece of felt is still wet you can stretch it this way or that to square it up. This one had very little give, perfect for some boots or some baskets.

Finished Dry. I think it would have been smoother if I hadn’t given it a really good scrunching.

The last sample was a new sample for my guild poker challenge. I used a much denser fabric. Even though is heavier it is still an open weave, and slightly wrinkled. On the front, I put some of the same cotton, scrunched up, then some sparkly nylon, silk and at the bottom some viscose.

This is what it looks like dry. There was lots of migration so everything was well stuck. I will leave these one big so you can see them well without having to click on them.

I think this cotton is just what I want. The next job will be to dye some of it for my project. It will fit right in with the 3rd quarter challenge. I am going to keep what I am making a secret for now.  😉

 

 

 

 

Summer Sunrise – Nuno Felt Landscape

Summer Sunrise – Nuno Felt Landscape

Comments 13 comments

I have been working on a set of nuno felted and stitched landscapes and I have finished another one. This one I am currently calling Summer Sunrise unless I come up with a better name.

Here’s how the piece looked after nuno felting. It reminded me of flowers so I thought I would go in that direction with the landscape. I googled Montana wildflowers at sunrise and found several photos to use as guidance and inspiration.

I started by free motion machine stitching a line of mountains and some tall, skinny pine trees.

I added a few lines of grasses so the trees didn’t feel like they were floating.

Then to add a few mid-ground lupines. I just kept moving down the piece as I created these from background to foreground.

Then the lupines needed a little greenery and leaves. Now on to the main attraction, the foreground flowers.

I created the foreground flowers and leaves with hand dyed silk organza. I fused them together and then fused them to the surface of the nuno felt. Here’s where I forgot to take many photos. I get involved in the process and forget all about taking any photos.

Here’s a midway photo. I used free motion machine stitching to add the details and lines. I kept layering and stitching the flowers and leaves.

After I got the two large leaves applied at the very bottom, I felt that they were too bright green and really drew your eye right to the bottom of the picture. So I decided to darken them up more. I added darker thread but ultimately, they were still too bright. So I used oil pastels to tone down the bright green.  I also used oil pastels in the mountains just to give a little bit more definition of the mountains in the distance. So this one is complete and I’m still working on the slow stitch one. I will have an update on that one next week.

2020 Third Quarter Challenge

2020 Third Quarter Challenge

Comments 15 comments

This year’s theme is ‘Personal Items’ so the third quarter challenge calls to all felters, spinners, weavers, stitchers, knitters, crocheters and mixed media fibre artists to think ahead.

With apologies to our forum friends in the southern hemisphere who are looking forward to spring, we need to think about the coming cooler months.

All the shops have their summer sales now so that they can clear the way for the new autumn/winter stock that will be on sale by the beginning of August.

So the challenge is to make something that will keep you warm!

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

Josie (forum member) is knitting a lap quilt…

challenge blanket

…Arlene (adventures in felt) has just made her first pair of mittens…

challenge mittens

…and last year Judith (koffipot) showed her woven scarf on the forum…

challenge scarf

…and if you’d like to make a hat but don’t know how, then Teri Berry is running an online class via the Felting and Fiber Forum. The class will run in July / August and registration opens on 2 July 2020.  The price for this four-week course is £50 GBP (approx. $66 US, $85 Canadian, €56, $88 AUD, $97 NZ) and the number of places will be limited to 30 students.

The first felting tutorial will be posted on 16 July 2020 with another tutorial posted in each of the following 2 weeks. The class forum will remain open for you to share your work and ask questions until 27 Aug 2020.

Here are a couple of her hats…

challenge hats

So get your thinking hat on.  What can you make, in your favourite medium, to help keep you warm this autumn/winter?

Please post your photos on the Felting and Fiber Forum in the studio challenges section.

 

Mer-pet One gets her skin

Mer-pet One gets her skin

Comments 16 comments

(Sorry I’m running late today! and have tried my best with the final spellchecking. my regular spellchecker is doing overtime at the post office, so you too can receive all your online orders. It’s as busy as x mass at the moment!)

