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Nothing Spooky Here

Nothing Spooky Here

Comments 12 comments

Update on Maneki-Neko:

I took Lyn’s advice and made the whiskers from wire.  Here is the new look.  I also decided to put her on a pedestal to see out the window rather than sitting on the windowsill.  I found an old pot and turned it upside down, but I’m thinking gold may be better.  Although, when she’s in the window you can’t see the pot.

 

I recently realized I needed to carry on my tradition of giving each grandchild a pumpkin wall hanging.  I have a new grandson, Ken who arrived early in April.

But I didn’t really have a nice orange to make the pumpkin.  So, I made a batt using hand dyed Corriedale, a funky orange pink merino, bright orange coarse commercial fiber, gold merino, hand dyed Domestic 56s with Logwood from Cathy and a touch of white.  You can see the batt in the back.  I think the color turned out well.  I also used the merino/silk mix for the stem that I had used in the Edo challenge with the Sakura branches.

I had made a sketch of how I wanted the pumpkin to look.  A bit different than his sister Lisa’s girly pumpkin from last year.

Of course, I got into laying it out and cutting the prefelts and forgot to take pictures.  But here is Ken’s dried pumpkin.

Then after a little shave.

Now I guess I’d better start thinking about the upcoming holidays.  Did you do anything for Halloween?

Pandagirl’s 2017 3rd Quarter Challenge Part 1

Pandagirl’s 2017 3rd Quarter Challenge Part 1

Comments 25 comments

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do for the challenge of the Edo period in Japan.  I was drawn to the simple scrolls with flowers and branches.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2017/07/07/3rd-quarter-challenge-2017/

I scoured the museum sites and Pinterest.  I’ve been to Japan during Sakura (Cherry Blossom) season and particularly love the trees and flowers so it wasn’t too hard to narrow it down.

Since the scrolls seemed to be pale yellow, I made a batt backing then made another light batt using the Osage hand dyed merino and corriedale as a background. I added some darker fibers randomly to give the effect of lines in a scroll.

I had some left over merino/silk scraps from a scarf I had made for my son years ago.  They were supposed to be tassels, but I didn’t like them and cut them off and saved them.  But they make perfect tree branches.  Here is my first layout.

But something was off.  It didn’t feel right to me.  So, I rearranged the branches.

Next was to make white prefelt for the flowers (commercial wasn’t white enough) and cutting out the shapes in several sizes.  This was not an easy process. Here it is a wet look. The neat thing about the layout is that the branch can be down or up.

I didn’t want to felt it too hard.  But I may have to steam it before or after I add either hand or machine embroidery for details.

Actually the photo shows more texture than with the naked eye.

How do you like the branch, down or up?

 

 

2017 Second Quarter Challenge

2017 Second Quarter Challenge

Comments 18 comments

At the beginning of this quarter, Ann had posted about this quarters challenge theme being early Celtic.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2017/03/31/second-quarter-challenge-3/

I thought a lot about it and had several ideas, but wasn’t sure I could pull them off.  One of them was a pod with spirals.  Lyn got to it before me, but of course as she said, everyone does things differently.  So, I did.

I had some Llama yarn I hand dyed years ago in several colors.  I decided to use that for the spirals.  I made a little bit larger pod than usual in order to accommodate the design.  I laid one layer of Merino on each side, then two layers of Corriedale and a final layer of Merino.  I felt this would give the pod some substance.  Here is the start of the topside design.

Full design wetted down.

Bottom (I ran out of turquoise so I used yellow.)   I had actually had a yellow spiral on the bottom, but forgot to flip it over before starting the topside design so it ended up being cut out.

I did a lot of rubbing to get the design to stay, but the Llama was not cooperating.   It was felting to itself and not the Merino.  Frustrated, I let it dry out then needle felted the design in place.  That did the trick, but the Llama shed everywhere and blurred the design.

I tried shaving and shipping tape it but wasn’t helping.  So, I grabbed my tweezers and embroidery scissors and sat for an hour pulling long hairs out of the design.  There is still more I could have pulled out but goal was to get the black to look black and set off the design.

