Mostly just a question.

Mostly just a question.

Comments 26 comments

School is almost finished, this is the last week. I hope that school ending will let me get back to my felting life. I have managed to finish the first part of my planned book resistance workshop, but haven’t had time for much else.  I want to get your opinions on the best background to take the pictures for the next part of the workshop. I can’t use my tabletop as it is much to reflective.

 

I will be using pink wool for the workshop. Please ignore the fold lines, I will wash and iron the cloth before using it for taking pictures. Here are the choices

Grey

Blue stripes

multi coloured stripes

and Poka dots

 

I am leaning towards the grey. The white resist shows up well, and the pink does too. I kinda like the blue stripes (they look grey on my screen)as it gives me something to line up with.

 

I will need to add something to the background to let me know I am in the frame properly. I think just some painter’s tape will do it. This is the view from the tripod, right now.

 

Jan bought me this doohickey to extend my camera further away from the tripod. It works with the ring light, but the ring light is too tall.  The screw on the tripod is to short to add the ring light I have. I will have to find out the name of this thing and see if I can find one with a hole at one end and a screw at the other. It adds about 2.5 inches of reach for the phone/camera.

Back to the original question, which background do you like best?

 

 

 

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.
Miniature Wool Landscapes

Miniature Wool Landscapes

Comments 15 comments

A few posts ago, I showed you some painted miniature landscapes. Why not try the same idea in felt? So off to my stash to figure out what I had to create these.

Supplies for wool paintings laid out on work bench including various colors of wool roving, locks and colored prefelts.

I found a variety of green wool as well as white, grey and blue for the skies. I also had some locks in black and dark grey and thought they might work well for tree trunks. I had a few sheets of various colors of commercial prefelt to use as a base.

5" x 7" colored prefelts for wool paintings laid out on work bench.

I cut the prefelt into 5″ x 7″ pieces. I thought any smaller might really get difficult getting the wool to cooperate.

Beginning layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I decided to try one first before I made all of the landscapes. I used the pink prefelt and laid out a variety of greens for the foreground and white with a tiny bit of blue and grey for the sky.

Final layout of wool on pink prefelt for mini landscape.

I then laid out the trees with a very small bit of locks for the trunk and a bit of green for the leaves. Now on to wet felting it.

Mini wool painting of landscape after wet felting.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the locks after felting. They went right through the merino and I wasn’t careful enough, as they moved about. Now I had really hairy dark spots that looked nothing like tree trunks. But I was happy with the rest of the landscape. These shrank down to about 4″ x 6″. I probably could have shrunk them down further but since it’s a “painting” and not functional, I decided 4″ x 6″ was a good size. They will fit into 5″ x 7″ frames easily.

Mini wool painting after shaving off excess "hairy" fibers.

Since I wasn’t happy with the hairiness, I decided to shave the piece. I think it looks a bit better now. So on to the other six landscapes.

Final layout of wool on various prefelts for other six mini landscapes.

I laid out the other prefelts and added wool to create more landscapes. Then wet felting them all at the same time. The entire process took me about four hours.

Here they are completed. I like seeing them at thumbnail size as it doesn’t bring out any small details. But I will show you them in a bigger format for those of you who would like to see the details.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on red prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on green prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on yellow prefelt after wet felting.

Wool mini landscape on white prefelt after wet felting.

The plan is to get some frames for these and take them to the gallery. My bigger pieces haven’t been selling very well lately so I thought a smaller size option might be an easier purchase for people.

Experimenting with household/garden stuff …… and fibre!

Experimenting with household/garden stuff …… and fibre!

Comments 15 comments

I think I might have had too much time on my hands a while ago. As we say here ‘What’s seldom is wonderful!’ So I got a little curious about some things. Fibre of course had to be involved.

We don’t drink coffee in our house – my husband was never a fan and I found myself to be allergic to it after going cold turkey in China back in the 80s. I do love the coffee aroma and I can be sometimes found near one of our oldest coffee houses in Dublin, Bewleys, just sniffing the air.  At this point, I really have to post a link to their rather famous cafe in the heart of Dublin.  It’s a haunt of mine, even though I can’t drink it.  It is worth calling in to if you are on vacation (the food is amazing).  There can be queues so it is worth going early.  Besides the food, the original works of art are breath taking.  https://bewleysgraftonstreet.com/

What has this got to do with my post – absolutely nothing – but I just had to share so you have a special spot to add to your itinerary when you visit Dublin, Ireland.

But, I digress. We drink a lot of tea in the house and while I like lots of different flavours, I tend to consume mostly an Irish brand, Barrys. It, along with an Irish brand of crisps (potato chips) called Tayto are two products most requested when visiting ex-pats. We use tea bags rather than leaf tea and we compost the remainder as the bags are now biodegradable.

My first thought during this time of being busy doing nothing was, would the tea bags (without the tea) felt into merino fibre. Before I could experiment I had to empty the tea bags and wash and dry them. I have to admit this was not a favourite job. The smell of the used bags assaulted my nostrils, so I worked quickly (every cloud, silver lining and all that!). Once dry I divided the bags into two groups and I made marks on one group with what I thought was alcohol based walnut ink and let it dry. Then I went to work laying down the ‘marked’ tea bags and adding 10g of merino fibre on top (4 layers) I finished off with the unmarked tea bags, layering them so that I could see how thick it could make them before the fibre would stop permeating them.

It was a successful experiment. The bags fully felted into the fibre and the sample shrank by 45%. The marks, however disappeared, so I will add them again. It turns out the ink was acrylic – note to self: next time, read the label before buying!   

