dyeing – Page 3 – Felting and Fiber Studio

Visit to Waldron Grove Alpaca Farm

May 12, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 14 comments

Last weekend, I took a little ride to the Waldron Grove Alpaca Farm in Campton Hills, Illinois for their annual Open House and Art Sale. The two day event featured their 30 Suri alpacas and an array of handmade items for sale and demonstrations by five featured artists.

The farm is owned by Susan and Ron Waldron since 2003. Susan is an oil painter and felter. She combines needle and wet felting using her Suri Alpaca fleece exclusively for her designs. She and Ron also specialize in alpaca farm start ups.

The alpacas are a little shy so they kept to themselves, but it was fun watching them in the field. Susan had two wonderful weather days for the event. (Lately, our weather has been very iffy.) A little windy but sunny and warm.

The garage was filled with wonderful art pieces for sale. While I was there I was able to watch a spinning and drop spindle demonstration by Laurie McGee who is a dyer, spinner, weaver and knitter. She also makes custom yarn, hand combed tops and gives spinning lessons.

There were many of Susan’s oil paintings, tapestries, silk scarves, shawls, silk coverups and clothing beautifully displayed around the area. She also sells alpaca needle felting kits featuring alpacas, irises, and other flowers. You can learn more about Waldron Grove at www.susanwaldronart.com

LuAnn Toborg and Anita Riemer were manning the cash register while I was there and I had an opportunity to talk to both of them.

LuAnn specializes in hand dyeing yarn with natural plants, berries and flowers.

Anita creates dyed yarn with acid dyes and makes cowls, scarves, hats, felted wallets, jewelry and baby blankets.

While I was there, Susan demonstrated needle felting and hand carding for her guests. She’s modeling a wool jacket she embellished with alpaca.

Of course, I bought some alpaca to play with. I also arranged to come back to take a lesson on using the needle felting machine.

It was a fun afternoon talking with fellow felters and artists and perusing all the wonderful works of art available for sale.

What special events have you attended recently? Remember, if you have a project or event you’d like to blog about, please contact one of the moderators and let us know.

Ready, set… plan!

May 4, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 15 comments

Have you thought about what your goal is for your business? To help you incorporate the marketing concepts we’ve previously discussed into a marketing strategy to understand your goal, I am going to use the Felt and Fiber Studio Forum as an example of a business.

goals

Here is a quick recap of our previous marketing concepts blogs:

The six P’s of marketing — Product, Price, Promotion, Placement, Positioning, PR/Publicity and People
The customer is key.
Identifying customer problems and product benefits (Ideal buyers — our strategic assets)
Communicating with customers for market research

With these concepts in mind, we’ll develop a marketing goal which will be the basis of a marketing plan for the Forum.

Marketing and PR Strategy Planning Template for:

Company — Felt and Fiber Studio Forum

Who (members/customers)
- Fiber enthusiasts from all over the world working/playing in a variety of art forms

What (problems the forum solves for members) also the Forum Product
- Information, sharing, techniques, resources, engaging experts, experience, problem solving
- What actions does the Forum want members to take
  - Participation

Why (How is the forum remarkable?) (Positioning)
- It is self supported, membership of experienced to novice fiber enthusiasts around the world, full of resources for a variety of fiber arts, free to the user (Price)

Where
- Website online (Placement ) http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com , Studio blog http://feltingandfiberstudio.com, Facebook (PR/Publicity and Promotion)

How
- Personality — friendly, giving, nonjudgmental (Positioning)
- Creative/Design (Look and feel) — fiber graphic, easy to navigate (Positioning)
- Tone of Voice — casual (Positioning)
- Keyword Phrases — Fiber, Nuno Felting, Weaving, Knitting, Dyeing, Needle Felting, Wet Felting, Spinning, Crocheting, Surface Design, Business, Fiber Festivals, Studio Challenges, Wool and Other Fibers, Hand Stitching, Machine Stitching, Fiber Marketplace, General Discussion, Shows and Classes, Take a Stitch Tuesday, Beads/Beading (PR/Publicity and Promotion) — This is how members find us with search words in addition to word of mouth.
- Marketing Tactics and Content Strategy –Blog, Facebook, free tutorials, quarterly challenges, quarterly newsletter, welcome email, occasional giveaways, holiday exchange, resources for information, supplies, tools, links to other blogs, resources (Network of People and Promotion)

When — Things to do today, next week (Actions to take)
- Blog posts every other day by Moderators or guests (Promotion)
- Monitor posts daily, encourage members to post new projects, questions, resources, events

Generally, the goal of the Felt and Fiber Studio Forum is to build a community of fiber enthusiasts who can share their work, ideas, techniques, resources and get information and questions answered in a friendly, caring environment.

