I have been thinking about my spring tree for the 2nd quarter challenge. I have decided I will not try to make my tree a real tree but an imagined one. That will give me more scope to play. I did some thinking and the best way to show flowers will be to do a close-up of a branch. I did some sketching on my pad for that. I am not a very good drawer but I think it’s not a bad branch.
I’ve decided I want some long, hanging flowers.
Next, it was off to the internet to look at long, hanging flowers. I think I know how I want to do them.
Then I had to have a good rummage to find the felt I used last time. How do things become lost so quickly? Well, I know really, I don’t put things away. 🙂 I did find it, and some felt I had forgotten about. I will try not to lose it again. It is just a white rectangle at the moment. I am trying to decide if I leave it that way or if I felt it light blue for the sky. I am not sure.
That’s as far as I am at the moment. We are working on clearing things that don’t belong out of my studio. I need to rearrange in the house, to get another piece out. Another job for the list.
I will show you how things have been going with my second quarter challenge piece. If you missed my last instalment it is here. seascape-progress
I finished adding the green for the vegetation.
Next I worked on the flattened serf
First I tried this,
But no, and then this,
I might have been able to make this work by adding something to the edge of the wave but I didn’t like it
And finally I went back to silk throwsters waste. I also broke the water edge up into 3.
Next moved on to the foliage. I added green stitching here and there to give it a more vertical look. It doesn’t show much but does add to it. I added some handspun yellow that a friend Bernadette made up for me on the spur of the moment when I was moaning about not having the right yellow.
After this it was just a matter of adding more stitches. I did add more of the yellow to mingle them more and stop them being a line across the picture.
This is where I am, stitching away and I still need to add a little dark wool between the planks of the path. I had forgotten about that until seeing the pictures. They are more defined in person.
I was going to just keep going with the stitching. The picture if you recall is quite plain but I was finding it boring, and to uniform in proportion. It needs something else. I wondered about a railing. Not this railing I think, it looks like a Japanese character (badly build temple maybe) or something.
I think I will finished the stitching even if I add something else. Anyone got another idea? I have seven more days to be finished in time.
I have worked a little on my seascape so it is progressing. Last time I showed you the beginning 2nd-quarter-challenge-started/
After I felted it, the front wave mostly disappeared and the white for the flowers was gone too. I should have known I would need more. Oh well, onward I go.
I thought the best way to do the boardwalk would be to make some felt and then cut it up. This was the best match I had for the wood. It is not white but it’s not really beige either.
I laid out a small rectangle of the wool and of course that was much to flat so I added the next shade up and some black wisps.
You can see better when it’s wet.
After it was dry I cut it into uneven strips. The pictures above are taken in my studio and these are in the guild studio, much different light. There are fluorescent but also lots of natural light. in the guild studio.
And here they are just lightly attached. I needled them down more after. I may put some black or dark brown between the boards. I haven’t decided yet.
Next, I started adding the greenery. I wanted more texture. The picture had gone very flat and it made the boardwalk look like it was floating.
I will work on the lost wave and add some stitches to help the plants look more vertical and then flowers of course. It should be done before the end of the month. Are you doing the challenge? How is it coming along?
I finally pieced a picture for my second quarter challenge piece. If you remember is it seascape this quarter. this is the picture I chose.
I found it on the internet, where you find everything. It should be ok as I aske for free to use pictures.
I started with a piece of prefelt a little bigger than a piece of paper, with the idea it would shrink to an to be the size of a piece of paper. And for a change I have a piece the right size. It is a mazing what some planning can do for you. You would think I would learn.
Next I layered some more prefelt to make the basic shapes in the picture. the mottled piece at the front was dyed by a friend.
That is v
That looks very boring and flat so now it has to be brought to life. I added some silk hanky scraps to the water to give it some depth and movement.
Then I added the surf using throwsters waste.
And lastly I added some foliage and flowers
Now it is all ready for wetting down, I plan to add the wooden path to the beach later. I am not sure I have the right colour for the wool. what colour is that anyway?
I finally had a little time to begin working on a piece for the 2nd Quarter Challenge. Ann chose the Early Celtic art period and so I followed the links that she gave in her post. I didn’t realize there was a difference in later Celtic art (which is what I always think of when I think Celtic) and earlier art. I have been wanting to make a hat for a while now. Not sure why but I haven’t made one in quite a while so I decided I would research hats from the same time period and add an early Celtic design to the hat.
I found my design on the Ancient Celts site that Ann recommended. Then I researched hats in that same time period and found the Pileus. Now I am not sure that Celts wore this type of hat but it is from the same time period and was made from felt. It actually was worn by freed slaves and is conically shaped with no brim.
So here is a printout of the design, I used the bottom one. And then I enlarged it to fit the brim of my hat. I drew it by hand and then used permanent pen so I could see which line I was to follow.