I do like the textural finish on this piece and it is good to see that something as mundane and ordinary as a used tea bag can yield a successful result.  Here’s a very quick peak at the bags and outcome:

Marking on teabags with ink

Felted sample plain tea bag up

Felted sample mark side up – lots of the marks washed out

Recently, I’ve been doing a bit of reading up on the science behind making felt. What we usually do is add soap to water, in my own case, I use olive oil soap which has a pH of 8. The paper I read maintained that wool fibre would felt once the pH value was moved from neutral. This meant that I should be able to felt a sample by adding an acid solution to the fibre. I was keen to try it to see what would happen.

First of all, I rinsed off all my equipment, my water bowl, ball brause, bubble wrap and fulling cloth to make sure there was no soapy residue around. Then I laid out my sample (4 layers). I checked the pH of the water, which was neutral. I then added a quarter cup of vinegar to my water and checked the pH value which was now 4. The water was tepid. I wet out the sample. The first thing I noticed was that the water did not soak into the fibre as it usually does when soap is added and it took a lot more water and pushing on the fibres to encourage them to soak up the water. When I turned the sample over, there were still dry patches so even more water was needed! That (plus the smell) were the only differences I noticed. It felted easily and shrank down 47%. When it came to fulling the sample, I heated up the water/vinegar solution in the microwave. One advantage of using the acid solution is that the ‘water’ could be used for the next project. That said, I reckon it could be very hard on the hands if this was my main way of making felt. So I am going to decant it into a spray bottle and use it to clean windows, no waste!

  • Sample of layout for acid experiment
  • Checking the PH of the water before I start
  • Ph of sample during felting

We have a beautiful Norweigan Spruce tree growing in our front garden.  I like to refer to it as the gift that keeps on giving because it constantly suprises us.  For example, last year, while I was mindlessly staring into the garden, it launched a pollen bomb.  For those of us (this included myself up to this  point) unfamiliar with the term, the tree released it pollen all in one go.  So the whole tree was suddenly surrounded by a yellow haze.  In an instant, the haze lifted into the sky and was carried off in the wind.  It was truly spectacular.  I have lots of allergies and pollen would be one of my nemesis but I would put up with the discomfort to see this again.  Here’s a short Youtube video on the topic.  Our tree did it on its own while this one was shook but you will get the picture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2Da8Ms45M

Anyway, back to my story.  I found I had lots of fallen pine cones at the base of the tree so I gathered only some of them and put them on to boil in my dyepot.  The house was filled with a gorgeous pine scent during this process. Once I had extracted the dye from the cones, I filtered the mix through some muslin to remove the resin. The colour was absolutely stunning – a jewel red. I used it for four experiments; first of all, I extracted a litre of the liquid to make a pigment, then I used the remainder of the dyebath to dye some fibres (unfortunately I do not have a photo of the results and they are now added to my mountain of experiments (unlabelled – what was I thinking!). Experiment number three involved adding some of the leftover dye bath to citric acid to make a pigment. In the last experiment I left the liquid alone and just added the alum and soda crystals to separate the dye from the liquid base. Once separated, I filtered the liquid out of the pigment, then dried and ground all the results. So, I ended up with three different pigments and some dyed fibre experiments. I have inclluded a photo of the pigment made last summer and the result of the latest experiment in winter. There is quite a difference in the colour as you will see from the slide slow:

  • Gathered pine cones in the dye pot
  • Filtering the resin during dye extraction
  • Glorious colour from the cones!
  • Catching the dye colour in the sunshine!
  • Making pigment
  • I threw a variety of fibres into the dyepot
  • Cone pigment before it dries
  • Not sure which experiment with pine cones this photo related to
  • The filtering process with the pine cones
  • pigment comparison on pine cones: summer one is to the right winter to the left – same tree, different result
  • Pine cone – liquid extracted before using the dyebath.
  • leftover dye bath from the pine cones with citric acid added
  • pine cone pigment from leftover dye bath

There’s a back story to the last project. We have a number of fruit trees in our garden. Unfortunately we lost one of our plum trees last year. This was despite our eldest son’s (naturally green fingered which he inherited from paternal grandmother having skipped a generation) efforts to save it. Finally, there was no other option but to fell it. He also decided to remove the roots which was a big job as the tree had been there a number of years. It became the focus for my last household and garden project. I wanted to find out if the dye from plum tree bark differs from the dye from plum tree root. To find out, I decided to peel some of the bark off one of the branches. I did the same with the outer cover of the root. I soaked these in different containers for up to a week. Now, here’s what I found interesting. Whereas I needed to heat the pine cone liquid to extract the dye in my previous project, this was not needed for the bark/root projects; the dye naturally extracted sitting in its vessel and the high tannin level meant that all I needed to do was soak my fibres and fabric. It was like magic! I wanted to use the dye in some small vessels I made for the 10g challenge I spoke about in my last post. Then, I took what remained in the dye pot and made pigment from it. I found it interesting that the result from the plum bark dye yielded a lighter colour dye but a richer pigment – the root was the opposite. The fabric/fibre experiment produced is a lovely rich golden hue on the different surfaces. Also, it turned out to be another gift that kept on giving as each time I used up all the dye, I added more water to the two mixes and it kept extracting dye – I could not even notice if the dye was weaker in the second round than it was in the first. In the end I composted the bark and roots as I needed to move on with life (I got busy again!)

