Browsed by
Tag: felt landscape

A Felt Landscape Class with Jan

A Felt Landscape Class with Jan

Comments 13 comments

I keep wanting to take this class with Jan, but it always seems to get scheduled when I have a class the next day or when I am at the Farmers Market. I finally got to sign up. My class was scheduled before Jan’s. Then I got the dates for the Christmas markets. The hat class was planned for the day after the last market. It would have to move. I would still be exhausted the day after the market. I don’t want to do that to the students or myself. So now I am taking Jan’s class on Saturday and teaching Felt hats on Sunday. I am sure it will be fine. I got all ready for my class early in the week, so all I have to do is load the car on Sunday morning.

To start, Jan emailed us some pictures so we could choose what we wanted to make. There was one I really liked, but thought it needed something else. So I had a chat with Jan about that. She does say you are the God of your picture. And she never does what everyone else is doing when she takes my classes. I went searching on the internet to see if I could find what I wanted to add. I did not have much luck. Google thinks it knows what I want to look at even when it doesn’t match what I put in the search. I found out later that I should try the in cogneto mode to get better results. Jan sent me a couple of pictures, and I found what I wanted.

I picked the one on the top right, but wanted to add a small shed. I know you were expecting one of the ones with sheep, weren’t you?

At the workshop, Jan had lots of her work to show us, to help us understand what we were doing.

 

 

Jan gave us lots of information about different ways to work. She explained all the needles she had given us to try out. You can see them stuck in the orange noodle. She included different versions of our pictures to help us pick out the wool we needed.

Then we had to pick our wool. She had a lot of wool. The bags covered 3 6-foot tables. There were also several books on the table for us to look at. I have no picture of the books. We were all wanting to get stabbing. I will ask Jan to look at the landscape book she has that I haven’t looked at before.

On to working. I chose to do a rough outline of where things were by holding the thin felt over the picture on a window. It was fun and absorbing, so I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have.

My friend Judy took this picture of me working.

This was my neighbour, she was working on a musk ox picture.

And here is a shot down the tables, of others busy stabbing away.

After adding the fog, I put in a little shack.

As we neared the end of the day, I went to add another layer of trees in front of the fog, but I couldn’t get them right at all. I think I was done with trees for the day. So I added the snow in the foreground. I may add the grass with stitching.

So now it is a few days later, and looking at the pictures, I can see the fog needs to fade out more. And maybe not cover all the trees. I will remove the tree trunks and fix the shack door.  Taking a picture really shows you what you can’t see looking at it live. I am not sure where I will go with the trees. I think I swapped the picture I wanted with a darker one. I may bring the fog down and add a few trees in the mid-ground, maybe with some snow on them.  We will see. I will take it to guild socials and continue.

Jan included a large instruction manual for us( 32 pages) in case we want to do another picture and forget everything we were told (completely possible, there was a lot to learn).

I think we all need to pester Jan to make this an online class or a book.  She has so much of it already done.

top of landscape sowing sky sea and rocks with cut outs from the oican
Maureen Shared her vacation, which became A Little Needle Felted Landscape

Maureen Shared her vacation, which became A Little Needle Felted Landscape

Comments 20 comments

I know some of us are very lucky to live near an active guild.  Many fibre arts people don’t have that source of fibre friends and inspiration. One of our guild members was on a road trip. She kindly brought us along vicariously through her posted shots.  Some were of the spots where she had stopped and spun yarn. One of the shots she shared with the guild particularly caught my eye.  It was a good composition, but the tilt of the horizon bothered me.  I could fix that…..

the original photo of Maureen’s Vacation spinning picture “spinning in front to the Arches at Arches Provincial Park”. not the odd tilt of the horizen. 1) Maureen’s Vacation spinning picture “spinning in front to the Arches at Arches Provincial Park”

Tuesday, July 09th: I was at the Kanata Games Club on Tuesday night, Glenn was busy and I had wool, a nametag size piece of green wool, needles, and scissors, now where is my felting mat and the fine Sharpie I thought I had?  Ok give me a minute, I know where the dollar store is, just down the hill from the gaming. It’s a bit too far to go with the walker, but really close by car. I was back with a garden foam kneeling pad and 3 fine sharps (and snacks) by 6:30 pm.

one print out of the photo to use as a template and another few to use as reference. i have croped the picknick table and some of the width mostly trees2) 6:30-ish pm at the Kanata Games Club.

