Whitefish River Landscape

Whitefish River Landscape

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I showed you the start for this landscape last week. It’s based on a photo of the trees in winter on the Whitefish river. I really like the way the orange branches look against the sky and in the reflections in the water.

Here’s the photo I took and then the layout of the felt on the right. I used what silk I already had to represent the sky and the water and then added a little wool for the land and for the large tree trunk on the left. The felted piece ended up about 8″ x 11″.

I then started stitching the most distant background features. I forgot to add any support behind the felt at this point but later on added a heavy weight Pellon interfacing to support some of the heavier machine stitching.

Now to add some sheer orange fabric for the trees. I also stitched in dark brown along the edge of the river and the shore.

Then on to adding in the trees along the shoreline. I did baste down the orange sheer fabric to hold it in place while stitching. I added more stitching for the reflections of the trees.

I cut back some of the orange in the trees to show the sky in places and added a second layer of sheer orange over some of the branches. I then stitched more branches in orange thread. I did the same for the reflected trees.

Now on to the large foreground tree. I added some bark details with my darkest brown thread.

And then stitched in the large foreground branches. I started from the top dark branches and moved downward. I added one layer of sheer fabric over the yellow in the bottom left hand corner by the trunk to tone it down just a little. After looking at this for a while, I decided to make a few small changes. The right hand corner was drawing my attention to much with the background trees. There was too much contrast between the white clouds and the dark branches. Also, the shoreline wasn’t quite right.

Lighter brown stitching was added to the background trees and to the shoreline. I used a small amount of oil pastel to make a shoreline reflection in the water. And it was finished. Or at least finished for now. I will need to find a background cotton fabric for it’s matte and then get it framed. On to the next landscape!

For those of you who wanted to see the end result of Penny Peters 25 Million Stitches piece, here it is. You can read more about it here.

We have also started writing a monthly newsletter and already sent the first one out last week. If you’d like to receive the newsletter, click on the link in the prior sentence and scroll down to the end of the newsletter. There is a link to click there to submit your email address. Or you can sign up on the right side bar here. Thanks!

Finding Mojo – Creativity in Lockdown

Finding Mojo – Creativity in Lockdown

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Before we begin….I really hope you and your loved ones are safe and well, but if you are grieving for a loved one who lost their battle with Covid19, I am truly sorry for your loss, I can’t begin to imagine the pain of losing a loved one when you cannot be there to comfort them. Please don’t think for a moment that in this post I am comparing the anxiety many people are feeling and my own journey through this crisis in any way to the combination of grief and anxiety you are experiencing. My heart goes out to you.

Overwhelmed and impotent

We are just over 3 weeks into lockdown (in the UK) and the days have long since become indistinguishable from each other, some days drifting laboriously on, while for others (if I avoid the news) I can convince myself I am holiday and happily while away the day reading and pottering in the garden. I have lost all sense of time, what day of the week is this? Or what month!? Are you feeling the same?

Social media seems to be full of people enthusiastically telling us we need to use this time productively but, quite frankly, a lot of people, myself included, are just too exhausted from anxiety and worry to…. overhaul my website / clean the house from top to bottom / landscape the garden / make all my stock for Christmas *

*insert that overwhelming project that glares accusingly at you from your to-do list.

I know most of these people mean well but their posts really only serve to make me feel even more inadequate and impotent than this crisis already has. If this resonates with you, try to ignore them, mentally file these posts with the fake news and scam posts, they really aren’t worth your attention or energy.

I realised early on that my creative mojo was burrowing further and further into hiding the more my anxiety increased; the more anxious I felt (for myself, my loved ones and friends still working on the frontline), the harder it was to find that creative spark we all rely on. It took me a few days to realise this but just by limiting my access to the news to once a day and only grocery shopping once every 3 weeks I can (mostly) control my anxiety. Have you found a coping strategy? Did you lose your creative mojo too?

To begin with I couldn’t even face the prospect of starting a felt project, all the ideas usually overcrowding my tiny brain had flown away. So I set myself some quite mindless tasks, more to keep busy and distracted than with a goal in mind.