Here’s a quick run through in photos:

  • Paring back the plum bark
  • Paring the plum root
  • time to play with dyeing fibre plum root
  • Trying Shibori – not particularly satisfactory when opened up
  • sample of all the different fibres I played with – plum root
  • Dye -v- pigment comparison plum bark
  • dye -v- pigment comparison plum root
  • Plum root final colour when rinsed and dried – Yum!

Do you use household or garden items in your textile practice? Have they ever surprised you? I would love to hear about your experiences.

Helene x

skeleton of a hare standing on hind legs
Hare Today !!!

Hare Today !!!

Comments 14 comments

I had been wanting to go back to needle felting sculptures for some time, so when I came across a tiny picture of a hare in our local free newspaper New Blackmore Vale Magazine,  I knew I’d found what I wanted to do.  Rather than the usual boxing hares, which I may well have a go at sometime in the future, I felt called to this solitary speeding hare.  He only had one fore foot on the ground and was obviously in a great hurry.

Brown Hare running on snowy ground
Original Inspiration

On getting my necessary supplies together, it was clear that I would obviously need a good strong armature for him and a solid base to hold it steady.  Trawling through my drawer of wires, I found what looked like an unused coil of old, cotton covered, bonnet wire (probably pre-WW2).  I’ve no idea what gauge it was but it was obviously strong enough to hold up an old fashioned bonnet brim, so I was sure it would keep the hare upright.  Having  resorted to Google for images of hare skeletons (naturally I wasn’t able to find one in the actual pose I needed, but I did find a couple of useful references) I looked out some other wires which would probably do for the pelvis and rib cage.  I fiddled with the images and printed off one enlarged to the size I wanted to make the hare and then made a tracing/drawing to use as a working pattern.

My idea was to have a base made from two pieces of wood, with  extended leg wire from the only leg actually touching the ground passing though a hole drilled in one piece of wood, and then bent at an angle of 90º. The wire would then be pressed into a slot cut into the underside to stop the hare swinging around when mounted.

image of wire protruding from bottom of piece of wood
Showing the extension of the armature from the grounded foot protruding from the bottom of the base

The second piece of wood would be fixed under the first piece to keep the wire in place and also to add extra weight to avoid the whole thing being top (or hare) heavy.

I would use the bonnet wire for the spine and head, and pipe cleaners for the pelvis and ear armatures, then go back to bonnet wire for the limbs.

While I was working up the armature I first had the leg wire stuck in a heavy reel of wire.

Subsequently, when I was needle felting, the leg wire was passed through a newly made slot in my felt needle felting cushion.

Using more of my scoured merino, which I had bought quite some years ago now from Wingham Woolwork, I started to fill in the inner body.  The wool is scoured but not otherwise prepared, so it required quite some carding to get it into a state where I could use it to wrap the armatures and to fill in the muscles to give some substance to the animal.  Here are some views of that work in progress.

I had of course gone to Google Images for reference pictures of hares from an all round perspective, both for body shape and for colour, from which I blended various colours for my palette.  Here are a few of those.

Then I started adding the “top coat”.  Working on a sculpture rather than on a “painting” was a bit complicated (and painful at times) until I found myself a small piece of polystyrene packing foam to use when I couldn’t rest the part of the hare I was needling onto my felt cushion.

Another complication was transporting the hare from home to the various venues where I was working on him.  In the end I used an empty plastic box and turned him upside down into it.  It was a bit of a squeeze but he just about got in safely.

Bit by bit, over several months, he began to emerge from the fibres.

I had originally thought to use a pair of glass eyes which I had in stock as they were the right colour and had the black surround which can be seen on a real hare.  Unfortunately they were too big so I fell back on giving the hare orange woollen eyeballs and working them up from there.

When he was substantially finished, I added some “grass” and “rough undergrowth” to the “soil” on top of the wooden base.  This consisted of all sorts of odd bits of fluff, fibre, yarn and fabric selvedges, plus some suitable acrylic paint.

4 different images of waste fibres and yarns in greens, creams and browns
Some of the bits and pieces of scrub and grass

The footwire was poked into the hole in the ground and bent under so that he was running across the scrub land. Then, using his carry box as a stand, I added and secured the second piece of wood.

showing clear plastic box topped with 2 blocks of wood on top with needle felted hare attached upside down inside the box. The two pieces of wood are stuck together with masking tape and partly screwed together
showing his carry box and adding the 2nd part of the base

Although the 2 pieces of wood were from the same larger piece they did not look good when screwed together so I painted them green, obscuring the fact that they were not one large piece.  I thought I was done then, but unfortunately one of the pieces of wood started to warp and spoiled the illusion.  Eventually, after some thought, I removed the bottom piece of wood and glued some non-slip matting over the base (having first taped the footwire into its slot in the bottom of the base) and painted the underside the same green as the sides.

Whilst working and looking at the reference pictures of the whole animal, I realised that he probably had had lots of whiskers.  So I looked for more reference pictures of hare(y) faces and saw that indeed he did.  So how to add these essential appendages?

4 images of close up pictures of whiskery hares' faces
harey faces

I have for some years now been collecting cats’ whiskers.  (They make great fishing rods for fishermen living in the countryside of 00 gauge model railway layouts!)