The piece of green I had grabbed was a bit shorter in length than I wanted. It was also not as rectangular as I would have liked. It’s wool, So not a problem!!! I just added more wool fibre to make it the size I needed.  A bit of work with the Clover multie-needle tool and I had a solid felt base the size I wanted.

I am again using the template method of image transfer and a bit of divine editing of the angle of the horizon.

template method; cutting out the sky then using the remaining image to mark the sky, i have flatened the horizen so the picture is now on a slight angle. i did not add reference marks since the image fit over the felt i was working on. that will come back to hont me later.3) Cutting off the sky and then straightening the Horizon.

sky and horizen in, fixing not squaire felt base 4) Straitened the horizon, and squared up the short corner of felt.

cutting the next section of the photo out and then adding the sea5) cutting the next section out and then adding the sea

Cutting out the rock and the next section of ocean.6) Cutting out the rock and the next section of the ocean.

Continuing to cut away a section of the photo, draw in the new edge then felt in the open area7) Continuing to cut away a section of the photo, draw in the new edge then felt in the open area

I am not the fastest of feltres, this is about 3.5 hours.  Glenn has just finished his gaming and it is time for me to pack up and head home. I am pleased with the progress so far.

 

Wednesday, July 10th:

Resumed felting, ……time for a break, I got over-focused on felting.  Where did I put the camera? On drat, I missed a big chunk of time,  I had better stop for a photo break.

Continuing to cut out a section, then use sharpie to denote the edge, then add wool. replacing the remaining picture to check angles.8.1-8.2) Continuing to cut out a section, then use a sharpie to denote the edge, then add wool.

Laying over the un-felted space with the remains of the reference photo, to see how the image is coming along. You can also see that I have stuck the wool mat in a heavy freezer zip-lock bag. It has not entirely kept the fiber from transferring but the migration has been reduced drastically. This is the third name tag/ picture I have been working with the green base wool on this wool pad. I have been using the same side of the pad but now have rotated the plastic bag. I should last till the end of this picture then I will likely change it for another freezer bag. If you are curious let me know and we can investigate this further, looking into ways to reduce wool transfer to your work surface.

9) My Reference image is now on the computer, note zip lock baggie with all pieces that have been cut out so far.9) My Reference image is now on the computer, note the zip lock baggie with all the pieces that have been cut out so far. it’s above the Right corner of the felting.

I now have my reference image up on the computer, as I am working while waiting for Marie, from Texas, to start Wooly Wednesday on YouTube. You can see the parts of the image I have already cut off in a zip lock baggie so I can refer to them if I need to. (such as the area at the top left where I still need to add a tree in front of the water I have already felted.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 10.1-10.2) This felting experience was enhanced by the nibbling of blackberries,  just make sure your fingers are clean before getting back to the wool. note the Sharpie it’s double ended (Fine and Extra fine tip)

I am now adding the outline for the right arm. In addition, note the double-ended sharpie (Fine/Extra Fine), and the heavy zip lock bag over my wool felting mat is reducing the amount of wool wanting to transfer into the pad. Blackberries are also very inspirational but don’t let them change the colour of your fingers and then your wool.

the arm is in11) Arm is in

adding shorts12) adding shorts

this is about at 10.5 hours13) This is about 10.5 hours

I still have a lot of detail work to do adding all the flowers a bit more edge defining and tree extensions. But I am quite pleased so far. Time for bed.