  • Tidying and organising the “wool room” (don’t be fooled by the name, like you, I have wool and other fibres stashed in EVERY room, but this room has almost nothing but wool and felting kit in it)
  • Painting colour charts for my watercolour paints (something I have wanted to do for a long time but never found time for)
  • Baking (if this keeps up, I will be too wide to fit through my front door by the time we are allowed out again)
A colour chart from my watercolour sketchbook

Then Fiona Duthie threw down a felting gauntlet…..

Those of you that have taken one of Fiona Duthie’s online classes will know about her “alumni” Facebook page, on there she posted a “coronavirus challenge” on the theme, “Separate Yet Connected”.

I have taken part in one of Fiona’s previous challenges (you can see the publication here) and really enjoyed it, especially reading about how everyone else had interpreted the same theme in such varied ways.

But I was filled with nagging doubts, could I come up with an idea and be inspired enough to see it through? I really wasn’t sure. I went back to baking…. and comfort eating…..

A little known piece of personal history for you… I studied coronaviruses for my PhD. It was a long time ago (early 2000’s) but I still feel personally connected to this virus despite the havoc and devastation it is inflicting on us all. This connection and a desire to turn the fear and anxiety into something positive, or at least constructive, kept bringing my thoughts back to Fiona’s challenge but what could I make?

The name corona-virus, comes from a very fuzzy electron micrograph image of crystalised coronavirus particles that show a corona (crown) of spike proteins protruding from the virus envelope.

Coronavirus - Wikipedia
Not as pretty as the whizzy computer-generated images the media are bombarding us with today but I see a simple organic elegance in these decades-old images

It was this micrograph that inspired a scruffy self portrait I drew a couple of years ago, where I applied the corona of spike particles to my portrait.

If you are wondering about my bizarre colour choices, they too were inspired by my PhD, I did a lot of confocal microscopy work that used fluorescent markers to highlight different cellular structures and virus proteins (even as a scientist colour was still a very important element in my work!).

Confocal micrographs from my thesis

Those who know me, know my favourite felt practice is sculpted, 3 dimensional wet-felting. It seemed like a natural step to translate the self portrait into a series of 3D faces.

This is the prototype of the “masks” being laid out
… and with the shaping begun but far from finished

IMG_0773 copy
Drying and waiting to be shaved.

I applied quite a lot of silk to the “spike proteins” expecting them to add a dash of colour but the fuzzy nature of Black Welsh wool has all but engulfed them.

I am still undecided about the eyes, leaving them hollow / white as they are now is quite haunting to look at and makes me reflect on the very, very many people who have lost their lives and those left grieving for them but to add eyes could make the masks more human and relatable, what do you think?

My plan is to make a series of “masks” with different ethnicities to reflect the global impact and arrange them as a wall hanging with a rainbow theme linking them all in what has become the global symbol of hope in this pandemic.

This one will be the caucasian mask:

IMG_0774 copy

I will post an update as this project progresses but in the meantime please be kind to yourself as well as those around you, this situation and the feelings that accompany it is alien for almost all of us but together we will get through it.

Stay safe, stay home.

Making my sheep presentable! The horror of naked sheep is averted at last.

Making my sheep presentable! The horror of naked sheep is averted at last.

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Making my sheep presentable! The horror of naked sheep is averted at last.

 

Over the past few months, I have been making naked sheep. To replace my missing sample sheep. I need to leave some of them in their unsightly naked appearance but I also need to have a few finished ones to show what variations can be made with the top coats too.

 

   1-2  20g Woad died Locks on sale at one of the fibre festivals.

 

So last week I found the little bag of Romney x BFL locks, died with woad. This is a very light woaden blue and makes me think of the story about Ted Carson, a Toronto spinning teacher, taking cool-aid died lambs with him to demo in town.  He had said that when he brought the colourful lambs back to the rest of the flock he would see cars suddenly brake to stop and look at the green, pink, purple and blue tinted sheep standing in his field. Ok, this could be fun!

