Snowflake Holiday Cards

Snowflake Holiday Cards

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Every year we have a card exchange on the Felting and Fiber Studio forum. Whoever wants to participate signs up, we choose partners and those partners exchange a hand made card. This year I had two partners as we had an odd number of people, so I made two cards. I like to do more of a winter card rather than a specific holiday card. So this year’s card was all about snow and snowflakes.

 

I started with a piece of felt that I had stamped with the spiral stamp shown above and then drawn on with thickened dye. I attempted to over dye the felt but it wouldn’t take any more dye. The photo on the left shows the back side of this piece of felt. (I forgot to take a photo before I fused the sheer fabric on the front.) I decided that I would stitch snowflakes over the stamped spirals with the lines in between stitched to look like frost or jagged ice. But the color wasn’t too good so I looked in my stash and found some sheer fabric in blues and purples that already had fusible on the back.

So I fused the sheer fabric down. I have started the free motion machine stitching in the photo above. I found the easiest way to stitch the snowflakes  was to get the 6 or 12 radiating lines down first and then add the rest of the structure. You can see that the one on the left that didn’t have the radiating lines turned out really wonky. But this didn’t really matter as it will be covered in the next step. This piece of felt is big enough for two cards so it will be cut down to size in a later step.

Here’s the piece after I stitched all the snowflakes. I was a little sad to cover these up. They do show through but not really giving you the full scope of the stitching.

Then I found some more small bits of sheer fabric that I added over the stitching to give more color.

This is hard to see but there is a very sheer, shiny “fabric” that I stamped with acrylic paint. I am not sure what this fabric is, it looks a little like Lutradur but is more shiny and more open “weave” than the other Lutradur I have. I can’t remember where I got it. That is why I need to use stuff up. It’s bad when you have no idea what the stuff is, where you got it or what it’s original use was. So use stuff up!

I then fused the top layer over the variety of colored sheers and then cut the cards down to size. I machine stitched around the printed snowflake for the top layer and then zig zag stitched around the edges of the card.

I only had brown card blanks and I didn’t like the look of the snowflakes against the brown background. So I used two of my numerous colored papers that worked with the colors in the pieces. I glued the fabric card down to the paper and then fused the paper to the card blanks. I mailed these two cards off to Ann and Diane. Hopefully, they will like them. Unfortunately, there is a postal strike in Canada and it may be a while before the cards arrive.

Do you make your own cards? We’d love to hear about it over on the forum if you do!

 

British Wool Show 2018

British Wool Show 2018

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I recently attended a wool show in Murton, York UK.  It is a considerably smaller show than Woolfest that I blogged about here a while ago.

Woolfest 2018

I attended this show two years ago, but last year it was moved to Thirsk in Yorkshire so I didn’t go as I didn’t think it warranted the travel.  This year it was back close to where I live, so I decided to bowl along.

Looking at the website I think I counted around 50 stalls, including some of the usual fibre providers such as Adelaide Walker and The Threshing Barn.

I took quite a few pics for you all again.  I always asked if I could take a photo, saying it was for a blog for this forum and they all seemed surprised but pleased!

First off let me show you this very distinctive lady – she had felted horns on her head in the form of a headband and when I started chatting I realised her rather fetching bright red specs were indeed one round one, and one square!!  I think she looked fab!

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Someone who does not take herself too seriously I would imagine, especially when you learn that her site is called Felting Bonkers!  Here is some of the work on her stall, some of it was hers and some belonged to two other ladies.  I loved this fox and rabbit.

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Then I just meandered around taking pics for you all.  There were some nice wall hangings.

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Plenty of purchasing opportunities.

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Only a few livestock at this show.

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I liked these pom poms in a milk churn.

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I left with a few goodies, well you have to really don’t you?! I think I did the whole show in an hour, compared to Woolfest in about 6-7 hours, but it is nice to support the smaller shows too, because if we don’t, we run the risk of losing them.

Which and where are your favourite shows?