We are going to skip ahead a week, missing the post about Mer-Pet two I had already written and continued on with Sharkette.

So back to the Shark.

This week seems to have flown past too. I remember days being longer and I use to accomplish so much more in them. I did get more garden work done and have a couple of shots that may inspire 2D felting or maybe a 3D bouquet?

      1-8 bits of colour to inspire you, from the front back and side garden.

9 9 the back patio with new bird feeders

I did a bit more work on my back patio putting out a hummingbird feeding (we are between the honeysuckle and trumpet vine booms) and 2 little wire bird feeders. They are not attracting the type of bird I was hoping for. I have seen a smaller long-tailed striped orange wingless “Bird” cleaning up underneath the feeder. While above two Rubenesque wingless long-tailed hairy “birds” clung to the feeder and generally made a mess. One was all black (and not nearly as nice as the Beautiful black mother crow and young crow that have been around the last 2 weeks). The second was about the same size as the black one but gray. I will try again to get a picture of these horrible wingless seed-steeling “birds” and hope the sparrows and chickadees will return. Oh, the black covered thing that is pretending to be a birdbath is the second larger blacksmith forge.  (I have odd porch decorations.)

Moving back to the side yard I brought out the fleece bucket I was using as a project bucket for the shark. I had my photo reference, hand carders, fibre, foam pad, assorted needles and of course, Sharkette.

10-12 photo reference, fibre and implements for stabbing! (I think Sharkett looks nervous)

I was treating shark both like a pastel in that, I had applied a base under-colour and like a watercolour, by hand mixing and using small thin washes of colour building towards the finished tones.

13-16 shark swims in a sea of fibre

Another brake for gardening, the two plant pots on the right have catnip, extremely potent catnip. Is anyone dropping by to pick up some catnip? (There is more in the back and side yard)  Hiding behind the catnip in the tall grey pot is a dahlia, which I hope will flower.

17 17

Summer is confused this year I have snow peas starting with the first raspberry!!

18-19 the snow peas grew about four feet tall and then started to flower

Now that I have nibbled on snow peas (and left Glenn the raspberries), it’s time to get back to felting

23

    20-23

While I was working on her a fed-X delivery truck pulled up the end of my driveway! They do that sometimes when dropping stuff off for my neighbours. No this time it was actually for here! Yes, this was the order I placed earlier in the week for Ann and I.   We plan to unwrap the likely explosive package this week and will let your know what we find within!!

24 24 I think there is a role of tape on that package!

Shark and I both were consciences and had our masks on! Hers does not fit well since it only covered part of her gills. Effective masks cover your entire breathing equipment, Mouth and Gills!

25 25 Safety first!!

I laid in the darker edge layers (I mixed the 2 darker grays with a tiny bit of the intense green) rather than use black which could have been too strong. Over that, I layered blends of the middle gray with green and blue, then fading into mid and light grays with hints of the blue and green tones. (Just think washes of thin wisps of colour to help optically blend and give the mottled effect of light seen through the water onto shark-skin.

 

26-28

My outdoor studio was nicely shaded but it was getting hot and I needed a drink brake for a caffeinated green beverage (Mountain Dew). Restarting my audiobook, I got back work.

29

29

I tried to get a shot to show you just how thin a layer of colour I was adding at a time. (the white needle is a new one I just got off Etsy from “thanks for mutton”. It’s a 42 crown which is the finest needle I’ve tried and was impressed. It’s not quick but it gave a cleaner surface than my coarser core wool needles.)

   30-32

The pen tool is holding 40’s and I have been working at a close to parallel angle for the outer coat.

I also wanted to show you her mouth. I saw paper clay teeth on line that were spectacular but have not tried them (yet, I may still go back and see if I can add tinny scary teeth)

33 33 toothless but likely still lethal!

She is a mighty shark able to leap foam needle holding barricades by herself! (look no hands)

     34-38 sharkette showing off with her new skin!