 

Thursday;  Finished writing my blog post for the 14th and started writing this one. Ok, I am as slow at writing, as I am at felting. (I did wind up writing about Ann’s Name tag before getting back to finish this one.)

 

Monday, July 15h: I brought the little landscape in to get Ann’s opinion. She said it looked like Maureen’s hair was curly I will try to fix that. I also consulted on the sheep name tag I was making for her.

picture in zip lock bagie, held on to shelf by a magnaet.14) Waiting for a consultation with Ann and I was working on her sheep name tag

I worked a little bit on Wednesday and got the tree in the top left corner blocked in. as you will see when I got back to work at the social. I like to be able to put a piece down and think about what I want to do next, decide on my options and then look at it again with fresh eyes and Reassess.

 

Monday, July 22nd:

By this point, it’s getting down to details and finishing touches. You can’t tell but in person, the straw yellow is not as embedded and solid as it looks in the photo.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

15.1-15.2) Assessing the progress I have made so far.

I have added a bit of a suggestion of wildflowers and fussed with the green undertones but something is not yet right.

Helping your brain to not just look, but see what it’s looking at can be challenging.

When you are working and get to the point you are unsure, it may be that your eye and your brain are arguing.

The eye says “this is what I am looking at” and the brain says “I know what a tree looks like! I don’t have to look at another tree” There are a few ways to help the brain pay attention and actually see what it is looking at. Here are a few I learned while painting but can be applied to felting too (which is painting with wool).

  • Use a mirror to look at your felt image. By reversing the image, it gives a fresh perspective and often you can see a proportion or angle that is not quite right.
  • Photography (camera, cell phone, iPad); look at the felt image as a digital image. You often will spot something off in the photo you did not notice in the work. You can also digitize the image you are working from. It lets you scroll in close to part of the painting to see details,
    • see the image in black and white or
    • oversaturate the image with colour to see hidden colours.
  • rotate your image and reference until it’s upside down (inverted). It becomes easier to see negative space and spatial relationships when the image is not looked at in the usual way.
  • Set your work and image look at it sitting vertically (on an easel or propped up against something so you are not looking down at it) Step back and look at the work.
  • Take a break, go do something else. Come back with “Fresh eyes”.

16) ways to help your brain see what you are looking at 16) ways to help your brain see what you are looking at

Remember that it’s your image, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same unless you want it to be. You can be the god of your landscape and move a tree, make a shrub shorter or fuller or remove it. Do you feel the image needs more sky? Then add it. As long as the image makes sense  (no double points of light sources unless you are on an alien planet with 2 suns) it will be believable. You are unlikely to hang the photo reference beside your finished piece, so move a tree if it offends you. If you are working on a portrait, you have to be a bit more accurate. Then use the above suggestions to help get as close as you can to the original.

I have put my piece aside, so I can think about it and see the image with fresh eyes before I finish the fine details. So I have switched to work on another little project for Ann. (which you  have seen; https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2024/07/24/name-tag-sneaky/ .) Next time i will show you what i find and how i fix it. Have fun and keep felting!!

 

Late Bloomers Finished?

Late Bloomers Finished?

Comments 12 comments

I had showed you this background a couple of post ago and was planning on free motion machine stitching a meadow scene.

I started with some background grasses in a couple of rows. If I do this again, I think I would stitch only one row and make the grasses longer.

Then I began couching down some different yarns with machine stitching.

I decided I should go ahead and stitch in the main focal flowers now so I wouldn’t fill up their space with grass. I couched down the green yarn for stems and then stitched heavily over a piece of purple felt for the flowers.

I decided the piece needed some more skinnier lines and some darker values. So I stitched the weedy bits in dark brown. These would have been easier if they were stitched before the larger grasses.

I then added some dark green weedy bits to the left hand side and couched some lighter green yarn down across the foreground. As you can see, I started looking at the piece in a “frame” since that was how it would be presented. What else did I need?