As you can see from this closeup, I changed my lines as I went along, drawing with pencil first.
Here it is after cutting it out. And again, I didn’t follow all my pen lines. If I felt that I had drawn an area so it was too skinny, I cut to give it more width.
Here is the resist I am using for the hat and the design where it will go along the brim.
I then pinned it down to prefelt so I could cut it out.
I folded the prefelt into two layers so that I would have prefelt pattern all the way around the brim on the front and the back of the resist.
And here it is after I cut it all out. These hats traditionally are white with minimal decoration. So I am going to make the hat white too. So it will be white on white. If the pattern doesn’t show up well enough, I will do either hand stitching or machine stitching to outline the Celtic pattern.
The plan is to make the hat to prefelt stage and then stitch the cutout prefelt on to the hat to hold it in place better. I don’t want to have to worry about the pattern shifting around when I am felting it. So next time, I will hopefully show you the finished hat.
Remember the credit card wallet disaster I told you about earlier this year?
I decided I would recycle part of this piece into an earbud case for the 2nd Quarter Challenge. So I cut it up.
I used a blanket stitch to sew it together and finish off the edges.
Then I added a snap as a closure.
Its a little bigger than needed, but I figure I’ll find something else to stuff in there if necessary. Perhaps a few business cards. I feel better knowing I’ve been able to use some of the material for something useful rather than sitting in a pile.
If you’ve done something for the 2nd Quarter Challenge, be sure to post it on the forum! Or contact one of us to write a blog about it!
I seem to be a little stuck on landscapes lately. When I first read Ann’s 2nd Quarter Challenge I immediately thought I could do a stitched strip landscape. I have seen these in a variety of formats either with fabric or paper. So I decided I wanted to do one with felt scraps. I have lots of strips of felt that were cut off the edges of things and most I can’t even remember what half of the projects were to begin with.
I got out all my scraps and sorted them into color piles. Some of these scraps were screen printing scraps and others from a variety of projects. The table these are laying on is 6 feet long to give you an idea of how many scraps I have.
I cut a piece of thin interfacing for a background. Some of my felt scraps were pretty thick so I didn’t want anything thick for the background as it wouldn’t fit under the sewing machine easily. Luckily, I cut this larger than 5″ x 7″ because it worked out that the landscape will fit in a 5″ x 7″ matt which is a standard size here in the US. I then started auditioning different scraps to make a landscape.
This is the layout that I came up with. The bottom brownish green felt is really thick and I was a bit worried it wouldn’t work but decided to just try it anyways. The sky and the felt right under the mountains were screen printed scraps.
I started by stitching the screen printed scraps that were towards the middle of the landscape. I didn’t tack anything down but just stuck it under the sewing machine and free motion stitched the pieces down. I cut off the ends hanging over each edge as I went along.
Here it is after stitching down the sky and then the mountains. I didn’t try to add much detail with the stitching, I really stitched just enough to hold the pieces down.
On the orange piece closer to the foreground, I did add a little bit of stitched detail representing grasses.
Here’s what it looked like after I finished the machine stitching. I put it under a matt to cover the rough edges. It seemed like it needed a bit more in the foreground.
Here in Montana in the spring, we have a plant called Beargrass. I decided to add a stalk of Beargrass to the foreground. This shows the cut up pieces of white felt being auditioned.
I hand stitched a stem and leaves and then stitched each small piece of white felt down by hand with white thread. And this is the finished landscape. The pile of scraps I started with hasn’t shrunk in the least so I’m sure I could make another 8-10 landscapes with the rest of the scraps and still have some to spare. I do have some other unfinished projects that I might also work on with this challenge. Maybe I can do one for each month of the challenge. I will post my results if I do more.
Don’t forget that today is the last day to sign up for my online class Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination that begins on Friday, April 29th. You can sign up here. It’s going to be a fun class so I hope you’ll join me.
That’s right I have it done and with days to spare. 12 whole days at that! Here are the details of the challenge if you missed them. Challenge
I have know what I was going to do for ages I just hadn’t done it. I like Stephenson’s mirror pieces but I also liked the flower pieces so I decided to combine them.
I used a thin piece of black prefelt I had and doubled it up for the back ground. I then used my own handspun for the stems. I added silk throwers waste for the flowers and then more hand spun for the spirals. I wasn’t sure how everything would stick. There was not a lot of fuzzy about any of it. It worked out fine though.
I forgot to take a picture of it before felting but here it is finished. I like it a lot more than I thought I was going to.
I found this frame on my front porch ( have no idea why it was there) and laid it over the picture and I like it even more.
If you haven’t done a piece, go ahead and give it a try, you still have time.
Don’t for get to visit the Forum to see how others have interpreted the theme. Challenge