The Driving Action for the goals of the Forum are primarily:

Participation
- Registering to be a member
- Like on Facebook
- Subscribe to the Studio blog
- Participate in conversations and/or challenges on the Forum
Download free tutorials
Ask questions, submit projects, tutorials, resources (share)
Refer the Forum to friends (word of mouth)

This is a road map of the thought process of planning our marketing strategy and understanding our business goals. You can use this as a general guideline to ask yourselves the same questions about your business.

Ready, set….plan! What does your road map look like?

Look for more discussion on the Forum http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com

Inspiration, etc.

April 26, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 20 comments

Usually, I find inspiration in nature or another artists work. But recently I saw an ad in a department store flyer for a bedspread that caught my eye. I kept going back to it until I finally I cut the picture out and laid it on my work table.

It stayed there for a while and I kept asking myself what about it that kept drawing me back to it. I didn’t need a bedspread, but there was something about the colors and design I found intriguing. The design looked as if the colors were painted with a brush and there were uneven lines like paint dripping down the wall.

I was in the process of trying to come up with a design for a book cover and thought I’d use the design elements I liked in the ad for that.

I measured meticulously for the the book cover allowing for fold over sides, shrinkage, straps, etc. With my template finished, I laid out my design. I really wanted to emulate that brush feel, so I even used a comb to separate the fibers. For the paint squiggles, I used mohair yarn I had dyed.

However, once it was done I realized I couldn’t use it for the cover. I would distort the design to cut the straps. So, plan B — a pillow. I had a pillow form that would work just fine. The felted piece was a little too large so I wet it and threw it in the dryer. Perfect. But now I needed a back.

The white wool I used was more of a light cream color, so I didn’t want to make a white back. I had enough dark blue. Again, I wanted to try to recreate that brush stroke. I made a smaller template and proceeded to lay out the second side.

Since the finished piece was the right size, I didn’t have to put it in the dryer. Consequently, it is smoother than the white side which is fine. I sewed the pieces together and now I have a reversible pillow with two different textures and looks!

The brush stroke design wasn’t exactly what I wanted. The felting process tightened up all my careful combing, but I learned a lot and will try again.

I really liked the dark blue color and wanted to dye some new thick and thin yarn I purchased to use on another project.

Of course, even though I have a variety of thick and thin yarns this dark blue wasn’t one of them. I found this new Ashland Bay yarn and just love the texture and novelty of the twist.

The Midnight Blue acid dye on my shelf was just what I wanted. I thought. Next to the dark blue it looks purple. The silk cocoons I threw into the dye pot turned a light purple and the wool batting is a medium purple. It’s a good thing I like purple as well.

Now back to the drawing board!

Felting with friends: scarves, dying and more bags.

April 14, 2014 Shepherdessann Comments 23 comments

On our felting week end Maureen decided to do scarves. She wanted to try out some 50/50 merino silk that she had. She laid out the wool quite thin and rubbed it into prefelt.

Once it was prefelt she spun the water out of it and started cutting it. She made slits that she then stretched out and started fulling. You stretch and full, stretch and full and end up with great holes.

Next was into the dye pot. Although the scarf turned out great, it did not show off the silk. Usually the silk and wool take the dye a little differently, with this blend I was all one. We decided that it was because the it was to well blended.

Maureen did 2 more scarves one in the same style and one solid. Sorry the pictures of them did not turn out.

Diane hasn’t done a lot of dying so Diane and Maureen dyed some silk chiffon. The silk was twisted and dyed with several colors.

On the last afternoon I decided to make a bag for my mothers birthday.

The inside of the bag will have a red stripe. I used a combination of commercial prefelt and top. I also added some Blue Faced Lester wool to add some strength and stiffen it.

This is the outside. There is black next to the resist and the white on top. I wanted the black to migrate through the white and make a light gray. This is the finished bag. its reversible.

Diane decided she wanted a new shopping bag. She started out huge and did many layers of prefelt and wool.