Black paper with many white cats' whiskers
It’s the cat’s whiskers

I would use some of these for the hare.  Initially I was adding a dot of glue to the end of the whisker, poking a hole in the hare’s muzzle and pushing in the whisker.  The problem was that the whiskers were life-size for a cat, but too big for my hare.  The whiskers were actually strong enough to be poked into the hare’s muzzle without first making a hole, (provided there wasn’t a bit of armature in the way), so in the end I just poked them in and through and out the other side, chopping off the protruding bit and leaving the right length behind.  In fact, unless someone tries to pull them out, the whiskers will stay where they are.

needle felted hare's head with whiskers poked through muzzle and protruding ends being cut off with scissors
cutting the poked through whisker ends

I am hoping to find some form of clear box to cover the hare and stand, if only so I don’t have to keep dusting him.

Here he is.

completed and mounted needle felted hare placed on juniper branches to resemble running free
Out enjoying his run, whiskers and all

Since making him, I have inherited a book all about gnomes.

front cover of book "Gnomes" showing front and back images of gnome with pointed red hat, leather belted blue coat, brown trousers and "deer skin" boots. Gnome has brown face and white hair, eyebrows, moustache and beard
Cover of Gnome book

One of the fascinating things I have learned about them is that they can run as fast as a hare and are small enough to take a ride.  So you never know my hare may gain some friends some day.

Final thought – what should I name him, any ideas?  (Don’t say Harry, I don’t think the Prince would be amused.)  I understand that Hares were introduced to the UK, probably by the Romans, so perhaps he might be named after a Caeser!

 

Extra busy on Fathers day! Sheering demo and Blacksmithing!!

Extra busy on Fathers day! Sheering demo and Blacksmithing!!

Comments 6 comments

Happy Father’s Day for those who are celebrating today!

Today, which will be yesterday, by the time you are reading this, tomorrow, was a bit overbooked. I hope you will come along and check out the day.  At 8:30am, We were to be at the log farm, where Ann has a stall at the farmers market (Yummy goodness!!!). the Farm has barns and other out buildings past the trees and fields beyond the market area.  Today was sheering day for their sheep! They had been very generous and given us previous sheerings form their flock so I really did want to go demo for them.

We packed up the Mer-Boyfriend, the mostly finished picture of the sheep and the moose back with landscape. I could not find where Glenn had put my Core wool from WOW so grabbed the last of a bump of coreidale. No not what I want its combed top not carded roving. Drat.

It was quite the hike for me into the farm but the ground was flat until we reached the farm. We saw lots of grape vines and little apples on the way.

path leading to old farm buildings trees on one side 1.1) the end of the path heading to the farm

aples and grapes1.2) apples and grape vines with tiny buds of grapes

It has some old log buildings and lots of different types of animals. Including the volunteers of honor the adult sheep. They were quite loud so someone may have tipped them off the Shearing was happening today.

chickens, ducks, cat bunny and turky2.1) some of the animals on the farm

sheep in frield and standing by fence2.2) The guests of honor, one of whom thought my walker wheel a tasty snack!

For very early on a Saturday morning there was quite a crowd to watch the sheep loose there winter coats. A new volunteer was brought forward about every 20 minutes until noon.

crowd at sheering 3.1) shearing in front of an audience.

While this was going on we were next door in a 3 sided barn, I was a bit farther back and could not see the sheering happening until I went out to take a peek.

demoing drop spindle, 4.1) Demoing spinning and felting

samples to touch4.2) touch samples of various fibers

display table by guild4.3) the sample table

demoing inkle weaving and electric spinning wheel4.4)  Inkle weaving and electric spinning wheel (with portable battery power source)

stuffed sheep looks like its being added to the flock5.1) sheep may be having an Instagram moment after a strange seep trys to sneak into the herd

Post sheering the sheep were looking for food.

feeding sheep grass5.2) small girl in yellow dress gives hands full of grass to sheep wating at fence

snoozing and resting lambs 5.3) The lambs having a nap after the sheerer relieve there moms of all there fleece

Just past the sheep were the Alpaca. They had already been sheered

3 alpaca eating along fence 5.4) Alpaca

It was after noon by the time I packed up my felting and we headed back to the car. Unfortunately we  had another place to go today and a long drive through traffic to get there.

snow ball bush? prity white flowers 5.5) some form of snow ball bush I think, it was very pretty and there were variations near the farm

5.6) it was a very pretty walk but it felt like it was much longer on the way back.

They may have snuck in more trees while we were demoing? We passed Ann on our way out, she still had some of the cookies and a few tarts. We would have got a beef and mushroom pie but I knew it would have to sit in a hot car for the rest of the day so not a good idea. (The AC seems to have stopped working, oh no back to the old fashion windows!)

Ann selling a cookie!!5.7) Ann at the Farmers market

Did you want to follow us to our next and more appropriate fathers day location? We are off to well past Ottawa heading towards Montreal to the town of Dunvagen (still in Ontario). The Glengarry Museum is located there and they have an annual Blacksmith group teach a workshop on father’s day weekend. This year they are making scissors.

Since we had been at the sheering this morning we are running late to watch the making of scissors. We arrived and they had made the blades ends and were doing the offset and starting to do the tapper for the handles. Glenn went to check that out and I headed for the ramp to the school house where the lady with alpaca fiber usually is. I missed the bag of black and the dark brown but got a bag of a light creamy badge.

seller of alpaca products and fiber7.1) Alpaca seller

Pottery seller 7.2) Pottery vendor

reson figures7.3) Sassy by Nicci had figures made of resin. I like these little guys

bat house and bee house7.4) this woodworker had bird houses, as well as these bat and bee houses

vender tent with weaving7.5) This one had some weaving

7.6) horns and horn cups. They are finished so you can drink hot or cold drinks or pop in them.

blacksmith display7.7) There even was a vendor selling blacksmith made stuff. Do you see the woven centure fleshay belt?