Another 4th Quarter Challenge Sample

Another 4th Quarter Challenge Sample

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Sorry for the late posting, like Ann last week I lost track of the days and missed getting some photos in the brief window of time we call ‘day’ here at this time of year! I managed to get some decent ones today, though it ended up being one of those days where every time you try to do something, another thing comes up! I had another idea for combining wool tubes and fabric which I wanted to try, so did that this week. I wanted to see the effect of wrapping fabric around wool tubes and then felting. I thought it’d be a good way to see the results if I used the same colour wool for the tubes as my base colour. Green always works well on camera, so I used that. I planned on using a few different fabrics in white, but only had cotton gauze and synthetic chiffon on hand, here’s the finished piece:

I did think some pieces would be very flat, but it turned out they all kept a fair bit of dimension:

I think this piece of synthetic chiffon had the most dimension/texture:

It was the only chiffon piece which I wrapped around the wool along its length, it uncurled along one edge, this is the edge still rolled under:

The other strips of chiffon were wrapped around the wool-wrapped kebab skewers diagonally:

This is one of the gauze wrapped pieces which I wrapped diagonally, above:

And from the side:

And this is one I wrapped horizontally along its length:

I think if I want to use this idea to better effect, I should maybe try a sample using more, and less wool in the centre. I can see it being usefull with less wool for getting a defined shape/line with little texture, or using more wool for creating a more 3D piece. Maybe a sample with narrower strips of fabric wound around would be good too.

Felted slipper class

Felted slipper class

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This last Saturday I taught a slipper class to 6 lovely ladies. I gave them a choice of templates, so there were different types of slippers being made at the same time. We used the one that looks like bunny ears, the one with little pointy the ears on the sides, boots and some pointy ones.  They used Corriedale wool for the slippers. I prefer something like Fin wool but it is hard to get it in colours and everyone wants colours. So Corriedale is a good compromise. After everyone made templates it was onto laying out the wool.

Then on to rubbing rolling

Once everything was hanging together well, it was time to take the resists out. You might remember Christine made one of the pixie hats in the hat workshop a few weeks ago. Hat Class. Hat Class She is planning for curly toes.

 

And on to fulling. There is scrunching and throwing of course and we had a washboard and a car mat to help with the shrinking.  Sorry I have no pictures of that.

You can custom fit your slipper right on your food of course.  You can really see how much it has changed compared to the one that hasn’t been fulled yet.

This one was almost done.

Judy’s are the only ones managed to get a picture of at the end of class.  She put a little of all the embellishment fibers on them to see how they felted.  She still wants to a just the top at the opening. She is going to make insoles and add a leather sole.

I am adding this in. Judy had some felt insoles and she needled some special supports for her feet onto it and fit them into her new slippers.

And Christine’s curly toes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Online Class Schedule for 2019

Online Class Schedule for 2019

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I have updated the online class schedule for 2019. Please take a look under the tab online classes at the top of this page to see the schedule. If you are interested in taking any classes in 2019, please fill out the contact us form and tell us which classes you want to take and the class date. We will then add you to the email notification list to be notified when the class registration opens.

Online Course Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques - A Mixed Media Approach by Ruth Lane

If you are interested in surface design on felt with a mixed media approach, take a look at my classes Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques – A Mixed Media Approach which are presented in four modules. You can take them all or select just one or two. Each class is separate and since all the classes are online, you don’t have to travel and you can work at your own pace. I will be offering two sessions of these classes in 2019.

If you would like to learn more advanced felting techniques such as using multiple resists, shaping, adding straps and closures, making internal compartments, creating a hat for the correct head size, using a hat block and much more. Take a look at Teri Berry’s two online class offerings: Felted Concertina Hats and Felted Bags. Teri will take your felting skills to a new level so that you will be confident in designing and creating your own felt hats and bags. Teri is offering 2 sessions of the hat making course and 1 session of the bag course during 2019. Please fill out the contact us form if you’re interested so you can get on the email notification list.

Our Wet Felting for Beginners online course is always available. If you are just starting out and need to learn the basics, this is a great place to start. Perhaps you want to put this class on your holiday wish list! Just sign up at the link above to learn the basics of wet felting, shrinkage and information about a variety of fibers that work for felting.

We do have some other online classes in the works but I don’t have any firm details yet. But we are working on nuno felting, felt scarves and perhaps even some needle felted pictures. What would you like to learn about in the felting and fiber arena? Let us know and we’ll see if we can create an online class that fills that need.