I decided the flowers needed some leaves so I used more of the same green yarn and pulled it apart a bit to get more width for the leaves. Was it finished? There was something bothering me on the right hand side. Do you see the brown grasses forming an ellipse? It seemed to draw my eye too much. So a bit of unstitching was necessary.

Now here it is after a bit of grass removal. Is it finished? I will leave it hanging on my design board for a few days to decide. I think I will add a bit of darkness to a couple of stems just right of center. Probably with a marker or a bit of paint.

What do you think? Is it finished?

Small Autumn Meadow Piece

Small Autumn Meadow Piece

Comments 10 comments

I have been thinking about creating a meadow themed landscape for a while so I decided to do a smaller piece (about 8″ x 10″) to try out some different ideas.

I found a nice background from my stash, that is nuno felted and has an upper plain felt portion. The only problem was it wasn’t 8″ wide. I want to be able to frame this piece with a standard frame so that it doesn’t have to have a custom frame. Looking through my boxes of felt pieces, I found the upper darker blue piece that would add enough to the total to get to 8″ in height. I think it is a screen printed piece but I really can’t remember. Some of the stuff in my stash is really old and needs to be used up.

Now to connect them together. The simplest plan was to needle felt them together. I made the light blue felt uneven by cutting it as I didn’t want to see a straight line working it’s way through. Then I needle felted the two together and this is the result.

Next, I looked through my many boxes of yarn bits. These are the ones that I decided to try. I want the scene to look like autumn grasses and seed heads. Some of the choices didn’t get used but now I needed to sample them and see how I wanted the stitching to look.

Luckily, I have more of the nuno background to use as a sample. This piece is about 3″ x 6″ as I only wanted to try out the different colors and practice a little free motion machine embroidery before I started on the main piece. I did put a thin interfacing on the back to stabilize the felt. I like most of these ideas for grasses and seed heads except for the one that looks almost white. I think I will skip using that one. The purple one on the far end is a small piece of purple felt that I stitched down with a lighter thread color. I’m only going to have a few flowers that are still blooming in this piece. The tentative name at this point is “Late Bloomers”. Hopefully, I will finish this before my next post.

First Quarter Challenge – Repurposing Sample

First Quarter Challenge – Repurposing Sample

Comments 15 comments

For the First Quarter Challenge, I was intrigued by one of Lyn and Annie’s samples. It was chopped up bits of felt from an old piece added to a new one. Their piece was very colorful bits of felt on white wool but I was thinking in terms of florals in a landscape. I could try a small sample before I did a larger landscape that might not work as planned.

Here is the sample that I planned on repurposing. I made this several years ago and I can’t remember why I thought I should try this but it is wool with layers/ruffles of dyed cheesecloth. It worked but I didn’t really have any kind of plan on how I would use this method and it’s just been in a bin since then. But it had good California poppy colors so I thought I could chop it up into small bits to represent poppies in a landscape.

I only used a very small amount of the sample to chop into bits with my trusty rotary cutter. I have loads left if I decide to create a larger landscape with this technique.

Next I laid down a piece of green prefelt, covered it with a variety of small green bits of wool in a variety of locks, breeds etc. Whatever I had laying around, another way to recycle little bits of wool. Then I sprinkled the orange bits over the bottom portion for the poppies. Sorry for the poor photo quality, I took the photos in the kitchen where the light is poor. The sample size is about 6″ x 8″ or so. I was going for a small sample but one that I could perhaps use as a mini landscape if it turned out well. (You can always use these small samples for greeting cards or small framed pieces.)

Then I wet down the sample and felted as usual. I did lose quite a few of the small orange bits but I didn’t worry about that. I had lots on there and I thought it would still work with the majority of “flowers” that did adhere. This process reminded me of working with wool nepps which have given me some problems sticking to the felt in the past. I could have added a bit more fiber over the top of the orange bits but I wanted to see how they attached without it. Most of what fell off was cheesecloth.