Now to the main event the usually very photogenic blacksmiths. There were 2 groups, one in the log building with a forge. They were again working on making a musket. (I think it was a musket it was a gun barrel of an old design.)

8.1) smithing a gun barrel

The other group of blacksmiths were taking a workshop on making a pair of scissors.

Building the class was in9.1-9.2) the blacksmithing class

We arrived as they were discussing forging the handle loops. They could decide the shape and cross section to fit their hands.

looking at sample of sizors9.3)  inspecting samples of scissors looking at the handle loops

outlining sample sixor handle to make matching pair9.4) The instructor traced a sample scissor handle on his anvil so he had a pattern to work from

I gave Glenn my old camera and he was having fun trying it out.

New camera is used to take photos of samples of sizor making 9.5) Glenn trying out his new camera

samples of sizor makeing 9.6) some of the sample scissors and scissor parts

balencing stock on knee to trim to correct lenght9.7) this is one of the students, we saw her last year. She had an ingenious way of working when she ran out of hands.

cutting mettle to lenth requiered by using guiliteen tool9.8) a guillotine tool in the hardy hole

On our way to the museum, we got stuck behind an agricultural parade going very slowly. I am pretty sure we saw the same Vehicles in the field behind the museum. One tractor pulling swirling round rakes that gathered the hay and the second tractor pulled a strange machine that made hay bales that it gathered then dumped behind it.  It was fun to watch them work too.

raking and bundleing the hay into bails by 2 tractor pulled macheens10.1) the field behind the museum

It was a fun day, lots of driving, now I’m sore and its getting close to bed time. I want to leave you with traditional blacksmithing imagery, coal and flames ready to bend mettle to your will. I think I will stick to bending wool to my will but its fun to see the skill involved to move mettle where you want it to go and make useful things, like scissors.

two vews of fire in the forge. cole and glowing embers 11.1) lovely fire in the forge. just remember not to breath the green smoke!!

I hope you have a wonderful father’s day and get to do some felting ether wet or dry! maybe you made something cool for your Dad?

Sheep Keychain

Sheep Keychain

Comments 11 comments

I started working on this a while ago and have managed to do one. I can hardly wait until school’s done at the end of the month. I don’t seem to have any time to do anything at the moment. Oh well, enough griping.

You may remember that for my Guild’s anniversary exhibition, I made a little flock of sheep. What to do with them now? I could just put them away or make a display, not that I have room for that.

In the past, I made key chains by threading a cord down and back up through the sheep and then adding a split ring. It worked, but the cords wear too quickly. Then I saw some cool headwear for keychains. They seem to just put beads on them, but what do they know? I bought a multi-coloured pack.

Of course, I also had to buy some new beads for this. Really, I did, I didn’t have any large hole beads that would fit on the pole. Sorry about the bad picture, way too much reflection on the left one, and I didn’t want to dump them out. The one on the left is mixed, so there are solids, stripes, crystals and some different textures.

I picked a green keychain to go with the green sheep.

 

The first thing to do is to make a hole in the sheep. For this, I used a leather awl. It worked quite well; I only had to fiddle a little to get the post through the sheep. You can see that the beads unscrew at both ends. This makes it easier to add the beads on the top and bottom after adding the sheep.

Then add some beads and and screw the ends back on.

I like the way it looks. I need to give him some eyes and probably a nose. None of the sheep or the shepherdess had facial features for the display.

The other thing I want to do is fix some of the ears. I was running out of time, and I knew they wouldn’t be handled, so I didn’t worry about some of the ears not being as sturdy as I would like.  Some of them are too fluffy and underfelted, so they will not last as key chains.

The other thing I bought was a little stand and some cards to attach the keychains to. I hope that it makes them look a little more finished and worth what I want for them.

They are too big to fit in the little bags that came with the cards. I will have to look for some different ones.

P.S. I have not picked a name for the little ram lamb yet. Nothing has really jumped out at me as the right one, yet.

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.
Altered Tree Book Page Spreads

Altered Tree Book Page Spreads

Comments 18 comments

I have been slowly working on my tree book and got a few more pages completed. You can read about the beginnings if you missed it here and here.

Three page spreads from altered book about trees.

I start with pages from the old tree book that have been gessoed and then painted or dyed. I used walnut ink on most of the pages but I decided I would try the tumeric ink we made a couple of years ago. That was so bright yellow, I added a layer of walnut ink and it is still candescent. I will have to cover up most of the yellow so I don’t overwhelm the book with so much yellow. I have a pile of painted papers and some of the mark making we have been doing over the last 3-4 months.

Three page spreads from altered book about trees.

Then I move bits around until I am happy with the outcome. You can see that I tried adding my little landscapes that I painted recently but I didn’t end up using them. They didn’t feel right to me, most likely because of the very white borders.

Page spread try outs for altered book about trees.

Here’s one of the pages before I glued things down. The yellow and black paper are shreds left over from our paper layering experiments.

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.

Here’s a finished page spread. You can see the same paper layering end product on the right. This is the candescent yellow background page. It has been toned down by layering tissue paper over it.

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.

Here’s one that I used one of Paula’s eco prints on the right. It was perfect for my color scheme. The left reminds me of a feather but it is torn paper that accidentally turned out that shape.

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.

Here’s another layered paper one with some other off cuts and mark making.

Completed page spread for altered book about trees.

And here’s the layout I showed you above once it was glued. I like how the tissue paper allows you to see through to the original book page. I am enjoying the imprecise nature of this book and playing with mark making, color and shapes.

