3 book covers on needle felting, showing cat face, polar bare and Pengqins
Starting 2023 with books

Starting 2023 with books

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2023 has already sent me a change of plans notice. My last goal for the end of 2022 had been to have the local guild library book check completed. Then I would spend hours grouping, sorting and formatting data into lists so the library would be more accessible for members to use. I was running a bit behind schedule and the new deadline was to have the circulating books counted by 4 pm on Jan. 9th.  If I cannot get all the circulating books checked between one meeting and the next it means I have a lot of extra checking to do once the books start moving in or out of the library. Ann had been extra busy this past year and was not as available as she had hoped. This meant that on the day of the meeting, there were four full cabinets of books checked, leaving one last cabinet full of books to check (780.’s Basketry to 900.’s Textiles – Finished cloth).

1) OVWSG Guild Library cabinet full of weaving books, on the door is a list of what is on the bottom shelf. In front of the cabinet is the old guild computer on the library rolling table.1) OVWSG Guild Library cabinet full of weaving books, on the door is a list of what is on the bottom shelf. In front of the cabinet is the old guild computer on the library rolling table.

I got into the studio extra early and It all was going quite well until I got to my nemesis, the bottom shelf. The “Problem” shelf.  The Shelf placement within the cabinets does not allow binder-height books to sit upright on the bottom shelf, so most books sit with their spine edge facing up. For easier use, I had created a photo and list of what should be on that shelf. Unfortunately, I had to check to make sure that all were present and accounted for. This involved a bend, twist and lean maneuver that I had to repeat as I found each miss placed book or worse lack of book. Missing books kept me searching longer before giving up, and marking them as not there. I finally got to the end of the shelf and thought I had gotten away with this particular acrobatic bending maneuver…. But my back was only considering how best to discuss this grievous insult to its dignity. (It also likely recalled the 4 previous circulating cabinet bottom shelves.) I knew well before the meeting had started I was not going to be able to stay. I had the library set up for the evening, labelled everything I could think of and waited for Ann to arrive after work so she could run the library. (Sorry Ann!!) I got help back to the car and headed home, hoping to watch the meeting on Zoom. (There is still the Reference section, Audio-Visual and Magazines left to check!)

It was a fabulous presentation on a reinterpretation of district checks by Carl Stuart. But by the end, it was a challenge to get from the computer down the short hall to the bedroom and into bed. It’s taken 4 full days to get the grumbles back to a manageable level so I can hope to think and type.

My original plan of having a chat about fibre prep vocabulary has been put on hold (it will let me find better photos for you too) and instead, I wanted to keep with the theme of this post so far and show you the books of X-mass 22.

Glenn has discovered buying Felting Books for me is as much of a challenge as buying Blacksmithing books for him. Even so, he did very well this year.

2)  Unwrapped Christmas presents, 3 felting books, candy and a plastic box sitting on a black duvet.2)  Unwrapped Christmas presents, 3 felting books, candy and a plastic box sitting on a black duvet.

(The Mysterious contents of the plastic box we will chat about in an upcoming post with Ann.)

He also found an IKEA Octopus and an Octopus winter hat!

3) Yellow IKEA Octopus wearing a Red, Black and Purple Octopus winter hat sitting at the pillow end of the bed.

4) Japanese book cover by Sachi with framed needle felted cat on the front

The first book is in Japanese, I think it may be “Portrait of Cat Made of Wool Felting”? It has a lot of detailed pictures about the needle felting of cat faces including how to make eyes, whiskers, patterns, and fur in detail. The text is completely in Japanese but the layout is correct for a European book (spine on the left-hand side) so I hope there will be an English edition soon. Ann said there should be an app on my phone to take a picture and translate it. I don’t think my phone is that smart but it would be helpful while waiting for an English version.

Let me show you a few interior shots so you can get an idea of the content, the pictures are extremely detailed and give lots of information even if you don’t read Japanese (Written English is still challenging enough for me, arigtozimasu).

4.1-4.4)  A couple of random pages showing photos and text from the book.4.1-4.4)  A couple of random pages showing photos and text from the book.

This would likely be a good book for those interested in extreme realism and fur applications. I suspect it will be even more enlightening if you have a friend who reads Japanese! I hope it will be printed in English, I would buy it.

The second book I had seen mixed reviews on.  I was hoping to find an inexpensive second-hand copy to check out. The rumours had been quite negative, that the book was basically a coffee table vanity project with lots of pictures of the artist’s work and almost no info about how to needle felt.

5) Cover of “Make Animals felt Arts from Japan” by YoshiNobu5) Cover of “Make Animals felt Arts from Japan” by YoshiNobu

While I would agree the first section (66 pages) of the book is inspirational images of the artist’s work, the second section, (page 67 to 118) are divided into information on tools, types of wool, ways of blending fibre, basic techniques, then on to small projects to teach the basic techniques and expand on them. The projects are finger puppets and broaches. The instructions start out with simple shapes and a bit of colour blending and get more complicated. There are occasional translational word choice problems but overall it has good information. (There is a drum carder labelled as a combing machine! I will return to address that in a later post).

This book may have received better reviews if the inspirational section was after the informational section. But the information included is good and the pictures though small are reasonably clear to follow.

5.1-5.4) A few interior pages from Make Animals felt arts5.1-5.4) A few interior pages from Make Animals felt arts

 6) Cover for “The Natural world of Needle Felting, learn how to make more than 20 adorable animals” by Fi Oberon showing needle felted pengquins.6) Cover for “The Natural World of Needle Felting, learn how to make more than 20 adorable animals” by Fi Oberon showing needle-felted penguins.

The last book he found for me was one I already had picked up in 2021. “The Natural World of Needle Felting, learn how to make more than 20 adorable animals” by Fi Oberon.

6.1-6.4) parts of interior pages of “The Natural world of Needle Felting, learn how to make more than 20 adorable animals” by Fi Oberon6.1-6.4) parts of interior pages of “The Natural World of Needle Felting, learn how to make more than 20 adorable animals” by Fi Oberon

This book has a different approach to sculpture than I usually take. There are a few projects where the wool is cut and the armature inserted when the sculpture is almost complete. There are a number of projects with partial armatures and some with no armatures. I purchased a copy while I was working on the armature wire project. There is the use of strips of felt to make the core of a sculpture as well as the suggestion of using a ball of wool yarn to start the center of a spherical shape.

There is an interesting suggestion for making felted mushrooms (a currently popular topic) by using cardboard yarn and then adding a cap and stem of needle-felted wool. Most of the projects are simplified shapes which are not too intimidating for a beginner or advanced beginner.

All 3 books are worth looking at and depending on the direction your style of needle felting is taking you may want to get a copy of some of these for your own library.

7-7.1) Ann looking at my Christmas felting books7-7.1) Ann looking at my Christmas felting books

Ann and I will show you a bit more of our Christmas acquisitions but that will be in a later post. In the meantime have fun and keep felting!!!

Stitching Some Trees

Stitching Some Trees

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I am continuing with my slow(very slow) stitching. I have accidentally done part of the first-quarter challenge. Last time I showed you my tree trunk. Next, I got some of my handspun to make the evergreen part.

I pulled a lighter green first. it was much too light. I switched to t a much darker green that works much better. it is a thicker yarn too, which I think works better.

stitching an evergreen tree light green yarn test. stitching an evergreen, tree dark green yarn test

 

The practice one worked out well so onto the good ones.

 

stitched tree trunk stitched evergreen tree

The trunk on this one ended up a bit fat but I don’t mind

brown stitched tree trunk 2 stitched evergreen 2

2 stitched evergreen trees

 

And the third one

third stitched tree trunk  third stitched tevergreen tree

And this is how it looks now

3 stitched snow flakes and 3 stitched evergreen tree.

 

I like it so far but I am not sure what to put in the blank corner. I thought maybe a branch so I did a test one. I may try to add some cones or snow. I am not sure what kind of tree it looks like. What do you think? what would you put there?

stitched evergreen branch, half done evergreen branch finished

 

 

Close Up of Lichen, Leaf and Moss on Driftwood
Adding Lichen to the Mossy Driftwood

Adding Lichen to the Mossy Driftwood

Comments 36 comments

My next step in finishing the driftwood piece was to create lichen. I had made lichen before from Tyvek but alas, I had none in my stash. So I looked for other materials that could be shaped with a wood burning tool and that would shrink and make interesting shapes with a heat gun.

What I found was a fusible lightweight Pellon interfacing and nylon organza. The interfacing does not need to be fusible to work, it’s just what I had on hand. I can’t remember why I bought it but hopefully, it would work so I wouldn’t have to buy anything else.