 

I curled up in front of the computer, got set up with the game I was playing and pulled out the sheep. I finished off the ears and did a bit of final touch up of the understructure then added the eyes. I could not find the black so she got the dark opalescent beads. I sewed in the eyes from opposite sides and buried the knot and thread in the wool.

 

  3-4  Naked sheep body with ears added

 

Next, I added the top coat of locks. I kept them tight to the body and not as drapey as I usually do. In this fleece, the tips and tails were both quite crimpy and didn’t take the dye as much as the middle section of each lock. The darker ends were the tips and the whiter ends were the butt ends, if you were curious. I let the forelock and the bottom wooly part of the legs be a bit looser. Now she looks almost right. What is she missing?

 

567    5-7   Sheep with the top coat added. She is looking for grass.

 

I know! It’s the bell and bow from a hazelnut chocolate Easter rabbit! (Not this year’s rabbit, who was milk chocolate and had a red ribbon and was eaten ears first Sunday afternoon.)

 

8   8 My Pictish sheep with her bell and ribbon

Now that I have a woad sheep I may need a woad covered  Pictish shepherd to go with her. Hum, that could be fun. I will have to see if I can find any photo reference on the wonderful google. Google was not as helpful as usual.

 

Was it Tacitus who wrote about the frightening Picts, who painted themselves blue with woad and would not fight correctly with chariots? I did read Germanicus but can’t remember if it was there or another roman author who talked about the Picts. It may have been the Germans or the most northern Celts that didn’t fight correctly against chariots.  University was a while ago so as long as I don’t have a sudden history test I should be ok.  I do remember Hadrian tried to build a wall to keep them contained but most of the wall was looted for later building material. Yes I think I will need to make a Pictish shepherd to go with the sheep!

An interesting Vessel

An interesting Vessel

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I am sure if you are on Facebook you have seen the link to Fiona Duthie’s free online tutorial for a vessel within a vessel. https://www.fionaduthie.com/vessel_within_a_vessel/  It is fun to do. I have done it before. It is here if you are interested. They were fairly small pots. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2019/01/06/pots-within-pots/

I thought I would do another one just for fun. I decided it should be bigger this time. For the template, I used a wall clock I had that is to good to get rid of, but I don’t use. I am sure you all have things like that around.   To give you an idea of sized it is the typical school or lunchroom clock that is everywhere.

The smaller circle is the one from drawing around the clock. I decided I wanted it a bit bigger so I drew another circle out about 2 inches or 5 cm by hand.

I cut it out leaving a small amount attached to the bigger piece and folded it over to make a second attached circle. I had decided I didn’t want a narrow neck on this one.

Now, you are probably thinking that isn’t very interesting. At least that is what I was thinking. Just to make things more interesting and difficult for myself I decided to add wings in a book resist type of thing. Not satisfied to do that the normal way I decided to make the wings/pages smaller than the rest of the pot.  I used the actual size of the clock.

I also separated the pages so the outside edges ended up halfway between the 2 circles on the main resist. I added 2 pages to each side of the resist.

Next was laying out the fibres. About halfway through one side, I was cursing myself for making things so difficult. The problem, of course, was that I hadn’t done a book resist in a long time and had to figure out how best to do it again.  You can see I add a piece of silk (I think) scarf to the yellow side that will go inside.

 

The second side when much quicker than the first

That is as far as I got. That was Sunday. My plan is to do the felting tomorrow and maybe the next day depending on how my knees feel about it. I have a tall table which is great for laying out but not as convenient to rub and roll on.  I am going to try to use my tall chair to help with that. I will show you how it turns out for better or worse next time it’s my turn to post. That should be next Wednesday. Have you tried a vessel in a vessel? If not go watch the tutorial and give it a try.

Nuno Felting Landscapes

Nuno Felting Landscapes

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I have started creating some nuno felted landscapes so that when the world returns to “normal”, I will have work that I can take to different galleries to sell. These are created with hand dyed silk (5 mm) and white merino prefelt. Some of the silk I used this time was dyed by my friend Paula Rindal. She gave me her silk when she decided to stop felting. Thanks Paula!