Progress on my denim jacket

Progress on my denim jacket

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My Studio post this month is about the stitching progress on my denim jacket. Last time, I had made a start on the centre back panel with a grid pattern. The colour of the thread is a muted green, similar to a sage green colour, I like it a lot. The thread I have used is DMC coton a broder, so, not a stranded embroidery floss, and the whole thread is used. My stitching is in the style of sashiko, but I do not regard my efforts as sashiko.

I do not have any sashiko thread, which I think is a little thicker than the coton a broder. I wanted to use materials that I have without having to buy anything new – my jacket being a (bargain) charity shop buy, and it’s pale blue colour does suit the muted colours of my thread. I may buy some proper sashiko thread in the future though.

Marking the grid.

I did buy 2 pieces of a ‘Solvy’ pattern paper sometime ago to try out – curiosity really, and I had seen some people use it on IG. The idea is to stick the paper to the item you wish to enhance or mend, stitch the pattern and then soak the item in water to dissolve it. However, I found it very difficult to stitch through (on denim), I found it was only possible to do one stitch at a time, as opposed to taking several bites of fabric without the solvy. It is definitely not the easy solution as described by IG or YouTube people. I used one piece, and extended the pattern on the rest of the back panel using a ruler and a Frixion pen. The first photo shows the Solvy paper in place as I mark my pattern, and a partial pattern completed due to sore fingers.

These two photos showing progress and the grid.

A YouTube channel, for such stitching that I like very much, is called ‘The Green Wrapper’; the presenter demonstrates on small squares of fabric, mostly a 10cm square, or a 20 cm square; text on the screen describes, and gives instructions to achieve the sashiko design. Sometimes she uses items of clothing to stitch on. I have followed her instructions, and they are really clear.

I drew some circles, some interlocking, using two different sizes of a drinking glass. I then drew the grid using 0.5 cm lines with the frixion pen, and followed the channel directions, and pausing the channel several times until it was stuck in my head! It is amazing that such seemingly complicated patterns can be made using a simple grid, and basically a running stitch. I used two other colours of thread (ran out of the green)

 

I remain undecided about what to stitch on the side panels; I have drawn a fan shape of lines radiating from the bottom upwards, but I will wait a while before committing with needle and thread.

I love how my jacket looks. I have worn it out a few times, and friends have been complimentary about it. I will do some thinking about the front of the jacket too, and will write more about it for next time.

Some of my photos remain large, I am sorry about this, but I did manage to make two of them a little smaller – hope for me yet!!!

 

CanGames and Felting Convention 2025 Part 3

CanGames and Felting Convention 2025 Part 3

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Sunday

Am I awake? Im not sure, it may be Sunday? Or maybe its second Saturday? Give me a moment I may make more sense after my meds. Yes, Surprise!! its Sunday and we are heading back to the curling rink, Glenn has at least one more train game and something else and I am back for the very exclusive side of the convention, Felting!!!

You are probably more interested in seeing if anything has gone wrong with the young mer I am working on.

I had a couple comments that; “we would find out soon who you are using as a model for your voodoo doll”.  I suspect I have to be more careful in where I rest my needles.

Mer peson has 2 felting needles into his heart 11.1) “Are you doing voodoo?”

back vew of Mer person11.2) posterior delts and lats building up.

I am starting to add muscles, I keep adding an extra muscle to help hold up his head so he can see where he will be swimming. If I dint he would swim into things while looking at the lake bottom.

I started herring cheering and odd grunting noises coming from the middle of the hall. Lets go investigate.

cave men stacking shapes game (no speeking)12.1) block stacking game without words?

This game seemed to be two groups of cave men, and women, one whom had to get there cave mates to stack shapes in a particular way without saying anything. They seemed to communicate yes and no by hitting the table with a blow up club once or twice. Each team seemed to be making a different combination so you could not just look at the other team. Each team seemed to have a judge or referee, keeping an eye on how they were (not) communicating. They seemed to be having a great time. Each time a block was confirmed, by their leader, to be in the right place, the whole team would grunt and cheers!

Monster mash game has lots of small rooms and monster will be fighting monsters12.2) Monster mash

I spotted this game starting and wondered over to check out the map board of rooms and lots of monsters waiting to start the game.  You play a monster and fight other monsters. The table was full of little rooms with lots of detail again they look like they were having lots of fun.

I had seen this from a distance and it looked like robots or meck fighting in a tropical location, but when I got closer I realized what I was looking at.

lego mec game!!12.3) a game with Lego mecks

Anything with Lego’s has to be fun!

Book binder bender booth13.1) One of the other vendors was a bindery which had handmade books and bound fanzines

I was drooling at his cutter and behind that is a small press!! He showed me the hand stitched spines on his note books. it was all very interesting (no don’t get into another craft!!)

Ok, this is a felting and gaming convention we should really get around to the felting part before we get distracted and get lost in a game!

Technically there were more votes for “Orca” as a boyfriend, but the concern from the “Sturgeon” voters, that she would likely lose her family to her possible in-laws, was a concern. So I have decided on the more difficult sturgeon.

starting to add wool to fishy parts of mer person 14.1) on to the fish-y parts!

added fin wiers 14.2) adding the Pelvic fins

fins added to fish parts14.3)Adding wool to the fish part and adding Fins at the hip(Pectoral fins), more lower fins(Pelvic and anal fins), Dorsal fins and a cool tail (Caudal fin).