Painted pastel blue green interfacing and nylon organza on white background

I painted the small pieces of interfacing and organza with a light layer of acrylic paint. As you can see here, the paint was not heavy and the shade of blue green was very light in value.

wood burning tool burning lichen shapes into painted interfacing

Next, I got out my wood burning tool and a piece of glass to burn on. I made random lichen shapes in the interfacing. I also did the same with the nylon organza. Once they were cut out, I held the small pieces with a pair of tweezers and used the heat gun to make them shrink up and get curly. I also added a bit of brown marker to the edges of the lichen as there are definitely brown bits on the real stuff.

Here’s the result. Yay, it looks like I wanted it to. Success. Now to add it and the dead teabag leaves to the mossy driftwood. I glued the lichen in place as it was mainly on the wood itself. I stitched the leaves down to the felt in a couple of places.

Textile Art Piece - driftwood covered with felt, stitched moss, stitched tea bag leaves and lichen from interfacing and organza

Here’s the result. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

And the close up views. I’m happy with how it turned out and it was a really fun project.

100% wool white wet felted pebbles with grey wool veins. Printed images of flowers, conkers and butterflies
Ideas for the F&FS Challenges

Ideas for the F&FS Challenges

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A wonderful 4-week holiday in Australia, Christmas markets and hosting lots of family visitors mean I’ve done very little news-worthy felt-making since my last Felting & Fiber Studio blog.  ‘Production felting’ is my own term for making lots of similar things for shops and markets.  I did a fair bit of this in November and December: mostly printed tea light holders, printed wool ‘pebbles’ and Christmas cards. These were my 2022 cards: handmade felt with hand-printing. I extracted the tree from a larger, royalty-free, public-domain image and added the heart before printing onto fine flat felt.

Handmade Christmas card showing a black spruce tree outline with a red heart on the top by Lindsay Wilkinson Artwork
My 2022 handmade Christmas cards

I sold these through various outlets and sent a small number myself.

I’ve enjoyed making felt ‘pebbles’ for some years. Since learning to print on felt from Lindsey Tyson, I’ve been able to adapt photos of some of my Mum’s watercolour paintings to print onto the pebbles.

100% wool white wet felted pebbles with grey wool veins. Printed images of flowers, conkers and butterflies
Solid cream wool and silk wet felted pebble with printed image from a water colour painting of a tabby cat

Here’s the link to a previous blog post, which shows the tea light holders and includes a link to Lindsey’s excellent course https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/07/21/learning-to-print-on-wet-felt/

So, as I don’t have a lot of new stuff, I thought I’d contribute a few of my past makes and current thoughts as ideas for the first quarter and year-long challenges.

You can find the challenge details here

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/01/01/2023-first-quarter-challenges/

Thinking about the year-long tree challenge brought to mind a 3D tree stump I made 3 years ago.

Arrangement of 4 wet-felted sculptures tree trunk, seed pod and leaf on a forest floor mat
complex wet felted highly textured part tree trunk with turkey fungus and nuno felted lichen

The tree stump was part of a set of pieces I made to represent lifecycles.

More information here. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2020/03/01/3d-wet-felting-experiments-part-two/

Alas, I left the base alone for a long time during a pandemic lockdown and it was attacked by moths.  In a way, being eaten by moths was rather fitting: lifecycles in real life, but the moth holes meant I ended up cutting it up to make bookmarks (after some very hot washing). I did, however, recently sell the tree stump on its own and it now lives in Canada.

Pondering future projects for the tree challenge: I have a very tall, beautifully coloured ‘silver dollar’ eucalyptus tree in my garden.

eucalyptus tree top in a garden in Whitstable. Variety silver dollar
My eucalyptus ‘Silver Dollar’

I previously made a eucalyptus seed pod at a workshop with Gladys Paulus. Link here to find out more https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2019/11/14/a-felting-adventure/

3D wet felted sculpture of a eucalyptus seed pod in grey and white wools with a surface of mohair locks

The eucalyptus tree has potential for lot of other projects, including maybe using the leaves for eco printing onto felt. Eco printing is something I’d like to try, though whether I will get round to it remains to be seen. I don’t recommend any breath-holding for this.