This is one of the pieces of silk from Paula. I see an autumn landscape developing from this piece. I don’t always have a plan in mind until after these are felted. Then I look at the piece from all angles and decide what I “see” in the piece. Then I progress from there. This one I am planning on hand stitching.

This piece was one of my hand dyed pieces of silk. I haven’t quite decided on this one yet but it might be mountains in the distance with Montana wildflowers in the foreground. I might use a combination of machine and hand stitching.

Again, another one of my hand dyed pieces of silk. I think this might be a lake with mountains in the distance, perhaps machine stitched?

This last one I based on a photo I took of the Whitefish river. I laid the pieces out based on the photo and then it will be all machine stitched. You can see I have started by adding background trees. I forgot to take a photo of this one before I started stitching.

So what do you see in these? It’s always interesting to me that people see different things in an abstract background. What would you create out of the top three backgrounds? I will be showing you the progression of each of these as I work through them but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Eyes Have It!

The Eyes Have It!

Comments 25 comments
Koko

This is Koko. We rescued each other years ago. She was my buddy for about 7 years. She was almost 16 when I had to put her down. I was so sad for a long time. She’s been gone about a year now and I still miss her every day. I use her photo quite a bit in my art work. I loved her eyes and ears and her companionship! She was pretty young in this photo and did not like to have her picture taken!

I made this small quilt of Koko back in 2015. It definitely didn’t do any justice to her beautiful expressive eyes in this quilt and I’ve always wanted to repair that. I just didn’t have any experience in facial features so I kept putting it off.  I want to change the value of her fur, too.

This winter I decided I needed to take some drawing classes so I could someday fix the eyes in this piece. The internet has so many wonderful classes available. I joined up with Matt who teaches via The Virtual Instructor.  https://thevirtualinstructor.com/ and took his class, Portrait Drawing the Smart Way. Wow! Did I learn a lot! The course was very interesting as we just used a graphite pencil and white charcoal pencil on grey toned paper. I learned a lot about value and shading and I also learned that smoother paper works much better when using graphite pencils. I still have much to learn!

Here are some of my attempts at facial features…definitely need more practice!

I am also learning from an internet site called Willowing Arts with Tamara Laporte. I joined her Life Book 2020 course. I was really attracted to how Tamara paints eyes on her lovely whimsical drawings. https://www.willowing.org/

This is my eye work from some of her lessons.


Another instructor on Life Book 2020 was Effy Wild. I did her lesson using Koko’s face.

This was a collage I made of Koko while I was taking Gail Harker’s Level 3 Art and Design course. https://www.gailcreativestudies.com/ Easy eyes for this one!

So I think I’m about ready to try my hand at repairing her eyes on the small quilt I made of her so many years ago. I may try fabric eyes or I may try painting onto fabric which I would then fuse onto the quilt. If I get it done by my next blog, I’ll post it for you to see.

I don’t know about all of you, but I am very grateful to be able to lose myself in creativity during these crazy times we are living through right now.

Stay safe!

Tesi Vaara

The Great Needle Quest!

The Great Needle Quest!

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Staying at home but shopping afar; International acquisitions.

One of the items I had wanted to pick up at the Peterborough fibre festival in the beginning of March were more needles. I was running low after the felted landscape workshop and I have three sheep workshops after we all get back together (hopefully without getting sick!). I had been online looking at needle options.

So I must stay at home and shop from afar.  Not quite as much fun as shopping in person.

I first looked at Amazon since I had had luck there before and noticed their needle prices were rising drastically but found one seller who described their needles as 3 sizes (20 of each) with a tube to hold them and a single needle handle. 3 unspecified gauges but obviously from the photos they were triangular needles. Well the price was not too bad so it was worth a try. The other one I ordered was a double pack of needles; 7 spirals and 7 stars. It too had gone up in price but I found the cheapest option and ordered them as well.

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The 60 needles and holder arrived within a couple weeks.  However, they were not quite what I was expecting. I seem to have 3 different shaft lengths of the same gauge of triangular needle. Not quite what I was hoping for but still useable.