I guessed at the length for the wire for the fins, but as I added wool I can already see I may be short. We will find out as I add more wool and firm up the under layer.

14.4) building up the fiber and consulting some of the reference photos

I know I was wanted to watch the live action kill doctor lucky game, but I am sore and very tired. Glenn is happy with all his gaming and is content to head home. So I am packing up and sending him out to the car with all my stuff.  At least felting, wet or dry, is lighter to carry around than his blacksmithing stuff!  I was a bit too quick with the packing up to get a photo of how far I got the under structure so I will have to get one after I get home.

So far no sign of the missing teen-Mer-dotter, but I am sure she will notice if I work on him here in the office.

If you lose one of your Mer’s and need to make another to lure the first back. I suggest re-watching the Mermaid felt along with Sara (Sarafina fiberarts)

notes from rewatching Sara's Mermaid felt along 14.5) This was my notes from reviewing Sara’s videos, I modified this a bit from her original. You can extend the body length with extra wire if your fish is longer than the average Mer-person.

Mer-Boyfriend has gotten hold of the needle that was in his back and is prepared to work on his fishy-bits if I don’t get back to work soon!

mer person holding feling needle in his hand 15.1) preparing to self-felt!

he is prepaing to poke his fin 15.2) considering where to poke first

I am trying to explain to him that I am a bit busy this week, but maybe he can come to a demo next week and I can continue working on him!

If you are in Ottawa next May long weekend, I hope you will consider visiting CanGames (their web site will give info on games being played and the cost of the convention).  I am sure you will enjoy trying some of the games and then drop by with your drop spindle or (dry) felting and join me for a bit!

have any of these games got you thinking of sheepish versions you could invent?

CanGames and Felting Convention 2025 Part 2

CanGames and Felting Convention 2025 Part 2

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Saturday

I hope you are well rested after your nap at the end of my last post. If we want to have accessible parking, we should get going early! Don’t forget to bring a bit of money, there are other vendors and the second-hand game sale is today. Now off to the car with an extra item (ok, Glenn was carrying the extra item). Wow, the highway in town is not busy this morning, oh yes, it’s Saturday, not Monday!

I am again set up by the open games area. I think they are used to me sneaking in beside them by now. Today I brought in my little Canadian wheel, the Lendrum Rook. Gord Lendrum, a Canadian spinning wheel maker, made about 40 of them in the mid-1980s. Mine needs a bit of repair, it was at least second-hand when I got it. The weaver spinner whom I was chatting with on Friday said she would be dropping by, I can show her how this one works and hope it’s similar to the wheel she has at home.

6.1) The Rook wheel and some pretty roving were added to yesterday’s felting stuff.

I worked for a bit while watching for the line to start, then it was time to line up for the sale. This year, I was second in line! Again, with the same person in front of me, last year I was third in line. This year, Glenn had me hunting for another train game. This one was called “British Rails”.  It still does not sound as fun as sheep.  While the organisers were setting up, they put a pile of train games close to the checkout. I was able to see them from the line! I know where to check first!

pile of games on the table more will be added. 6.2) A quick peek as the games are still coming in this morning to the sale and are being put out on the tables. By 10 am, the time the sale starts, games more than fill every table!

Last year, I had bought some of the games Glenn had brought in to sell, because they looked like ones he would enjoy.  This year, I know his badge number, so I will try not to do that again! Shortly before 10 am, I looked behind me to see how long the line had grown. It went all the way across the curling rink!…. turned and started up the far side of the rink, passing where my table was and extending past the open gaming section!!  Oh my! I am glad I am second. I put away boyfriend-mer, who I had been working on while sitting in my portable chair (ok it’s my studio on wheels… er.. alright it’s my walker) and got ready to shop.

looking back across curling rink to see the lenght of people lined up for the sale 6.3) The line goes across the curling rink and then proceeds along the far wall

10 am arrived, and they let the shopping horde surge forward. All of us are trying to fit into the confines of one little corner of the rink with tables stacked high with piles of games. Some were in rows on their side, but most were piled multiple games high. All the miniatures for war gaming were on the back table, I skipped that for now and headed to beside the cash where I had seen a pile of train games. (You may want to go the other way around the table and keep an eye out for the elusive sheep games! Even an alpaca game could be thematically fun?)

I picked up the train game he wanted, found a few more and spotted one of those unfun 18XX games Glenn likes, sold by badge number 118, oh Drat! He is badge 118, so I better not buy it for him!  There were lots of pretty boxes to look over. I was trying to shop for Glenn and find some games for my brother’s cottage, too. I even found another Sheep game to add to the collection. This one is for 2 players and has little wooden sheep tokens.  They are sooo cute!!!

I finally escaped the crushing throng of game seekers and made it back to my little table to resume work on the new mer-person. Building up his torso, now his head seems too small.. ok add more brains!  (think zombie voice “Brains”) Glenn returned from his morning train game, victorious (he came in first) and was checking over what I had found. I was successful in my game quest for him, and he was pleased with the others I picked up.

game with sheep on the cover6.4) “Agricola” is a 2 Person game about raising sheep. (We have not tried it yet, but the sheep are wooden and look very cute!)

pile of games on small table 6.5 Some of the Games I found, including what he had requested!

We took another peek at the games as the crowd thinned. Odd, I saw lots of things I had not noticed the first time. I added a couple more to the pile while Glenn got us lunch. The curling rink caterers are very good this year. I had asked for grilled cheese with bacon, but got a club sandwich, which was very tasty, but seemed short of the grilling and the cheese. Well, maybe we can have that for dinner?