Contemplating Caterina’s quarter-one challenge of making something practical that you can’t buy: one of my favourites is this case I made for my iPad mini. Nuno-felted with sections of recycled sheer silk scarf.

wet felted sleeve for an ipad mini. Front in soft blue, green and yellow colours showing a blue lead skeleton
The same iPad cover with the iPad sliding out
Back of the iPad cover with panels of nuno felt in soft blue, green, yellow and pewter

I know you can buy iPad cases but I like that this one is unique and fits perfectly without any fasteners. Because it’s an exact fit, the iPad stays put until you need it, then slides out easily.  It’s getting rather battered now as I carry it around all the time so maybe it’s time to make a new one.

Felted vases and plant pots are also both unique and practical. Here are a few. I like that you can co-ordinate them to your décor, or to a specific plant or flower, or just go for colours and patterns you like.

thick glass 3 neck chemistry flask with white wet felted fitted cover featuring a band of black yarn and nepps around the middle
Plant with green and cream leaf tops with pink under sides sitting in a hand made wet felted plant pot with green interior and pink and coral outside to reflect the colours of the leaves
wet felted vase with glass interior featuring a semi abstract coastal scene with water at the top, a wave in the middle and pebble beach at the bottom
handmade wet felted vase with glass interior. Hand dyed fine merino wool in blended oranges and reds with similar coloured roses in the vase
Teal and duck egg coloured wet felted vase with glass interior featuring deep coral coloured wool locks felted into the surface cascading down the vase
purple pink hyacinths in a roll neck wet felted vase hand dyed with blended purple and blue fine merino wool

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/03/15/9-vases-a-plant-pot/ for more information on how I made these.

And finally, here’s something that meets both last year’s challenge to complete some UFOs (un-finished objects) and this quarter’s challenge to make something that you can’t buy.  

Here’s a pair of earrings that I started making a while ago using hand-dyed 14.5 micron Merino wool. I incorporated the earring post into the felt and some black sequin fabric inside using resists. These were inspired by the work of Aniko Boros and Judit Pocs.

two tear drop shaped wet felted 3D earrings in marbled greys. One smaller with tear drop cut in front revealing black sequins inside. One larger with no cut
The sequin section is more sparkly than in the photo

As you can see, I got quite a long way along, but while I finished fulling the one on the left, I stopped with the right-hand one in the pre-felt stage. I’m not completely sure why: probably it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. But it surely can’t take more than about an hour to finish that one, so I’m promising myself here that I will complete that second earring. The world will be minus one small UFO.

I hope I’ve given you a few ideas about different ways of taking on the challenges.  How are people getting on with them? If you make something in response to these or any of our previous challenges, please do post your photos on the forum. We all love to see and be inspired by what other people are making.

In the meantime, wishing everyone a very ……

PEACEFUL

JOYFUL and

HEALTHY

A cute sleeping koala
koala
An emu with its mouth very wide which looks like it is laughing
emu
An echidna eating smooshed insect liquid with its very long tongue
echidna

…….. New Year

Twining with a little help from my friends

Twining with a little help from my friends

Comments 13 comments

Happy New Year!!

November and December were incredibly busy but I am glad to say things have calmed down a lot in the last 3 weeks. The Christmas markets have closed and I have nearly finished writing the first draft of the much requested tutorial on how to make vessels with feet and lids. The lidded vessel pictured below is the main example I will demonstrate how to make in the new tutorial (with a few others for alternative methods to make lids etc):

A purple and orange felted vessel with a flared foot and a lid with a handle

I just need to write one more section, then edit and proof-read it. I hope to make it available in my Etsy shop in a couple of weeks.

Other than this purple vessel I have only managed to complete one piece of work between the markets, fairs and writing the new tutorial….

Back in September I was core spinning with the intention of using the yarn to experiment with adding twining to ceramic pots, you can read the post about that here.

This is the ceramic pot I made, after drilling out the holes I unintentionally filled with glaze. Drilling the holes has made the edges a little untidy but at least I can now get my yarn through them 🙂

blue and green ceramic bowl with holes around its top edge

I used paper yarn for the warp by threading equal sized lengths through each hole. I really like working with this material for the warp, it is stiffer than wool yarns and you can open it out to decorative effect.

Ceramic bowl with lengths of paper yarn threaded through the holes

Once all of the holes contained a strip of paper yarn, I cut 2 metres (6 feet) of a pretty boucle yarn to use as my weft. I folded it in half with one side longer than the other, this is so that when the yarn runs out while you are twining it only runs out on one side making it easier to add a new length of yarn.