 

The second purchase arrived a bit slower but was exactly the same as the cheaper ones I had bought before. There is a pack of 7 spirals and 7 stars.  Both seem to be around gauge 40. Since I actually felt more by feel with the needles (the resistance as the needle enters the wool).  The gauge isn’t as important when I am working but it is helpful to know when I am shopping.

45  4-5

Ann had pointed out a source out of China that, even with shipping, was not horribly painful. It wasn’t quite as helpful that it kept shifting from Canadian dollars to US dollars so it wasn’t a sudden price increase but a poor exchange rate that I was looking at.

 

From the research I had previously done on industrial needles I had read snide comments about the quality of the needles from India by some of the Chinese industrial felting companies and similar comments from some of the Indian industrial felting companies about the needles from China. Since I still am waiting for a response from the German company I can’t buy from them. While digging through one of the German companies web sites I spotted a note about new “coating” for their needles.  It was to reduce breakage in the industrial machines and I am curious to see if they would have better flexibility for hand needle felters too. I would have expected experimentation in tempering but some mysterious coating sound intriguing but that will be a later needle quest if I can ever get a price list and shipping info from Groz-Beckert.

 

When Ann mentioned she wanted to buy Crown needles out of China this gave me the opportunity to try to acquire larger quantities of the standard needles.  I wanted a length that could go into the fake clover tool needle holders I had found. Therefore, 3 inch would be preferred. Ann wanted needles but not quite as many as I was wanting so we decided to get some together.  I would order and she would get some of what I purchased.  Shopping! It’s always fun, but more fun with friend’s!!!

 

She had been searching online as well and was really wanting to try out crown needles (gauge 40).  Crowns have less barbs but they are all very close to the tip. They are useful to hand needle felters as well as the industrial felters. Their working depth (the amount you have to push the needle into the fibre to engage the barbs and move the fibre) is very short. This means you don’t have to attack the felting violently, thrusting your needle into its bloodless carcass… sorry, got distracted for a moment.  Maybe I’m hungry. Shallower depth of penetration has the hope of reducing strain on the joints and muscle attachment sites. Especially the medial and lateral epicondyles which should reduce irritation from epicondylitis. Secondly, at this gauge there will be less surface distortion (pockmarks like an orange skin). Looking today there are more sizes available in the crown format; 40G, 42G, 43G, 46G. The manufacturer is a Chinese company and describes the Crown felting needle as “for mohair”.

 6-7

The second set of needles I ordered were just regular triangles. “400pcs/lot, 36G M333 triangular felting needles, 15*18*36*3 M333, coarse felting needle, merino wool fibre roving needle, 36 gauge”. These are good workhorse needles, great for getting core wool into shape quickly or aggressively moving fibre.

 

The shipping was a bit painful but overall the price was not too bad. I went with the Chinese manufacturer since I could not get a reply about prices from the Groz-brecket out of Germany. The shipping was to be through DHL. I also put in an order for more needle holders, a different type of needle holder, a drive band for my treadle sewing machine, a new awl and a veggie slicing holder (it looked like it had potential not for the veggies but for keeping needles and fingers well separated when working). Other than the two types of needles they were all coming form different sellers.  Most were postal except for the mysterious three letter delivery company who were shipping the needles.

 

8-12

So I was unsure what was arriving when I received an all too unhelpful sticky note Thursday afternoon from UPS on the outside of my screen door left in the rain. I have been good and stayed at home so I was actually about 8 feet from the door, there was no knocking that I heard (I was not listening to Rammstein either). It very helpfully told me to go on line and pay cod charges. They had a very helpful non-human assistant who tried to answer questions but wasn’t able to tell what I was asking. My spelling isn’t that bad is it? oh and UPS says it has sent all its phone operators away due to the virus (which is good for the employees) and hangs up on me. Not helpful at all. I finally did figure out the pay online thing and went back to the tracking part of the site to see when my package would arrive.     Ah, now it’s on hold.    May be I should not have paid online and it would have arrived? I waited all day Friday checking the status…. Hold… No it’s still on hold, yep still on hold, hummm. I wonder where it is being held? (Kanata?)  It didn’t arrive over the weekend and I started watching again Monday. At least Monday I could play Runescapes’ new skill, archeology, while I waited as it continued to say Hold.  Strangely, it was there by the time Glenn got home from work. (His superior parcel skills, being a postal employee, likely helped). I went back and checked yet again on the tracking and yes it said it was delivered. Still with no knock on the door.

