It is Thanksgiving here in Canada today. I thought I would celebrate by showing you some of the wonder fall colours . Everything is late this year so we are just getting to the peak of colour. It is very inspiring.
and some close ups of the wonderful leaves
I also took some pictures of the cord I made on the meridi at the demo I talked about in my last post.
Now I am off to cook a turkey and all the fixings. Have a great day.
With our Halloween holiday coming up this week, I decided to make a couple of pumpkins using the pod method. I used merino and Icelandic fibers. Fortunately, while working the pods I left the vertical creases to simulate a pumpkin skin. In order to get the right sized top with stem, I made a rectangle of the same layers. Separately I needle felted a stem. Then I wet felt the stem slightly, added some of the pumpkin fiber When I was ready to felt the rectangle, I added the stem and over lapped some more fibers around it to anchor it then proceeded to rub around it until I was certain it was secure enough to continue felting and fulling it.
I carefully measured each hole in the pumpkins then cut them out of the rectangles and worked the edges to heal them.
When the tops were dry I needle felted a vine and leaf to each top.
Since the landscaping and trees were in full color I decided to put them in several places as Land Art with some felted rocks on a bed of maple leaves. Which one do you like?
I made a bigger pumpkin with the intention of making a Jack O Lantern, but I wasn’t happy with the shape. I had planned to have a small hole on the bottom for a candle, but it didn’t work out that way.
The little pumpkins were filled with candy and are making their way to my grandsons for Halloween. Have you done any felting for autumn or Halloween?
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to think of a theme for the last Studio Challenge of the year. I still hadn’t decided last night when my girlfriend suggested ‘Monochrome’. I loved this idea because being restricted can really challenge you to think, but then I remembered that some of us had done a monochrome challenge a few years ago, it might even have been a challenge of Ruth’s. So after a bit more thinking … about maybe one particular colour for a monochrome challenge or maybe a section of the colour wheel, I started thinking about shades of burgundy, red, orange and yellow and thought ‘Autumn!’. I know for some of us, it’s only just started, and for some of us (yes, Kaz!) it’s been and gone, however you feel about it, it always has interesting things to offer in terms of colours and the life cycles of plants.
So the Challenge is, to make something (or as many things as you like) using felt, fabrics and/or fibres in whichever medium you like, with the theme of Autumn. Maybe an autumn sunset will inspire you:
Maybe the leaves on the trees turning citrusy yellows and greens, or the crunch of the dried brown leaves underfoot are what you think of for ‘Autumn’.
Maybe you’re influenced by the gorgeous reds, oranges and yellows making trees a blaze of colour.
Maybe Autumn makes you think of hibernation, damp and decay?
Or maybe the leaves or plants themselves will become part of the piece?
Have fun and don’t forget to share photos of your work with us if you join in the challenge 🙂 You can add photos to the Studio Site Flickr Group, tag your photos “4th Quarter Challenge 2013 Autumn”. You can also post a link to your blog or website in the comments on any of the Challenge blog posts, and we’d be happy to include your work in the Challenge Gallery. If you’d like to write a post about it, just use the form on the Contact Us page 🙂