Before looping the yarn over the first warp strip, I twisted the bottom of each pair of paper yarns to help hold them in position for the first few laps with the weft yarn. For the next pot I will try tying a knot in each pair of warp strips to secure them as the twist tended to come undone while I was twining, I really needed an extra pair of hands to hold everything in place while laying down the first layer of yarn.

Floki was only too happy to “assist”….

Ragdoll kitten looking at camera
“What do you mean, that’s not really helping?”
Ragdoll kitten rolling on his back while pulling and chewing on the yarn
“Your tension is way off, let me help…”

Even with Floki’s assistance the boucle yarn proved to be too fine for the space between the holes in the pot. I could have used 3 or 4 threads to bulk it up but it had proved so fiddly trying to hold the warp strips in place while twining the first layer I couldn’t face the prospect of trying to do that with 8 strands in the weft so I had a rummage in my stash and found some chunky grey yarn to use instead.

Same pot but with 5 layers of chunky grey yarn woven between the blue warp uprights

At this point I introduced some of my hand spun yarns, starting with the grey core-spun yarn from September (they are the grey bulges you can see at the top of the woven section) and then a yarn with colourful pink and blue beehives.

Woven part has doubled in size and now has bulges of yarn at the top in pink, blue and grey

Happy with the height and shape of the weaving, I tied each pair of warp strips to secure the top of the weaving and opened up the paper yarn before trimming the ends.

Ceramic vase base with grey weaving above and topped with strips of blue paper protruding from the top of the yarn

It reminds me of a blue cornflower.

Same vase as above but photographed from the other side

How has the start of 2023 been for you?

Surface Design on Felt Online Class Registration Now Open

Surface Design on Felt Online Class Registration Now Open

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The surface design on felt series of online courses are open for registration.  The registration for the 4 modules of Embellishing Felt with Surface Design Techniques – A Mixed Media Approach opens today, January 5 for a class start date of January, 20 2023. Click on any of the links about the courses to learn more. The courses are four weeks of PDF and video information and two extra weeks of instructor support for only $45.00 US for each module. You don’t have to be present at any certain time during the course.

Here is a video that I made about the first module of my online courses, Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination.

The second module is Experimental Screen Printing on Felt. Screen printing is loads of fun and you can obtain a huge variety of results with the techniques you will learn in this class.

Or you might want to try the third module which is Printing, Stenciling and Playing with Thickened Dye on Felt. You will learn how to make stencils and stamps as well as the use of thickened dye to decorate the surface of your felt and make your own unique designs.

The fourth module is Free Motion Machine Stitching on Felt. Have you always wanted to add machine stitching to your felt but didn’t know how? This course takes you through the basics of machine stitching on felt and works through to more complex techniques of using your sewing machine to embellish felt.

Want to start off 2023 learning something new? Then please click on the links above for further information about the classes and scroll down to the bottom of the page to register. You will also find the supply lists of what you will need for each class on the linked pages.

If you are interested in our other online classes, Felted Concertina Hats with Teri Berry, Felted Bags with Teri Berry or Hanging Felted Spiral with Helene Dooley, please fill out the contact us form here with the name of the class in the comments section.

Our Wet Felting for Beginners online class is available any time. You will have unlimited access with this class. So if you’d like to know more about the basics of felting including laying out the wool, embellishments, shrinkage and a variety of felting methods this is the class for you. You can sign up any time at the link above.

A little slow stitching

A little slow stitching

Comments 10 comments

I like slow stitching. Just stitching for fun and to relax. No big purpose or major projects. Just do it as you feel like it. This suits me as I am not a great stitcher and I can pick it up and put it down without any guilt. I belong to a group on Facebook and some people are amazing artists and some just do random stitching on a piece of cloth and everything in between.

I decided I wanted t make some snowflakes and at least one tree. I had seen an interesting one in my Pinterest suggestions. To this end, I took the ripped-up sheet out of the donations box. You know what they say if you want to know what you intended for something just give it away and next week you will know what you needed it for. I was lucky that we are very slow with these things and they hadn’t made it to their destination. I am still not sure what the original idea was for these wide strips of sheet.

One piece was a little grubby looking so I chose it for the proof of concept (practice) piece. I have a nice small free-standing embroidery hoop I got at a garage sale (I think). It means it’s hands-free and can sit beside my chair and the hoop doesn’t go missing.