Much better.

I kept looking at the pod thinking it was out of shape, but it finally occurred to me it was an optical illusion because of the design.

As for the Llama, I thought I had used it before and if I did I didn’t remember it being problematic.  I don’t think I’ll be using it again.

Have you done the challenge yet?  You can post your work on the forum any time, but we’ll be announcing the next challenge soon.

It’s That Time of Year

It’s That Time of Year

Comments 14 comments

Instead of doing another crochet post, I thought I’d share my sister Carol’s good news.

On March 19, I received an email with pics of the latest additions to her sheep family. Twin girls!  They were born at 5 a.m. to Secret Seven. One weighed 10 lbs 15 oz and the other weighed 11 lbs.

The Mom is Dorset & Corriedale.  She was  bred with an East Friesian & Lacaune dairy ram for these cute little lambs. Carol’s granddaughter, Madison, named them Joy and Snowflake, for now.

I had written about her new sheep acquisition last year here:

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/04/25/welcome-to-the-family/

Carol is expecting her East Friesan/Lacaune dairy ewe will deliver this week.  Her other two Corriedale & Dorest mix will deliver next month.  She has 9 older sheep and the two babies at the moment.  Three Corriedale & Dorset ewes, three Corriedale  & Dorset wethers and two East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ewes and a East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ram.  She’s hoping to get a Corriedale ram this year.

I hadn’t heard of the Friesian or Lacaune breeds. So, I looked them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Friesian_sheep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacaune_(sheep)

Evidently, they are both known for their milk being used for gourmet cheeses.  So, my sister plans to milk two of them to make cheese.

While they will be busy with babies, they will also be shearing the sheep soon. Yes, I will be getting fleeces to play with!

 

 

 

 

More Natural Dyeing with Cochineal

More Natural Dyeing with Cochineal

Comments 26 comments

This is the last of my summer experiments with natural dyeing.  Cochineal are those little scale insects that are picked off of cacti.

cochineal

I’ve seen some really nice results using cochineal such as Nada’s experience she posted on the forum this summer.

As with my previous experiments, I used small amounts of silk habatoi, silk gauze, silk mulberry, wool yarn, and merino and corriedale rovings.  They were pre-mordanted.

The cochineal had to be ground.  I used a wooden mortar and pestle, then put them in a blender, then made it into a paste before adding boiling water.

The mixture was then left overnight before adding to the pot. (This was divided into three parts first to use with different modifiers.)

The first pot I used only cochineal.

20160625_155500The second I modified with cream of tartar.

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The last I added iron.

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After each batch was removed from the pot, I left it “cure” for two days.  Since I didn’t have both the a lot of room to spread them out I left them bunched up hence the lines. They also dried much lighter as you’ll see.

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This was cochineal with cream of tartar.  You can see the little bits of bugs on them.20160628_112634Once they were cured, I rinsed them out and hung them to dry.

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Cochineal only.

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With cream of tartar modifier. A nice bright pink.

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With the iron modifier.

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While the results were not exactly what I expected, I believe because the bugs weren’t finely ground I got lighter colors.  I may over dye the first batch when I find an electric grinder.  If I had to order cochineal again, I’d look for powder.

Have you done any natural dyeing lately?

 

 

 

Natural Dyeing with Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

Natural Dyeing with Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

Comments 16 comments

This summer I’ve been playing with a lot of natural dyes with the help of Cathy (Luvswool).  This is the third in my series of natural dyeing experiments.

As with the other dyeing sessions all the silk and wool rovings were mordanted with alum potassium sulfate.  I used the same silk habotai, silk gauze, silk organza, merino and corriedale roving and wool yarn as I did in my previous experiments.

I started with cutch which was in powder form.

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The colors for silk and wool were pretty much the same gold peach except for the the organza which seemed to soak up all the color.

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I decided that I wouldn’t use a modifier with the Cutch because I had enough browns and goldens.

So, I moved on to rhubarb liquid extract.

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The resulting colors were also in the peach/gold family.