I did promise I would get back to work on felt-related matters (this is a gaming and felting convention!).  I continued slowly building up the muscles on my new Mer-Boyfriend.

upper torso from the back of Mer person, felting needle sticking out of his back 7.1) stabbed in the back by a felting needle, but he has a bit more latts!

mer person lounging on bag of white core wool7.2) Lounging on the bag of world of wool core carded roving

mer person from the back starting to work on glutes 7.3) Ooh, I have reached the glutes and the first fins!! Oh, the possibilities, they have to be good glutes, to attract Miss Teen Mer back to the office when I get home!

Then I realised the weaver spinner I was speaking with yesterday should be arriving soon, back from her shopping trip to Wabi Sabi (that’s one of the local yarn and fibre shops in Ottawa). I had better get ready for her arrival and switched to my wheel. I have a bit of yarn on the bobbin and some of the same fibre left to spin.  Let’s finish spinning that and then wind it off into a double-ended ball. That means it’s wound so you can pull from the inside of the ball and the outside end of the ball at the same time. The advantage to this, over plying with two bobbins, is you always get to the middle at the same time from the outside and the inside piece! With 2 bobbins, often you have one bobbin still having yarn on it when you have emptied the other. The drawback of a double-ended ball is that it can all go horribly wrong and get tangled if you are not careful (and sometimes even when you are careful), but if you’re frugal or only have one bobbin, this is a handy way to ply yarn.  Oh yes, not all of you spin, plying is taking the single yarn you just spun and spinning it back in 2 layers or plys in the opposite direction you spun the single ply. See clear as mud! But it keeps your yarn balance if you do it just rite. If you knit with energised yarn, you can make diamonds instead of squares, which can be interesting but probably not what you wanted.

You can weave with energised singles yarn (there is still a good amount of twist energy present in the singles). There are some medieval fabric finds that are woven in plain weave (under over under over under over……). Because they are warped in little groups of yarn spun with the twist going one direction (Z) beside little groups with the twist going the other (S), when you take the fabric off the loom, the twist fights with its neighbour, producing what looks like some complicated twill all in plain weave. I will try to show you that someday.

Lendrum Rook spinning wheel with tiny scain of blue/green yarn7.4) cleaned off the little bit of yarn on the bobbin, ready for spinning.

I got back to felting. I continued to asked anyone who stopped to chat the questions; if they thot an Orca or Sturgeon boyfriend would be better….I continue to get the orca would look better, but the sturgeon voters kept reminding me about the horrible, possible slaughter of her family if she dated an Orca!

8.1 The open gaming section filled up after the game sale had slowed down and remained full all day.

mer person on table with foam nealing pad as work serface game going on in background 8.2) I added sewing pins to give me eye locations while I work. It’s getting very busy with games now.

Since there is no sign of the spinner/weaver, let’s take a quick look at what gaming is happening today.

There were games I had no idea what was happening, and battles setting up for carnage and slaughter

game with small shapes making a pathway with little meeples on the path 9.1) Not a clue what is happening, but they seemed very focused and having fun.

car racing game very pritty bord and extras 9.2) This is a racing game that was being played on the table beside me. Like many of the games I was seeing, it has lovely graphics.  Even if watching cars drive in a mostly circular track isn’t really your thing, it’s still really pretty to look at.

part of an army about to go to battle stored in top of box 9.3) Definitely impending carnage!

small painted buildings as part of playing area for combat game 9.4) Some of the war games with figures had very interesting architecture or terrains

town with trees set up as playing aria of this war game.9.5) This one had a part of a town, I don’t remember what kind of army was fighting through it. It was possibly more normal than guys in space suits from the other table.

Being set up at the other end of the hall from me was a large metal cube that rotated on a frame. That looks intriguing, shall we go have a look?

table in front has cards and robots for the game cube on the next table10.1) This game is for 12 little magnetic robots. You can see the little robots on the nearby table, all sides of the cube is where they will be racing.

close ups of game being played10.2) A robot racing game on a cube

This metal cube has magnetic-backed maps showing pathways on each side. The robots are also magnetic and will drive around the various sides of the cube. Each robot has a hand of cards; they have to select five instructions for their robot to follow like a program, and lay the cards face down in the order they want the robot to move. Everyone reveals one card at a time, and the movement occurs. Unfortunately, things can go horribly wrong when robots try to land on the same square or miss count and bump into a wall or other obstacles.

takgin a photo of one side of cube to figure out the next 5 instructions to give the robot10.3) A good strategy seemed to be to take a picture of the part of the board your robot was on, then select your cards from your photo(then hope for the best).

cube showing robots are now on 2 differnt sides of the cube  10.4) As you can see, the robots are dispersing on two sides now

5 cards layed out the first 2 are now turned up 10.5) They are working through the second card of this round.  They are having lots of fun, and it’s been fun to watch.

I wandered back to my felting but again got distracted by all the cool details in the  3-D printed dungeon architecture.

3-D printed rubble and castle doors10.6) You can see the layers, so those must be a sedimentary plastic rock, maybe sandstone? Such fine detail in the 3-D plastic!

skelitons in coffins and skelitons climeing out of graves10.7) These little skeletons were so cool, but where would I put them? I did enjoy looking at them over the weekend, and they were quite photogenic for skeletons.

Glenn has returned victorious in another train game, and I was wiped. Even though I had not seen the weaver spinner yet, it was definitely time to go home to sleep. You can stay on if you like, and I will meet you back here for day 3 tomorrow. I hope to get started on the fishy parts then!