 

Snowflakes. I drew 3 stars onto the cloth to use as patterns. I used some thick gold polyester thread from Gutermann.

PATERN FOR SNOWFLAKES gold thread spokes for stitching snowflakes Finished gold stitched snowflake

That was easy enough so I moved on to some clean fabric

I drew the stars a little bigger and I did gold again

Patterns for snowflakes gold snowflake partially donegold snowflake finished

Then I moved on to what would be the problem thread. It is something I picked up because it was shiny but it has no markings it is just on a plane cardboard tube.  It’s a copper/bronze kind of colour and it is terrible to work with. it seems to be a wrapped thread and it kept breaking. There are a lot more knots in the back of this one. and there was a lot more cursing with the rethreading of the needle. I would have liked to add more to this but I was done with the thread.

bronze stitched snow flake

 

Next was some nice silvery embroidery thread. DMC rayon S712. I used 3 strands. It was very nice to use.

silver stitched snowflake

 

And here they are together

3 stitched snow flakes together

I switched back to the practice cloth to work on the tree. this is the trunk( obviously) I tried to do varying lengths of stitches to help it look more like bark. It is very hard to deliberately make random stitch lengths.

brown stitched tree trunk brown stitched treetrunk close up

 

This is what the back looks like where the backstitching is. I think I like it better for bark. The problem is I am having a hard time wrapping my head around doing backstitch upside down. It probably has another name with you do it that way.

back side of stitched tree trunk backside of stitched tree trunk, close up

Next is the evergreen bows. I will see how that goes. As I said it’s slow stitching.

2023 First Quarter Challenges

2023 First Quarter Challenges

Comments 17 comments

Our best wishes to you all for a happy, creative new year!  And what better way to kick-start your creativity in 2023 than taking a challenge or two 🙂

The first challenge for this quarter is from a post by Caterina on the Felting and Fiber Forum after she had made some arm-warmers.

Quote: “Couldn’t we have a Quarter Challenge on felt things that are purpose made to address a need that we can’t find a way to address with store-bought stuff?
For instance, another thing that I would like to make is a sight-glasses holder with a belt, so that I can always have my other pair of glasses with me, but not dangling from my neck as I would have them with a store-bought glasses-holder, because I am forever banging them on some counter or getting them in a heated pan or dunking in the sink while I wash dishes with the normal necklace – type of holder. I keep saying that I need to make me one that will suit my life, but I have not gone round to it yet!” Unquote.

So could you make something, that you can’t buy in a shop, to make your life easier?

The second challenge is Jan’s idea and it will be carried through all four quarters of this year.

For this quarter’s challenge, find a tree that you like and depict it as it awakens in spring with buds/new leaves/blossom – it can be realistic or representational.

We would all like to see photos of challenge pieces and if you are unable to upload photos directly onto The Felting and Fiber Forum ‘studio challenges’ thread, then please use the link below.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/community-photo-submissions/

Thanks for All of our Community Entries

Thanks for All of our Community Entries

Comments 12 comments

It’s that time of the year when I look back over the last year and think, “Whoa where did the time go and what have I gotten done this year?” While I was thinking about writing a round up post of what I had created this year, I remembered our new Community Gallery page. I thought it would be great to feature work from our readers and authors who have submitted photos for our community page. Anyone is welcome to submit a photo and tell us about their work. We will be creating a new page for each year from now on. So I thought if you hadn’t taken a look, you would like to see what others have created this year. If you want to read about how the pieces were made or get further information, you can find it here on our 2022 Challenges Gallery page. Just scroll down to see all the entries.

Cindy M. showed us her wonderful interpretation of a cactus. She also wrote a guest post about the process here.

Marie E.S. submitted her beautiful needle felted and stitched creation based on a moss covered stone in her garden.

Melissa O showed us her interpretation of paint chips on cement which morphed into a fabulous wall hanging.

Capi submitted her entry for the 2nd Quarter challenge with a felted stick. Which one is real? Read more about it here.

This wonderful felt vessel was created by Donna B. using multiple photos as inspiration.

These lovely felt flowers were on of Ann B’s submissions for the third quarter challenge. Visit the gallery page to see all of her submissions.

These flowers were inspired from a quilting technique of yo-yo flowers which were cleverly felted by Mireille G M.

This flowered felt hat was created by Penny E and submitted for the third quarter challenge. The flowers are appliqued with machine stitching which adds a wonderful texture to the surface.

