Forest floor – Felting and Fiber Studio

Paper collage of landscape of forest floor, white flowers and tree trunks in the distance.

Forest Floor Beginnings

October 12, 2023 ruthlane Comments 16 comments

I went through some of my sketchbooks/workbooks from my prior classes recently and found a few pieces that were inspiring. It’s nice to revisit old work and see if there is something there that will inspire new work.

Here’s the forest floor collage that I found. I thought that this would make a nice landscape in fiber/textiles. I can’t seem to find the original photo that I used for inspiration so I’m working from the collage.

Going through my pieces of already made nuno felt, I thought this piece would work. The top right corner made me think of “forest sky” and mottled light, so that’s a good start. The size is 12.5″ wide and 11″ high. Most of you will probably recognize this nuno felt as I have used it for several projects already. But the fun thing with this type of project, is that the background is just the start and the finished pieces will not look alike but would go together well if paired with one of my other pieces.

Multi colored nuno felt background with trial of grey brown tree trunks.

Multi colored nuno felt background with trial of dark brown tree trunks.

Multi colored nuno felt background with trial of medium brown tree trunks.

Next up was to look through my boxes of felt scraps and see if I could find something that would work for the more distant tree trunks. I started with the felt on the left but once I put it down, the value of the tree trunk to the background was too similar and the grey brown wasn’t very “exciting”. The middle felt trunks are actually the opposite side of the trunks on the right. The values were a bit better and I am leaning towards the ones on the right. I am planning on adding some stitched texture to the bark and can add more darkness into the trunks that way. I luckily have enough of this felt to do some sampling and see what kind of stitching will work best. Also, after I uploaded these photos and saw the tree trunks from a distance (smaller photo size), I noticed that it looked like the light was slanting through the trees. I need to remember to leave that lightness in the foreground to give that effect.

I continued to look through my felt scraps and dyed fabric. I found some nice greens, some “fallen trees” or “rocks” and some cheesecloth that will add texture. I kept looking for felt or fabric that would work for the flowers, I couldn’t really find anything that worked. I could felt some small white flowers but I’m not sure it’s worth that effort. The white flower I am showing is cut from watercolor paper (300 pound) and the center is a bit of yellow green cheesecloth. The paper would be simpler as it doesn’t fray and I noticed the contrasting sheen of the paper compared to the matte of the felt. The paper can also be shaped so it is 3D and coming off the surface of the landscape. As you can see in this photo, I have lost that brightness coming through the trees as I have it covered with green. This is just trying out colors and the final layout and shapes of pieces to applique down has not been decided.

Because the nuno felt is thin, I decided I needed to back it with something a bit heavier to hold the weight of the heavier felt I will be stitching to the front. So I cut a piece of rayon wool commercial felt blend to the same size as the nuno background.

Next up was basting these two pieces of fabric together. I don’t always baste but I have found that in general, it’s better to take the time to baste the backing fabric to the background fabric. The integrity of the piece is always better after basting. It holds everything in place and provides support while stitching the foreground items. This is especially true if you are machine stitching as the machine has a tendency to move the nuno fabric in different directions than the backing fabric. Basting rant is now over.

Next, I will be doing some sampling to see how I want to stitch the tree trunks and previewing the green fabrics. More coming soon!

Lutradur Leaves

June 16, 2018 Karen Lane Comments 33 comments

In my last post I showed some of the brooches I’ve been making out of Tyvek. This month I thought I would continue with the “man made” fabric theme and show you how I make my Lutradur leaves.

Lutradur is another exciting non woven product which was originally designed for industrial applications including construction substrates, landscaping materials, residential and commercial wallpaper, carpet backings, automotive floor mats and carpeting, and specialized filtration devices. It is an incredibly versatile material which is available in various weights including 25gsm, 30gsm, 70gsm, 100gsm and 130gsm. It does not fray, some weights are translucent, it can be painted with any paint medium, dyed, distressed with a soldering iron or heat gun, glued, stitched, layered and embroidered. In fact, think of an application and you can probably use it!

Lutradur is available in packs of A4 size sheets or by the metre from various suppliers including Spunart in the UK.

My first attempt at using Lutradur was a couple of years ago when I made this leaf using 100gsm…..

I drew the shape directly onto the fabric, free motion stitched over the lines and then painted it with Inktense before cutting out the shape.

You can see how the colour altered once the Lutradur had been zapped with the heat tool. I was pleased with the result but there was something not quite right which I couldn’t put my finger on…..until recently.

Its staring me in the face looking back at these photos, I shouldn’t have sewn around the edge of the leaf! This is that same leaf after a little pruning of those edges and another blast of heat to curl the tips, it looks so much more realistic…..

These are some of my more recent Lutradur leaf creations made from 100gsm…..

Lutradur provides a very stable surface for stitching into.

Each one is drawn first using a Frixion pen. Next I use a heat resistant thread i.e. Rayon, Viscose or 100% cotton to add free motion stitching along the veins.

The fallen leaf which inspired the design.

Once the stitching has been done the leaf is cut out using a fine tip soldering iron. I wanted to retain most of the fabric on these particular leaves so I also used the soldering iron, rather than the heat tool, to target specific areas to cut holes.

The finished leaves painted with Inktense.

I wanted a more lacey look for this next leaf so after stitching and cutting out with the soldering iron this one was distressed using the heat gun. I left it unpainted to suggest a frosty leaf in winter…..