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A couple of years ago Cathy and I had an indigo dyeing day.  I had a piece of dark crimped silk left over and decided to use this as a modifier for the second rhubarb batch.

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I thought perhaps I’d get a muted green, but here’s what I did get:

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There is a hint of green, but it’s not obvious in these pics. the silk gauze and habotai closest to a light turquoise.  The organza is dusky turquoise blue.  The wool is more of a baby blue.

Here is the indigo silk piece after being used as a modifier.  Still a nice indigo color.

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Have you done any natural dyeing this season?

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 2

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 2

Comments 23 comments

I’ve been trying out different natural dyes using similar materials.  This time I tried alkanet roots and logwood with and without iron.

Here are the alkanet roots before preparation which took two days to get ready to use.

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The logwood also had to be prepared ahead of time.

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Again, I used mordanted corriedale and merino roving, mulberry silk, wool yarn, silk habotai and silk gauze as I did in my previous post  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/06/28/playing-with-natural-dyes-part-1/

According to some of the charts I saw on the colors to expect from the alkanet roots, it could be anything from gray to deep purple.  I had also read it was possible for blues or even red.  As you can see from the pot, there was a light purple tinge to the water. The dye liquor was definitely dark purple but then it was diluted with the water.

aklanet only pot

 

The result was a silver gray.  For all the experiments I leave the pot to cool overnight to get the most color.  This was a lot less than i expected, but its a pretty color.

alkanet

The next step was to add iron to the pot with another set of materials.

alkanet with iron wet alkanet with iron

The top picture is wet, the bottom is dry.  So, I now have silver and gold colors.

Next was the logwood. From all the pictures I’d seen and roving Cathy had dyed in Arkansas I thought I would get some type of purple.  It looked pale in the pot.

logwood pot

So, I was surprised when it dried and it was more of a taupe color. But surprises are half the fun!  Then I added iron and did another batch.

logwood side by side logwood iron top wo bottom

The darker ones on the bottom are with the iron and its more of a charcoal color.

Again, these are all experiments and results can vary depending on water, temperature, etc.  While I had a little different expectations, I’m not unhappy with the results.  I can always overdye.

What have your experiences with natural dyeing been?

 

 

Welcome to the Family

Welcome to the Family

Comments 25 comments

I had a big surprise last week when my youngest sister Carol sent me pictures of the newest members of her family — three ewes and four lambs!

It was an even bigger surprise to her that I use wool for felting.  In her defense, she lives in central Wisconsin and has a farm and she, her husband and son run a real estate business.  They are a little busy themselves.

It should have been no shock since she’s been an animal lover since she was a toddler.  She’s managed a dairy farm, a pig farm and has had horses and cows of her own. Carol also has five Border Collies and felt they needed more exercise.  Sheep would be great for them to herd. When she saw the sheep it was love at first site.

None of the sheep are purebreds. She thinks they are Corriedale/Dorset mixes. The ewes were pregnant when she brought them home.  Since then the oldest Mom, Secret 7,  had twin boys.  Carol’s granddaughter Madison named them Salt and Pepper.

 

Jpeg

Jpeg

The black Mom, Dusty, had a dark black boy named Little Will.

Jpeg

The youngest Mom, Amira,  had a teeny little brown lamb with tan on her face Madison named Rosie.  She was very weak and they had to milk Amira and bottle feed Rosie because she couldn’t get up and walk. But an hour later she was on her feet.  They will let Rosie and Amira out of the lambing pen as long as Rosie is doing well.  She is very tiny.

Rosie

The sheep have only been introduced to the two older Border Collies, Belle who is 2 and a half and Misty who is 1 and a half.  They just visit and fuss over the baby lambs.  Misty thinks all the babies belong to her.  She loves them.

The three pups are only 10 months old and will get introduced to the lambs when the lambs are at least half grown.  They want the sheep to feel safe and comfortable in their own space.  They  are going to build a special round pen for that so it will be easier to control both the dogs and sheep.

Carol is already planning on buying a Corriedale ram this fall. So, the excitement will continue.