Here is the final sample after felting and fulling. I am deciding whether I want to add any stitching or just frame this small piece as is. I like the “Van Gogh” look of the trees in the background and the orange stayed very bright and true to color without any wool on the surface. I feel confident that I could make a larger landscape with this technique and I can repurpose more samples this way. Thanks for the challenge Annie and Lyn!

Started but not Finished

Started but not Finished

Comments 7 comments

At the moment I seem to be really squeezed for time. I have managed to start 3 small things

First I wanted to do another vase cover. I used a bat that was made on a blending board. I pealed a thin layer and then filled in the holes. I like the autumn colours.

 

That is as far as that got.

Next, I wanted a little bigger landscape I could needle felt and stitch on, so cut a 5×7 inch piece of the soft thick prefelt to use.

 

 

I wrapped the wool around the piece so there won’t be grey edges.

And that’s as far as that one got. I have it rolled up with the vase cover so they can be rolled at the same time.

Then, oh my I still have a few min. I had some well-fulled wool fabric a friend gave to me. I think it used to be a coat. I cut out a small piece and brushed up one side with my wire dog brush to see if it will stick together well with wet felting.  Then added some fibre

The difference is hard to see. the left is the unbrushed side and the right is the brushed side.

I had intended to just add 2 colours and felt it to use for trying out stitching on the new water-soluble stabilizer I ordered. But before I realized it I had made another landscape. Oh well, that’s ok, I will have to try again to make some practice pieces.

That is as far as I got with that one. I will probably wet it and add it to the other roll and then do them all at once. Maybe next week I will have them felted. With this time of year being very busy for me, it makes it hard to get some felting in. I try to get some in every week so I can share with all our friends and followers.

This and that.

This and that.

Comments 8 comments

I haven’t done much this week but I did decide to do some stitching on one of the circles I made earlier for the jewelry challenge. Seeing Antje’s post reminded me I had made a few stitching blanks. this one is just over 2.5 inches/7cm. I don’t think mine is quite as artistic but it was fun to do with the bright threads.

Next, I thought I would like to do something a little more 3D. I have a box of stretched silk hankies and bits of silk hankies left over from other felting.

I stretched out some circles from bits to make the flower bases.

And a bigger blog of pieces for leaves.

I added some wool.

And then some more silk hanky bits.

I rubbed them all and then I decided to roll them up and pop them in the dryer while I made a few small landscape blanks for stitching. I cut out some prefelt and added the sky and grass. They went into the dryer too and then it was time to feed the bottle lambs and head of to work.

Next week is our school break so I am hoping to get some felting time in.

First Quarter Challange Finished

First Quarter Challange Finished

Comments 24 comments

Yay, I got it done in the first quarter. I didn’t seem to be able to do that last year. So let’s hope this is a good sign.
You can see the beginning of this here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2019/03/03/landscape-in-progress-1st-quarter-challenge/
I have slowly worked on it mostly at my guilds Social nights.

I needed to put “wire” on my fence posts so I spun a thin grey single. I took it right off the spindle and onto the fence posts.

I wanted some bullrushes mostly just because I like them.

I really liked them but once I added some sheep they looked much too small for where they were.

I really liked them but I took them off

Next, I added the wool to the sheep and some rocks for interest. Also some shadows so my sheep are not hovering.

I took my piece to the guild social and use one of Jans windows. This one has a 5×7 cutout. The picture is about 6×8 naturally. I tried it in different positions on the picture.

We decided to make a new mat. Jan cut it out of a piece of bristol board. She used to be a framer in your younger days.

Here is what it looks like. I am not sure about the frame but that can be changed.

The glass gives great reflections

I think a black frame but I don’t know about the mat.  Now I will Wait for Lyn to give us the next quarters challenge.