This is the story of a Felting Emergency

This is the story of a Felting Emergency

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The background:

Each year the local guild builds a year long workshop schedule.  The main foundation multi-day workshops in weaving get scheduled first, then the rest of the multi-day workshops, then we work through the list of other workshops.  Sometimes there are workshops that would be good to balance out a topic or that have been requested, but instructors didn’t list them this year. The workshop coordinator usually sends a couple emails or a quick phone call and tries to line up the missing ones.  This year we needed a couple more felting workshops.  I had taught needle felted sheep before and there was a request for felted landscapes.  Great, I can teach that too.  Oh wait!  I need a sample!  I gave away all my felting last year as Christmas presents.  Hmm. Better make another sample, quick.  Since I would need a picture for the workshop catalogue and we would also need an example for the web site.  Luckily they could be the same pictures.  I just had to make one, fast!

PANIC!!!

OK.  Off to the photos I had taken and then a quick perusal of the internet image search.  I dug back through the last few years to see what I had that would make a good landscape.  I had a number of shots to choose from; some of the cottage, the Tay river (OK it’s a bit small for a river), some from the trip south to go blacksmithing,  some just west of Westport (also with Glenn blacksmithing),  getting lost at the north edge of the map coming back from a week blacksmithing in Halliburton,  a couple from the Champlain lookout but it was cloudy so I didn’t like those much.  I had a lot of tight focused pictures of leaves, pine needles, or milk weed but they’re not really what you think of normally as landscape. (If you’re not selling your piece consider looking at calendars with photos of landscapes, they often gives good compositions and subject matter)

1 west of westport

West of Westport at a blacksmithing workshop (the building with the forge is behind me as I’m taking the picture)

2 north of the map

The top edge of the map as we are about to get lost on our way back from a week of blacksmithing workshops at Halliburton.

3 sewmack

Sumac on Iris by the transit way in fall. (Absolutely nothing to do with blacksmithing)

4 pine needles

Pine tree I think it was Oakville on 6th line?

OK, let’s check the internet for some options.  Lots of possibilities but only a couple of the winter shots caught my eye.  One was from a video of snow in the farmland south of Ottawa.  Ah, I like that one.  And I found one of a winter fence.  I have always liked the look of fences and it has large blocks of colour (mostly shades of white and grey) with a bit of detail to make it interesting.  Hum, still needs something.  Let me think on that while I transfer the image to my felt.

5 Fence posts in winterSnow and fence south of Ottawa

Checking the image for viability.

Is this a composition that will read easily?  What are the tonal values within the piece? How does it look if you colour block it?  Copy the digital image into Word and go to the image tab when you have the photo active.  Now change the photo to black and white.

5.1 Fence posts in winter Gray scale Is it still easy to tell what you’re looking at? Next go to artistic effects and try the option called cut out.

5.2 fence posts in winter colour blocksIt colour blocks the image to give you basic values.

There used to be an option called paint by number which was fun too but I can’t find it anymore.  This step isn’t totally necessary but it gives you more clues whether this image will work.  This helps reduce abandoned projects and general frustration.

I had bought some felt at Twist festival and a couple more sheets at Almonte Fibrefest.  I selected a blue and blocked in the composition with a medium fine Sharpy (a brand of permanent marker).  Megan Cleland had used quilting markers (they got all over the side of my hand) with the light box technique. She had us trace on the prefelt but with thicker felt this would not have worked.  If you are not comfortable doing a free hand drawing there are a couple of other options.  I had found the thin prefelt too stretchy and had to be careful not to let it distort the image.  So I chose the thicker felt for greater stability and less distortion.

I have worked with thick felt, felt I have made, a couple different weights of commercial felt and prefelt and even felt made from acrylic and what feels like sizing or glue (icky feeling to felt on but it did make a nice picture – see at the end of the post).  If you can find and afford it, the real wool felt has been much nicer to work with.

Megan had given out the dollar-store garden kneeling pads to work on in her workshop and I found them excellent to work with.  I will be watching for them to come back into stock this spring! You can see the rainbow one I have been working on. The handle is a handy place to stash bits of wool so I can grab bits of fiber as I need it.

6.1 laying in the background

I again was working background towards foreground then adding details.  I took lots of pictures to check the progress as I went.  The photos work like holding a painting in front of a mirror to check you have your proportions correct.  I decided to take out some of the snow on the fences and found I wanted to add a bit more interest.

6.2 laying in the background6.3 laying in the background6.5 laying in the fence

 

So, back to the internet.  Let’s search snowy owls on fence posts in winter.  Armed with reference photos I added the missing bird and continued adding detail to the foreground and shadows in the snow.

7 snowy owl refernce photos 7.1 snowy owl refernce photos 7.2 snowy owl refernce photos

7.3 adding owl and forgrond

As soon as I added the tree trunks behind the field I was starting to be pleased with the progress.

8.1 adding trees in backgound and working forgound8.2 adding a bit moe detailand shadow

I had an Ikea frame but the mat did not fit the picture.  Next time look at the mat size and make the art to fit the mat.

9 landscape 2 framed temperarily

It’s a lot cheaper and easier than trying to get a mat cut on the afternoon of Halloween.  But I was eventually successful in getting an acid free mat cut.  It cost more than the sheet of mat-board did so I may be investing in a good mat cutter if I continue to work in this flatter format.  You can see how much better the piece looks with the mat in the correct size!

10 2019 samples of some of the felting workshops for 2019

So I was able to create a speedy example of a felted landscape in time for the workshop display at the guild sale the first weekend in November.  I also had a photo of the piece so I could put it in the catalogue and also on the guild web site.  The Flowers are for an evening felting workshop with Ann McElroy and the sheep I am teaching again this year.  As you can see in the very tiny print we will be having quite a few felting workshops this year!

For those of you, like me. whose eyesight isn’t up to the fine print,  let me give you the list so you can see it.  It really is a rather impressive list! I’m not suggesting you take them I just thought you might like to see what a range of felting is happening in Ottawa next year!

Felting Workshops 2019

Wet Felting

1913 Wet Felted Cozy Cowls (B) 1 Day, Sun, Feb 10, 2019 – J. Tulloch

1919 Jewelry Making with Felt (B) 2 Days, Sat, March 2 and 9, 2019 – J. Tulloch

1922 Custom Fit Wet Felted Hat (B) 1 Day, Sun, Mar 17, 2019 – A. McElroy

1924 Wet Felted Chicks and Egg (B) Half Day, Sat, Mar 23, 2019 – M. Hegedus

1929 Beautiful Wet Felted Flowers (B) Evening, Wed, Apr 10, 2019 – A. McElroy

1936 Luxurious Nuno Felt Scarf (B) 1 Day, Sun, April 28, 2019 – A. McElroy

1956 Luxurious Nuno Felt Scarf (B) 1 Day, Sun, Nov 24, 2019 – A. McElroy

1942 Techniques for Intermediate Wet Felters (I)  1 Day, Sun, May 26, 2019 – A. McElroy

Needle Felting

1902 Needle Felted Sheep (B) 1 Day, Sat, Jan 19, 2019 – J. Scott

1917 Needle Felted Flat Landscape (B) 1 Day, Sat, Feb 23, 2019 – J. Scott

1938 Needle Felted Fairy Garden (B) Half Day, Sat, May 4, 2019 – M. Hegedus

1948 Needle Felted Pumpkin (B) Half Day, Sun, Oct 6, 2019 – M. Hegedus

1958 Needle Felted King Winter (B) Half Day, Sun, Dec 1, 2019 – M. Hegedus

1960 3D Wet Felted Vessel/Pot (B) and up, 1 Day, Sun, Dec 8, 2019 – A. McElroy

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed my panic driven adventure in felting.  The moral of my story this time is don’t give away all your examples as Christmas presents if you are going to be teaching a workshop in the topic!

Post script;

12 land scape This is the landscape I am working on at the moment.  It is on acrylic felt.  It is a bit stretchier than wool felt but not as stretchy as prefelt.  I was expecting the acrylic felt to be truly hideous but it is not as bad as I thought it might be. There is an odd resistance and slight scraping sound as I started to work with it. Now that I have a base built up it is behaving better. There is still a lot to do on this new piece before its done but I am again pleased with the start. Now will it be a fox, wild turkeys, or deer that will accompany the hay bales? If you are not too bored by now maybe I can show you later? Have a great time felting!!!

Recent Pieces:

Recent Pieces:

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I finally got photos of the piece I showed being laid out a couple of weeks ago. It was dark purple in the middle with black at each end, and I used lots of different natural fibres on it:

I like these photos on an angle:

I think this was tussah silk:

And this is soy fibre:

My friend had some hair ‘decoration’ things that she was throwing away after using, so I thought I would see how they felted 🙂 She had plaited (braided) them into her hair, I forgot to ask if they came wavy or not. I used some wool tops I got in a bag of Botany Lap waste. It’s a natural grey colour, but has the odd bit of Angelina fibre blended in. I couldn’t see any, though:

You can see better from this angle how they attached:

Where it was thinner/spread out it really blended in:

I liked how it looked where it was thicker:

I don’t know what the wool is, it’s really soft, and the colours look like a blend of grey and oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester. This is the back:

But the edges are like a breed with curlier locks:

Have you tried any new or unusual fibres or embellishments lately?

Nuno Felting Class

Nuno Felting Class

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Hi all, sorry for being late I am a day behind in my week. Probably to make up for me thinking it was Sunday all Saturday.
This last week end I taught a lovely group of ladies how to make nuno felt scarves.
This is what the set up looks like just before the students arrive.

After everyone picks their scarf blank and the main colours for their scarf they got down to laying out their patterns.

Here they are a little farther along.

After adding all their embellishments it was on to rubbing and rolling

and then the fun of throwing to finish the fulling

Here are everyone’s scarves front and back

This last picture on the right is a close up of the silk hanky flowers that were added to one end of this scarf. the look great but will look better when they dry. They will lighten up and some hidden silk will show up. I never get to see them dry. It was A good class and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Have you given or taken a class lately?

 

 

Continuing Slow Stitching

Continuing Slow Stitching

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I am still stitching away on my landscape piece. I had the background mountains stitched down the last time I showed it to you.

I then got the middle distance hills stitched down. This fabric was a bit harder to stitch as it wasn’t as felted and tended to fray. But I persevered.

Then I got the two pieces in the foreground stitched down so all of the landscape is now in place. Now to decide what to add.

First I tested the moon. I didn’t want to cut the fabric if I wasn’t going to use it so I pinned it into a sort of circle. You’ll just have to imagine it being really round. Then I tried some wispy clouds. Then since our challenge this quarter is to add twists and yarn, I decided to try out a tree using up some recycled yarn. I have a whole bunch of yarn that was from old knitted things that people didn’t want anymore. It is very kinky from being knitted but I like the look for representing an old, gnarly tree. Guess which one I chose?

If you have been following this blog for long, your probably guessed tree. And yes, I decided on adding a tree to the foreground. The left is the start of the tree and the right is where I am now. The curled up thread  in the middle is only partially stitched down and will follow up into the branches once stitched. I have a bunch more to go on this tree and need to add in some darker values I think after looking at these photos. I will keep you up to date on how the stitching is going.

I’ve got rainbows on my mind

I’ve got rainbows on my mind

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First of all, happy Thanksgiving to everyone reading this in the US! I hope you had a nice celebration.

Today I’m sharing some rainbow-y fibre I created, plus a “throwback” item that I hope you’ll like.

Being an indie dyer means I get to play with dyes fairly regularly, but it had been some time since I adventured into the world of saturated rainbows. I think it was the grey London Autumn that got me inspired, I just needed to get a colour fix. Off to the dye pot I went.

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One of the things I’ve been a little obsessed with lately is how yarns look when they’re in skein format – I love it when colours look cohesive and have a certain progression to them when displayed, so I went for a red “bottom” that would change as the eyes look up. Hopefully you’ll see that this was done consciously.

I knit this into a hat (complete with a pompom) that I think looks very cheery. It’s going to be a Christmas present so I hope the recipient likes it.

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I hope you’re not fed up with bright colours yet…

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Although not technically a rainbow, this wool top came out super bright and happy (to my eyes at least). If you’ve ever dyed wool top or roving you’ll know it can be an adventure to control where the colours go. This is superwash wool (it doesn’t felt) so it wasn’t as difficult to get “right” as non-superwash fibres, but I’m still perfecting my methods. Suggestions are welcome!

This being the Felting and Fiber Studio, there should be some felting, so here is a little Piglet I made a couple of years ago and gifted to a friend. I really loved creating this little guy and think he came out really well. I got to see the sculpture again a few days ago at a friend’s house.

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Have you done any hand dyeing or needle felting lately? Share your experiences with me in the comment sections.