 

   13-16

So now the great mystery of which parcel was this? Ah, I bet it’s the one with the needles from the DHL shipping company. Unfortunately there had been a spelling error by the time it reached me and was delivered by UPS.

 

(Annoyed rant you can skip this part and just go on to the next bit) I have avoided UPS after having them charge duty on second hand books which did not actually require duty. This happened on a number of undutyable items so I have avoided the greedy company since. Yes yet again did they charge extra for doing the job they had already been paid to accomplish. I don’t mind paying the 8.08 GST but I object to an extra $10.00. because their letters are now spelt UPS. I would still like to get a box of either star or twisted 38’s. I will see it they have a slower non-3 lettered delivery service. Maybe a 4 letter one like Mail? (end of rant: you can resume reading normally now)

 

So let’s see what has arrived in the mysterious black plastic package! It’s heavy and doesn’t rattle. It’s too small for the needle holders, too big for the drive band, too heavy for anything but the 2 boxes of needles!! (I know, I palpate packages and am no fun at Christmas!)

17 17

Opening it…..  there is another plastic protective layer! Well done! the suspense is going to kill me!! (but I have cleaning wipes so that won’t be a literal statement)

1819 18-19

Off with the next layer!!! Yes there are plastic boxes with, oh no, more (blue) tape. I could have been worse and been red tape.

20 20

Ok tape, be gone! And I figured out the tab on the end, got it open and… oh wrapped in paper, that’s good; nice and secure.

2122

21-22

Carefully opening the paper and yes, there are needles!!!

 

2324252627

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Success I am an international needle acquisitioner!

Now is there any hope that the Woolgrowers Co-Op is considered an essential service? I had better check their web site.  I only have 2 fleeces to wash as soon as it warms up a bit more. Then I could stick my hands in warm soapy water but I will remember not to agitate!

Stitching sample

Stitching sample

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I wanted to try stitching some mountains into a felted background. I did a search online for embroidered mountains but they were either very stylized or very detailed large pieces.  Neither is what I wanted. I always want to do or use something that is not available.  I decided I would find my own way. Part of it was I am working small so you can’t really do to much detail. I picked one of the basic sky and grass picture blanks I made to give it a go.

I forgot to take a picture before starting. I thought I had pictures of the blank but I can’t find it. I found a group shot of the others so this must have been one I did another time.  this gives you an idea of what I did.

The one I am using is about 4 inches long and 3 inches high.

I had a nice dark grey in my embroidery box so I gave it a try. I used 3 strands. I used up what was on the little card and then grab the little skein I thought it was the same colour. It wasn’t, it’s good but this one is more greenish and the first more blueish and darker.

I’m sorry about the change in exposure but it was just the change in the light in the time it took me to stitch the second mountain. I like the way the stitches going in different directions give it a rugged mountain look.

I tried 2 more colours. I think I like the two middle colours best.

I decided to add some of the lightest colour to the first two mountains to see if it worked as highlights.

I think I like it better without light stitches. It looks better on the second mountain where there was less contrast. I think there is enough variation with the stitches and the way the light hits them.

Then I thought the mountains are pretty straight across the bottom so I wanted to hide the bases. Trees were next to try. I thought just some inverted V type stitches would look like trees.

That sort of worked. They look better in person than in the pictures. I used 2 threads instead of the 3 I used for the mountains. I thought they should have less weight. It is hard to make small stitches in felt. The stitches seem to get smaller as you pull through. I think it’s because the felt is thicker and more flexible than the regular cloth they use in embroidery. I think if I add more stuff to the foreground the trees might be better. I may add some lighter and darker stitches.

So that’s my WIP at the moment. I have been cleaning my studio too and found the chairs I put in there so I could sit comfortably. They had become tables and storage units somehow. I hope you are all doing well in your isolation and using it as an excuse to felt or stitch or spin or whatever takes your fancy.