Here she is fulling it

You can see it did shrink but just after this she gave up and said she will put it in the washer at home to see if she can shrink it more. At this point it is a large sturdy basket.

This is our group shot. We were very busy. You can see Maureen’s two scarves on the left.

The one on the right was one Maureen had made recently, added just the balance the picture. And finally that was the end of the weekend. We needed to go home and rest.

Refelting and Redying

October 26, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

I had a scarf and a wrap that where not selling and well where really not that great looking. Both had to much open space. The green one in particular. They were also not great colours. The pinky one is very coral and the wool was faded looking even though it was just the way it dyed. You can see the original wool on the top half of the picture it is much paler than the new dark wool on the bottom.

Originally the green one just had the felt squares so I flipped it over and added long winding strips in the same colour and with the same yarn. Now there is texture and colour on both sides. On the pinky one I flipped it over and added a wiggly line between the ones that where already on the other side.

I don’t like the silk colour on the green one and I don’t like the silk or pale wool on the pinky one. They had to be redyed. The pink one went into a pumpkin spice acid dye bath.

the green one I didn’t want the wool to change colour so I used MX dye. I soaked the scarf in water and PH up (soda ash) and then into a darker green dye bath.

This is the finished product.

The pinky one is a nice rich deep orange now and the green is more of an olive shade now that goes better with the wool.

When I took the orange one out of the dye bath there was still dye in the water so I put a piece of silk and some washed but not carded wool into the bath and this is what I got out.

The wool and the silk were in the dye bath at the same time and for the same length of time. Silk really sucks up the dye, fast.

Playing With ‘Natural’ Dyes

August 2, 2013 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

Have you tried ‘natural dyeing’ or dyeing with things you commonly find around the house such as tea, beetroot or food dyes? I had a bit of a dabble this week. I made some camera cases out of felt which was made with natural white/cream coloured wools and fibres. I wanted to blanket stitch them with natural thread, but only had enough for one case and didn’t feel like spinning any more up. The white cotton perle 5 thread and white embroidery floss I had was super bright white. This is the Perle cotton with my handspun natural thread.

I had lots of white embroidery floss, so I thought I’d see if I could colour them with what I had available. The first thing I tried was tea, I put a couple of used tea bags in a tub with boiling water and put the thread in. It looked too pinky, I rinsed out as much as possible but it wasn’t right. The next thing I tried was coffee, I left some ground coffee ‘brewing’ in hot water for a few minutes, then sieved out the grounds. I just left the thread in a short time and rinsed well, it was more of a beige, but still on the pinkish side. The Coffee is on the left and the tea on the right, with a bright white for comparison.

I left another skein of floss in coffee for longer then tried some onion skins. I’ve been saving red onion skins for a while so I thought I’d give them a try since I was making a mess anyway 🙂 I broke up some of the papery skins and added hot water, I put the thread in and left it while the skins ‘stewed’ for a while. It turned out a nice light pink. The onion skins is on the left and coffee on the right.

I also left a skein of yellow in the brewed coffee for a while, to take some of the brightness off. There’s a skein of the original colour for comparison.

The next thing I tried was turmeric. I know from making curries and dahls that turmeric stains plastic containers, so hoped a small amount would tint my thread. I sprinkled a small amount in a tub and added hot water, it seemed to dark, so I added more. And more. I dipped the end of some cotton perle 5 into the tub and rinsed immediately, but even this quick in-and-out stained it a bright yellow. I put the whole lot in and left about 30 seconds and rinsed.

The turmeric was a gorgeous colour, nice and bright, but much more natural than the dyed bright yellow, the turmeric is on the top, the bottom is the bought dyed yellow:

I don’t know what to try next. I tried bleach on a cotton thread the colour of sweetcorn silks, but it didn’t change. I might just have to get the spindle out, but does anyone have any ideas for what I could try? Actually, any tips at all for ‘natural’ dyeing would be great, it’d be nice to be able to make some custom colours now and again 🙂

Coming up on Monday we have a guest article from rosiepink about what running a small fibre business entails.

Wool for Sheep

July 6, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

In my last post I talked about getting some felted body parts ready for making sheep pins. http://wp.me/p1WEqk-1o2 The other thing the sheep need so they will not be naked is wool.

First I had to pick curls out of a Blue Faced Leicester Sheep fleece I have. After having done this you appreciate why buying prepared curls costs so much. It takes for ever to pull the little curls out. This is something you do chatting with friends or watching TV.