I will try and get a shot of her not in the shade. I should have brought better lighting to her photoshoot!!

So next we will go back in time and look at Mer-pet number 2 unless that possibly exploding package has caught your curiosity? Did you see how well taped up that mysterious object was? What could it be??

3939 Mer-pet 2 revealed or strange package investigation?

Hat Class Starting and Some Samples

Hat Class Starting and Some Samples

Comments 9 comments

Terry Berries Popular Hat class will be running again. The price for this four-week course is £50 GBP (approx. $66 US, $85 Canadian, €56, $88 AUD, $97 NZ) and the number of places will be limited to 30 students.

The class will still run in July / August as originally planned. Registration for that class will open on 2 July 2020.

First felting tutorial posted on 16 July 2020 with another tutorial posted in each of the following 2 weeks. The class forum will remain open for you to share your work and ask questions until 27 Aug 2020.

 

This week I made some samples. First is a sample for my guild summer poker challenge.  In this challenge, you get to pick 4 cards that have instructions like colour fibre or yarn weave structure, spinning type and more. I asked if we could add a felting challenge too. because it was close to the time we play we used the spinning cards but removed the spinning type. You get to exchange one card from the hand you are dealt with.  I got cotton, fluorescent and metallic. I tossed back fluorescent and got blue. Every one thought cotton was very funny when I pulled it. Little do they know I had a project planned with some cotton. I couldn’t find my big bag of cotton but my memory was that it was gauze. I had a little bit of that in a draw.

I laid out some blue merino on top of 2 layers of gauze. Then added some coppery silk and some white silk and some orange sparkly nylon and a square of one layer of gauze. I meant to take a picture dry but wet it down to add the next piece before remembering to take a picture.

I then added some scrunched up cotton. It needs to be wet or it won’t stay scrunched up.

and the back

The sample worked out very well.

I did find my bag of cotton. I had put it in the laundry room to wash. It has a very open weave but it is nothing like this, so it will have to make another sample.

The other sample I did make this week was some Tunis. My friend Bernadette gave ma a little bag to try out. I have never tried Tunis before.

I divided it in half so about 25 grams of wool.

I carded it into little batts with my hand carders. I place them in 2 opposite layers and wet it all down and rubbed and rolled. It didn’t take long. The square was 10×10( 25.5 cm by 25.5 cm) to start and it ended up 7.5 inches by 7.75 inches( 19 cm by 19.6 cm).  so shrinkage is about 25% I could have made it square if I had stretched a little one way or rolled a little more the other. It ended up as a nice fairly smooth dense felt. It would make great slippers or boots I would think. It feels a little prickly if I put it under my chin. I like the way the coloured tips gave it a mottled look.

Final Bark Color Mixing Experiment

Final Bark Color Mixing Experiment

Comments 10 comments

I tried one last experiment with creating bark and color mixing. I showed you last week my attempt with color mixing with a drum carder. And there was another experiments here.  I had part of the mixed batt left over from last week so I decided to combine all of my techniques and see what happened.

First I split my batt in two layers. You can see the felted piece from last week on the right. I then added two layers of green wool over the surface of the bottom batt.

Then I cut up the felt piece from last week and placed it over the green wool. I wanted more green migrating through between the felt pieces.

Then I added the other layer of batt over top of the felt pieces. With everything layered up, I was ready to wet down.

I wet it down and then did a lot of rubbing. I worked carefully between the thick felt pieces in the center of the sandwich so that they would stay in place and there would be a nice indentation between. I also fulled the felt very hard to get lots of green migrating through the top surface.

And here is the finished piece of bark. (Edgar is helping me take photos.) Finally, this is the look that I wanted when I started this experimentation. It has a wonderful texture and the color mixing is what I envisioned. So a combination of carded batt and layered colors with thick felt in between did the trick. Yay! I will have to decide if I am going to add any stitching or other embellishments to this piece or just leave it as is. What do you think?