Cindy M. submitted another take on cactus for her third quarter entry. She also created a second version of this piece seen here.

This felt piece was created with real lavender plants and wet felted by Helene D. and was perfect for the third quarter challenge.

Donna B. made program booklet covers for a local woman’s group and submitted these delightful entries for the third quarter challenge.

Karen L. created this vessel from bits from her stash and submitted it for the 4th quarter challenge. She created it for an exhibition “Making Waves” and looks just like a tide pool.

Ann B’s entry for the 4th quarter challenge were these fantastic crowns she created for a Panto in 2020. Ann also contributed more entries for the 4th quarter which you can see here.

These fab holiday trees were created by Susan W. who was inspired by Helene’s post from the prior year where she showed how to make these trees.

Caterina P. shared her colorful necklace/neck warmer that she made from items in her stash. She has found it quite warm to wear during the colder months.

This adorable gnome was created and shared by Jessika O. He brings a smile to my face and is perfect for the holidays.

I would like to extend my gratitude to all of our readers and everyone who submitted photos this year. I hope that all of you will consider submitting photos of your work and participating in our quarterly challenges. We love to see what you are creating.

Have a Happy New Year and here’s wishing you a creative 2023!

 

 

Exploring Natural Dyes

Exploring Natural Dyes

Comments 21 comments

In my October blog post, I wrote about getting ready to start an online Natural Dye course through Maiwa. https://maiwa.com/. The photo of materials hanging on my clothesline was the first step of scouring and mordanting the fabrics that I was going to use.

Fabrics drying on a clothesline

Most of the dyes we used came right out of the jar, all ready for the dye pot. However, we did learn to make an extract from the cochineal bugs.

First you have to crush the little guys using either a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder. I had given my coffee grinder away several years ago so I had to do it manually.

Then you add 1 ½”water to them and boil them for a minute, drain off the water into a glass jar, put the bugs back into the pan and repeat that process 5 or 6 times until the water turns pink. Then the water that was drained off goes into your dye pot.

Here is the cochineal dye pot with my white and grey colored wool yarns. At this point each skein is about 34 grams each.

After being dyed  in the cochineal pot, we then divided each skein into 3rds so we could shift the color on 2 of the yarns. In this photo the grey yarn is on the right and the white yarn is on the left.

The top yarn in this photo is after the yarn was shifted with indigo, the middle is straight out of the cochineal dye bath and the bottom yarn is after it was shifted with iron. Grey yarn on the left, white yarn on the right. Aren’t they just yummy colors??

Cochineal wool yarns

This next photo shows the results after dyeing with Marigold. More yummy colors. Same layout, indigo shift, straight Marigold bath, then the iron shift. Grey yarn on the left, white yarn on the right.

And these are from the banana indigo vat that Maiwa taught us to make. Maiwa teaches an in-depth Indigo course that I might be tempted to take one day in the future because the banana vat kind of stumped me. It was very hard to keep it balanced. Sometimes I would see the magic happen and sometimes it was a struggle to get there. It’s all quite scientific and chemistry was never my thing!

These yarns had two indigo dips. White yarn on top and grey on the bottom.

After over 50 hours or more of fairly constant stirring of the pot, one hour for each bath, I came away with some wonderful fabrics that I’ll be able to use for my stitching or my art quilts.

The following are laid out with the Indigo shift on top, original color in the middle and iron shift on the bottom.

Cotton

Wool

Linen (brown and white linen)

Silk

More silk (just cuz it’s so pretty!)

Hemp

I saved most of the exhaust baths and made these scrumptious pieces…and then I dipped them all into a weakened indigo vat for about 2 or 3 minutes. You can see the shifted fabrics hanging out of some of these on the right edge (1-2 inches peaking out). Subtle changes. But oh so many colors!

It was an amazing journey. I didn’t know that there are so many ways to shift the colors, whether you use over dyes, indigo, iron, different tannins and mordants. It’s endless and so much fun. But a lot of stirring…I did manage to get quite a bit of reading done while I stirred!

Once I finished the Maiwa course, I switched to Procion dyes so I could make some color gradations for my Gail Harker Level 3 Stitch color schemes. Quite a difference from the subtle natural colors! Lovely as well, though, in a different way.

Hope you’ve enjoyed all the color! Now I need to get busy and make something out of all these samples!

Best wishes to all of you and may 2023 be a wonderful year for you! Happy creating!
Tesi