I wish we weren’t so far apart, but I’ve been promised fleece next year. so, I’m sure a trip is in order.  Another new adventure!  In the mean time, I’m enjoying the pictures and updates.

Thanks to my nephew Bill and his daughter Madison for the pictures and to Carol for sharing this exciting experience with us.

Scarflette with Locks

Scarflette with Locks

Comments 30 comments

I was inspired by Nada’s scarflette a while back and thought it would be a perfect way to use some of the locks I received from Zara.

I dyed some Merino, Corriedale, Romney and Cheviot wool along with some silk habatoi and silk mulberry using Silver Gray acid dye. Then made some batts with the wool and silk.

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I pre-washed some of the locks using Zara’s method posted on the forum using netting and soaking.  I wasn’t sure what color I would use, but chose dark gray Gotland locks.

zara

It was a simple scarf  layout, but not a simple process.  I had never used locks, so I wasn’t sure how to space the locks. I anticipated a 30% shrinkage.  I needle felted the locks between two layers of batts using similar sizes and shapes. I also wanted a silk nuno close to the skin. I wet down the batts then added the silk on the back then proceeded with felting being very careful not to let the locks migrate or felt.  I worked slow and was attentive to the locks.

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What I didn’t expect was that not all the silk would get nuno felted.  I even added some fiber at the beginning of the process to those areas. No deal.  I worked diligently on those areas, but no change.

I was ready to throw it in the lost pile.  The locks were fuzzy, some of the silk wasn’t felted.  I left it for a couple of days and decided I’d make it work.  I knew it was fruitless to try to continue to felt.  The felt was solid. I originally had the design drape to one side and was going to cut the ends at an angle, but I folded over the nuno side to create a collar and liked that better.  The silk was a bit larger so I just let it ruffle over the edges.

20160125_111715I had to do some stitching to hold the silk on  in places.  But its pretty much invisible.

20160125_11140320160125_111425Originally, I envisioned a cool button on the front, but ended up with a snap on the inside. The button I had purchased would be hidden by the overlap.

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I wetted the wild locks and used a little leave in conditioner on them.  Not perfect, but my husband walked by while it was sitting on the counter and remarked on how beautiful it was.  (I never mentioned what I was working on or my disappointment. So, I guess it wasn’t a failure.)

I need to work on my locks skills.  I have no idea what happened to the nuno especially since my ginkgo piece turned out so well. Or why the locks turned fuzzy.

Any ideas?

 

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

Comments 18 comments

Lately, I’ve tried to step out of my comfort zone with color and fiber and try some new things.

While this first example doesn’t look like it’s outside of my usual color palette, I did use some silk for nuno on this clutch and some coarser fibers like Corriedale that I made for my daughter in law.  The nuno is not as noticeable as I’d like, but I think it still adds a nice texture to it.

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Revisiting pods, I decided to really jump out of my comfort zone and use bold primaries on a black background. (It is a bit like some of Pollack style pictures I did for last year’s challenge.)

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Another project I’ve worked on was  hand dyed silk I made a while back.  I decided I didn’t want a long scarf so I cut the piece in half.  I used very little wool wisps on one side.  The joke was on me when I was finished felting.  It could be a scarf for a doll!  It had been a while since I did nuno and evidently forgot about the big shrinkage rate for silk gauze.  I do like it though.  I think I could wear it as a collar if not a scarf.

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Most recently, I decided to play with some neutrals and coarser wools.  Cathy (Luvswool) was nice enough to give me some of the Domestic 56  wool she had dyed in Arkansas with plants. I really liked the colors. I made a batt with cream and brown Corriedale and another with some of the  hand dyed Domestic 56 for added color. I used a resist open at the top and bottom. The cream and brown became my inner layer.

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I really liked the subtle colors against the neutrals.  The coarser fibers also added to the texture for a natural open look.

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Having progressed through these projects, I have a whole new outlook on textures and colors that I hope to incorporate into my future art.

What have you done outside your comfort zone lately?

 

 

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