 

 

 

Ponderosa Pine Bark Applique

Ponderosa Pine Bark Applique

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If you have been following my posts for any length of time, you will know that I am a lover of trees, leaves, bark and anything forest related. For my Level 3 Stitch course, I have been working on a variety of types of applique. So I wanted to try a combination of felt and applique to create a bark piece.

Specifically, Ponderosa pine bark. We have many of these trees on and around our property and I love taking photos of the bark as well as collecting the pieces of bark that this type of tree sheds on a regular basis. The pieces always remind me of puzzle shapes. Lyndsay wrote recently about creating bark and I was inspired by her piece. But I wanted to include applique in my bark. So it was time to try a sample or two.

I laid out black wool as the base. Then I added a cut up strips of felt that were in my box of samples from some of my online classes. I decided to use a variety of thicknesses and colors of felt to see the differences when felted. I then added a brown/tan felt over the top. I just used what I had on hand. I did make a smaller sample later to use for sampling stitch ideas.

Here’s the piece after felting. The variety of thicknesses in the underlying felt pieces actually helped make the piece seem more natural. The variety of colors also worked well.

This photo shows you what the real bark pieces look like. I laid them out on the wool for inspiration. I have a big bag of these bark pieces. It was tempting to either glue or stitch them in place. That would still be applique, right? 😉

One of my original thoughts was to use complementary fabrics or sheers in orange and blue to create a more colorful effect. I tried a variety of these ideas but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. This idea would have worked better if I had included orange and blue in the felt base. So other samples may be forthcoming.

This is my small stitch sample. I used every square inch of it to try out different ideas. You can see that I tried machine stitching down the orange/blue samples but I didn’t like the “pillow” looking result. I tried some raised chain band to hold down the fabric but that didn’t actually hold the sheer fabric well. The fabric kept fraying under the stitches and pulling loose. I then tried some brown and neutral colored silk fabrics using different hand stitches. The assignment was to be a combination of machine and hand stitching. The machine stitching was done between the thicker felt strips in a dark brown. I decided that the final hand stitching would be small straight stitches and a few French knots.

I forgot to take a photo after I completed the machine stitching. This photo shows how it looked after fusing down the pieces of silk. I used a powdered fusible just to get the silk to hold in place. Then on to the hand stitching. I ended up using wool lace weight thread. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any that was dark enough for the darker value needed. So I used a heavier wool yarn for the darkest value.

Here’s the finished piece. Next time, I think I will try nuno felting the silk in place. I’m not sure it will look as “peeling” as the laid on silk does though.  But that’s what further experiments are for, right?

 

2020 Second Quarter Challenge

2020 Second Quarter Challenge

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We think it likely that many people associate handmade felted, knitted or woven items with providing warmth in the darker months, so the ‘Personal Items’ challenge for this quarter is to make something that you could use in sunny weather.

It can be as simple or as complicated as you choose but most importantly it’s a challenge so perhaps try new colours or designs or something just a little different from your usual style.

Don’t take this too seriously though – it’s meant to be fun!

The first thing we all do at this time of year is to try to find our sunglasses so that we can read outside in the garden or on holiday.

This Kindle and these sunglasses could do with handmade cases to protect them and make them pretty and a textile bookmark would be very useful for the paperback.

kindle, book, sunglasses

Hmmm,  how about a lightweight sleeveless top or a delicate shoulder wrap and of course a sunhat is essential.

Annie said she wanted a new sunhat – one that would make a statement – so I made her one.  I don’t think it’s quite what she had in mind though.

Annie's statement sunhat

It would be good to have a pretty tote bag for all those things too wouldn’t it?  A bag could be made from scratch or a simple jute bag could be purchased then embellished with textile panels or hand embroidery.

In January 2013 I embellished a plain jute tote bag with fabric scraps from an old skirt and a bit of rough machining.  The bag is still in use – it’s a bit grubby now but still pretty.

Jute bag

So whatever your skill level please enjoy this challenge and post your photos on the forum for us all to enjoy!