 

Continuing Slow Stitching

Continuing Slow Stitching

Comments 15 comments

I am still stitching away on my landscape piece. I had the background mountains stitched down the last time I showed it to you.

I then got the middle distance hills stitched down. This fabric was a bit harder to stitch as it wasn’t as felted and tended to fray. But I persevered.

Then I got the two pieces in the foreground stitched down so all of the landscape is now in place. Now to decide what to add.

First I tested the moon. I didn’t want to cut the fabric if I wasn’t going to use it so I pinned it into a sort of circle. You’ll just have to imagine it being really round. Then I tried some wispy clouds. Then since our challenge this quarter is to add twists and yarn, I decided to try out a tree using up some recycled yarn. I have a whole bunch of yarn that was from old knitted things that people didn’t want anymore. It is very kinky from being knitted but I like the look for representing an old, gnarly tree. Guess which one I chose?

If you have been following this blog for long, your probably guessed tree. And yes, I decided on adding a tree to the foreground. The left is the start of the tree and the right is where I am now. The curled up thread  in the middle is only partially stitched down and will follow up into the branches once stitched. I have a bunch more to go on this tree and need to add in some darker values I think after looking at these photos. I will keep you up to date on how the stitching is going.

A class with Moy MacKay

A class with Moy MacKay

Comments 28 comments

Last week I had the opportunity to take a 2 day class with Moy MacKay. I went with a couple of friends and we had a great time.  We did the wet felting on day one. We had 2 pictures to choose from for the landscape.

I chose the one the left.

Moy demonstrated and explained to us how to work and what to do. We got to ask questions. She told us to take lots of pictures as we went because you see things in the picture that  you don’t see in just looking at it. Still I didn’t take enough.

First we laid out the background

Then we added the foreground and details. The house is prefelt and the flowers in the front are chopped up curls

We wet them down and gave them a 2 or 3 min rub and then rolled them for about 3 min one way and then the other for another few min and we were done. They are very lightly felted but that’s ok because they are pictures not hats.

That took the morning. After lunch we did another piece, a still life, flowers. We had a vase of red flowers and babies breath to use for inspiration. We were not to copy it but to use it to see how flowers look. You can see it in the group picture. Moy demonstrated again and explained again and then we only had about an hour to put the picture together and then a short time to get it felted before we had to be out of the room for another group.

We started with the table then the foliage and then the vase and then moves some leaves around. Then we added the flowers. The babies breath is nepps.

I quite like it at this stage. Not as much after it was felted.

On day 2 we started the embellishing. Moy talked about and demonstrated needle felting accents and refining the pictures. Also some machine embroidery and stitching.  we could try the machine stitching if we wanted but my picture wasn’t ready for that yet.   This is what they are like now. No where near done but works in progress.

This is after I straitened up the house and removed the mangled fence and added a new one.

This is where it is now.  I added windows and ivy to the house. I removed the cobwebs from the trees. I added some shading to the trees. I added in some stems for the flowers in front and another fence. I think the field behind the left fence needs to be darker because it’s farther away. It doesn’t show well in the picture but right now it is lighter and more yellow than the front field.  It needs a lot more work but I think I know what I want to do to it.

And the flowers. I forgot to take a picture of when it was wet felted but had no embellishments.  But here it is so far. I am not as keen on the flowers but they are alright. I may like them better after I work on them some more. The table needs straitening up and lots more texture. And notice the nepps have stuck. We had chopped up some green fibers as part of the foliage and I think the short fibers under them made them stick.

And lastly a picture of everyone’s works at the end of the second day. the flowers we used are beside Moy.

It was a great class. I think it’s given me confidence to try some more. Jan will be doing more posts for us and I hope she will do one about this class too. She will have taken at least a hundred more pictures than me and be able to show you her works in progress too.

Don’t forget to sign up for the holiday card exchange on the forum. Read all about it here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/10/10/time-for-the-holiday-card-exchange-again/