felt dimension – Felting and Fiber Studio

A Glimpse of Free Motion Class Projects

June 5, 2017 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 14 comments

I took Ruth’s Free Motion Stitching on Felt class in March. While I have done some free motion before, it was good for me to stay on task to practice and learn some more about it. We covered the basics of the machine, moving the fabric, supplies and set up.

At first we practiced a lot of lines, loops and circles to get used to moving the fabric and felt around under the needle. I definitely needed a lot of practice.

The first piece of felt I practiced on to create dimension was a sample I had done a while back using some scraps of silk paper. If you look closely you can see circles. However, the felt was just a bit too thick to create too much dimension.

Here is the sample of machine lace I did. I used a flower pattern which turned out to be too open. It looked better before I felted it. It’s laying on a piece of paper, but if I were to hold it up to the light it would look like a window.

I did more of the thread sketching and started to feel more comfortable and confident.

Here is some coral in the water.

My Bird of Paradise. Here I filled in the back of the leaf where it turned over, but I didn’t like it so I tore out the filling which isn’t fun in felt.

I probably should have just made the leaf whole.

Cathy (Luvswool) had given me some of her felt scraps and I really liked this red piece. (Thanks!) I debated what I could put on it to make use of the red. Then I decided on a bare tree and some stones and birds. I call it Red Dawn.

I used metallic thread on the stones because I felt if they were dewy they would probably reflect differently in the red dawn.

I haven’t finished my final project, but will share that when I do. It was a great class and it helped me gain confidence and skill. I still need more practice but feel I made progress.

Looking For Dimension

July 20, 2016 zedster66 Comments 14 comments

I thought I’d try out a couple of things inspired by Marilyn’s challenge. A while ago, I bought some ‘budget filling‘ from World of Wool, with the intention of using it to make texturey felt or try it as a weird texturey surface effect, but I’d never got around to it. I thought I’d just try a smallish sample piece to see how it worked. I laid out a couple of regular layers of an Olive Merino, then added a pile of the filling:

I covered it with another 2 layers of Merino in greens and browns, I’m not sure you can tell there’s a mound from this photo:

I think the wool content must be quite high, because it flattened quickly and didn’t ‘bounce back’ after drying, it’s not very obvious (not as obvious as that face on the right!):

It’s a bit more evident at an angle, though most noticeable is the migration of the fibres through to the top:

Even looking along the surface there’s not much thickness, though the wavy edges show it did have an effect overall:

The other thing I tried was using organza. I had a tangle of strips, bits and unravellings in the bottom of my organza box. I laid out some of the separate strips onto some netting, and added the shorter/tangled bits in between:

You can see the tangle of fibres here:

And here, too:

Then I added a couple of regular layers of Merino over the top and then felted the way I usually do. I was expecting a bit more texture and more loose bits: