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Collaboration with Ann, Dragon Hand part 2

Collaboration with Ann, Dragon Hand part 2

Part 2

After getting through a very busy September, it was nice to have a 2 day break at the Kanata Gaming and Felting convention. Day one, Friday, I spent working on giving the claw more of a diamond theem. I already showed you the gaming side and a couple quick pics of the dragon hand in progress.  It was a nice spot to work. I alternated listening to the increasing parrils of the table playing Arkum Horror and an audio book.

getting ready to add details and dimond shapes 9.2 Kanata Games club Day 1 felting project

As I said before, I started by spinning a bit of short-stapled silk, then reducing the twist before felting it onto the hand. I started at the claw tips and worked both the dorsum and palmar sides. I used sewing pins to work out the diamond shapes. Working on a curved surface the diamonds got a bit odd in shape but most were diamondish at least.

using grey silk to outline diamond shapes on the hand9.3-9.4 adding diamonds to the hand

You can see I still have too much twist in the silk I spun, I will take more out shortly. The green thing is another extendable magnet, I only dropped a needle twice so it was helpful to have.

9.5 I had trouble with making diamonds flow around the edge of the webbing between his fingers.

9.6  I kept adjusting the pins to try to work out the layout of the diamond shapes.

9.71-9.72

9.8

9.9 not quite diamonds but an interesting scale pattern where the diamonds brake down.

I took a brake and worked on a few other projects as I wanted to get Ann’s opinion of the hand. She checked it out on October 21st before she got to work on the helm she was making. She said it looked like he was wearing fish net stockings.

Hummm…… OK, let me think about this, I had wondered about adding colour at one end to give a bit more demension.

I also had more jobs for the sale suddenly occur, so had to work on the hand between more computer work.

10.1-10.2

Its almost time for the exhibition so I better work faster.  I am adding shredded sari silk to one end of the diamonds.

At the sale there is always an exhibition, the theme changes and the size and even the location of the display changes yearly. This year was our Diamond (75th) anniversary of the Ottawa Guild. our original organizer Carl had problems at work going from a team of 3 to a team of 2 to a team of Carl who still had to do the work of 3 for the pay of 1. That just dosn’t seem fair. So he had to step down from  organizing the exhibit and we had Wendy step in at the last moment. She did a great job with a short lead time.

11.1-11.2

11.3

She did most of the assembly of the display on Friday night, with a bit shuffling she had a lovely display.

11.4

There were a couple of felted pieces in the exhibition that I thought  you might be most interested in.

12.1-12.2 Ann and Jan Collaboration Dragon hand in Helm with dimonds

#6 Ann McElroy and Jan Scott     Un-Named – we invite you to suggest a name,   Wet felt, Nuno Felt, Needle felt, Wool silk nylon polyester wire.

13.1-13.2 Molly’s Bracelet

#16 Molly Underhill       Diamond Eternity Bracelet,    Wet felting and bead work, Merino and silk, Glass Beads

After the Guild Sale weekend, Part of the Exhibition was hung  in the Gallery just outside of the Studio in Heartwood house (Ottawa).

14.1-14.2 the two main walls of the gallery

hand woven black purse with dimond shaped embelishments and mit with dimond pattern14.3) There is also the mitts and a small handwoven and embellished bag just around the corner.

Post script;

We decided we should have a photo shoot so you could see the collaboration a bit better.

First we took pictures of the assembled Helm, Hand and diamonds.

15.1-15.4 Photo shoot for the Helm, Hand and Diamonds

15.5-15.6 Attempted Cookie Thief

Afterwards, the Dragon hand seems to have discovered the last shortbread cookie, I think the Helm was taking note of the cookie too.   Can you see the frustration as the Dragon hand realizes I did not make a dragon mouth and stomach to go with it?  OH the Despair!!! Is Ann’s  helm getting closer, in case it can claim the cookie?

 

 

 

Third Quarter Challenge – Lyn’s Entry

Third Quarter Challenge – Lyn’s Entry

Today’s post is by Lyn from rosiepink

Yacht Heeling
Yacht Heeling

I enjoy the Studio Challenges because they encourage me to try different things.  Karen’s challenge for this quarter is ‘Mixed Media’  and after spending a day on Lepe Beach during Cowes Week, I just had to do a yacht.

My husband likes painting so I thought a joint project would be fun.  I gave him a rectangle of machine-made white felt  (45cm x 33cm /18″ x 13″) and asked him to paint a sea/sky background using water colours.  I thought water colours would look good on white felt, sort of fuzzy and pretty, and it did look good … but as it dried the paint sunk right down into the felt!

He painted the background again… then we sadly watched it fade as before.

We stared at the felt, and had a think, then decided to try watered down acrylic paints.  It looked lovely but we weren’t going to stand by and nervously watch.  We decided to be proactive.  Out came two hairdryers and we blow-dried the watery paint on the felt as quickly as possible.  Success!

I cut a hull and sails from beautifully textured, shiny dupion silk then laid the pieces onto the painted background.  Yuk.  It didn’t look good.  So I tried other ideas such as using scraps of handmade felt and various fabrics.  Nothing seemed to work so I pushed it to the edge of the table and even considered abandoning the idea.

My room was a real mess because I’d got out so much of my stash searching in vain for just the right thing.  I took a deep breath and started to tidy, and that’s when serendipity happened.  A scrap of lightweight interfacing material somehow landed on the painted sea.  It looked good.  It wasn’t too heavy, as the other fabrics and felt had been, it would be easy to stitch into place and I could colour it.

yacht spinnaker in the water - small imageI cut out the shapes I needed then ran ‘messy’ free stitching over the interfacing until I was happy that it looked like a yacht heeling.  I considered leaving the interfacing unpainted (and I wish I’d taken a photo at that stage) because it had a delicacy about it that I liked, but I’d planned on having a colourful spinnaker so I applied water colours to the interfacing.  I used an almost dry brush because I thought that if I made the colours too solid they would overpower the background.

When I’d finished, my husband added a little more white acrylic paint to the bottom of the spinnaker and the hull of the boat.

I liked working on the joint project but it wasn’t easy on my ears.  My husband sails so he felt obliged to impart his knowledge by frequently pointing out that my stitching of the yacht wasn’t anywhere near technically correct!

Thank you Karen – I’ve benefited a lot from your challenge.