The next part is more fun. My sheep like to have colourful fleeces so they must have their wool dyed pretty colours. I soak the wool while I am picking out dye colours. They take up dye more evenly that way. Sometimes I do not soak them so they dye unevenly. You get some interesting results that way. Usually they end up 2 tone. I use acid dyes.

I dye the curls in small batches in some small plastic containers I got at the dollar store.

I add the premixed dye and then some extra water to just cover the wool. Then into the microwave for a minuet or two. When it comes out I transfer the wool and dye to a zip lock baggy to sit until it is cool.

I do it this way because when I have tried putting a zip lock bag in the microwave sometimes it get too hot in just one spot and a hole melts in the bag. This way is a little more work but no holes in the bags.

I also over dyed some locks I had done earlier. I think they were done with onion skins. They where a horrible yellow shade I wouldn’t use for anything. The don’t look to bad in the picture but in person, yuck.

I decided on brown and black. I already had lots of green and some orange. They both came out brown. I could do the black again to make it go black but the brown is a nice shade so I will leave it. They are the two at the bottom of the picture. Sorry about the quality of the picture but it was too windy to go outside for a picture.

Now all I have to do is put all the parts and the curls together.

Around the Web

June 2, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 4 comments

Lorraine Roy Art Textiles

Ann Wood’s Toadstools

Celebrity Face Dresses by Erin Pearce

Father’s Day Ideas from Rosie Pink

Principally Felt Ribbon and Scrim Experiment

Fiona’s Red Textures

Ruth’s Umbrella Felting

Sandy’s Needle Felted Flower

Frauke Felt’s Dyeing

Directions and Photos for Skirting a Fleece

Nuno Challenge Experiment One

May 27, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 21 comments

The second quarter challenge over on the http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/ is mine but I have yet to start. Today I started. Months ago I made a shrug jacket and then died it blue. It would not stop bleeding. I rinsed it for days. Changing the water several times a day. I reheated it in vinegar water and still it bleeds, so I gave up. with all the work it has great texture.

To get the great texture it shrank a lot. It will no longer fit anyone.

Next I unpicked the sewing. Not an easy task. The stitching was really sunk into the felt. Next it was into the washer. I have a front loader. I hope it works well it isn’t as aggressive as at top loader. I have shrunk a sweater down from an extra-large to a child’s small in it so I had high hopes.

Here is the finished twice washed piece. The red piece is the original finished sized before all the rinsing and washing. The coke can is for size reference.

Here are the close-ups. The texture is much tighter and the piece is much stiffer.

The biggest surprise was that there are definite lines of wool on the silk side. I am imagine it’s where each rows of wool overlapped. I only laid the wool in one direction for this piece.

Dyeing for Class

April 29, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 16 comments

This weekend and next I am teaching nuno felt scarves. I had to dye silk for bases and wool so there would be a good variety to work with.

For the scarves I used the scrunch method in mason jars. To do this you use fiber reactive dyes. You have to pack you scarf blanks tightly into a container. Next use 2 colours, pouring one then the other over the silk so that it is covered. After 10 min to an hour you pour the sodium carbonate over the whole thing. Then leave it for at least an hour but really can leave it till tomorrow if you need to. When you rinse you get great mixed patterns. For complete instructions go to Paula Burch’s amazing dye site. http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/lowwaterimmersion.shtml

I also renewed dyed wool supply. I spent 2 days with a large pot dying in 100 gram lots. this is two thirds. of the wool I split one third off each ball and fluffed them out for the students to use.

There are a couple of colours that are from using up the dye left in the pot after doing a colour. I hope my student like the colours I picked.

Felting and Fiber Studio

An International Collective of Felt and Fiber Artists

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Visit to Waldron Grove Alpaca Farm

May 12, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 14 comments

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Ready, set… plan!

May 4, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 15 comments

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Inspiration, etc.

April 26, 2014 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 20 comments

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Refelting and Redying

October 26, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

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Playing With ‘Natural’ Dyes

August 2, 2013 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

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Wool for Sheep

July 6, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

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Around the Web

June 2, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 4 comments

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Nuno Challenge Experiment One

May 27, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 21 comments

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Dyeing for Class

April 29, 2013 Shepherdessann Comments 16 comments

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