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Framing Complete

Framing Complete

Comments 8 comments

I had several requests from readers to show my finished pieces once they were framed. I framed 8 pieces. Three are for an exhibition in September and the rest are for sale in the shop. (If you’re interested in purchasing, let me know in the comments and I will contact you by email.)

Tokyo Sakuru 13″ x 13″

Orthoceras 16.5″ x 13.5″

Lavender Jade 14.25″ x 17.5″

Trail of the Cedars 18.5″ x 15.25″

Sanctuary 16″ x 21″

Evening on the Range 10.25″ x 16.25″

From Tiny Acorns 11.5″ x 18.5″

Overlook 18.25″ x 24.25″

I have my work professionally framed with a simple black wood frame. I do all the prep work of attaching the felt to a background fabric and then stretching and lacing on to a background board. I like to show the organic edges of the felt so this is the best method I have come up with. How do you frame your pieces?

Backgrounds for Felt and Stitched Pieces

Backgrounds for Felt and Stitched Pieces

Comments 8 comments

I have been working on creating backgrounds for my recently finished felt and stitched pieces. In the past, I have dyed the fabric to try to match the pieces. This time I decided to try the fabric store and see if there was some solid fabric that would work.

The background for Sanctuary is the only piece that I dyed. I actually used tea to “stain” this fabric. I wanted a soft tan color and the tea seemed to work. I then stitched the felt piece down to the dyed cotton fabric and laced it to matt board. It’s a lot of work but the pieces seem to hold up well and then I don’t have to cover them with glass.

At the fabric store, I found fat quarters that would work for all my pieces. I can’t say that I think the colors are perfect but they work OK.

So each piece got a different color of fabric and I didn’t have to buy a bunch of extra fabric that I probably won’t use.

This one is a bit too bright, but I don’t think I will change any of them at this point.

These all sit nicely on the stretch cotton fabric and you really can’t see where they are stitched to the background fabric.

This one and the oak tree piece were fused down to the fabric instead of stitching. I tried to stitch the oak tree down but where I had silk screened on to the surface just wasn’t taking the stitches well. So I applied fusible to the back of each of these pieces and then ironed them to the background fabric. It was much quicker than stitching and I might use this method from now on instead of stitching. As long as the piece isn’t too heavy it should work.

Now I need to get these to the framer. I am planning on putting them in an exhibition in August. So I have plenty of time yet.

Finishing and Framing Sanctuary

Finishing and Framing Sanctuary

Comments 11 comments

I have several pieces that need to be finished and framed in some manner. It would be handy if I always followed the same procedure but many times I like to show organic edges but my recent piece Sanctuary wasn’t going to work out well framed that way. I needed to crop it and then frame it. It is very thick as it has several layers of felt appliqued to felt. And I didn’t want it to stretch out of shape while I was sewing the edges.

I marked the edges first trying to keep everything square. You can see faint lines around the edges where I marked the line I was going to machine stitch. By machine stitching, I could hold all the layers together as some of the hand stitched edges were going to end up being cut away.

I stitched with a dark brown thread and followed my line. I stitched over it twice to make sure everything was holding together. To keep it even and straight, I added a heavy interfacing to the back and pinned it all together before stitching.

Once it was stitched around the edge, I trimmed off the excess with a rotary cutter. As you can see, I didn’t quite get the top edge straight. But it will have to do 🙂

Then I zigzag stitched all around the edge a couple of times. There were a few white bits of felt sticking out and I fixed that with the appropriate colored Sharpie marker. Now to mount it on a canvas or in a frame.

I could put it in this frame with a white mat but I feel that the white is a little bit too stark and it would look better with a slightly darker mat board. Or on a lovely piece of fabric that I don’t seem to have. I definitely need to dye some cotton fabric backgrounds for several pieces now.

Easing into the Third Quarter Challenge

Easing into the Third Quarter Challenge

Comments 16 comments

I’m working on some projects for the Third Quarter Challenge, but had completed this project earlier which also falls into the Second Quarter Challenge.

While going through some old craft boxes, I found a piece of crochet I did many, many moons ago as a young woman.  I set it aside with my felting supplies.  Every once in a while I’d pick it up and set it on some roving or prefelt, unsure what I wanted to do with it.

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It was definitely acrylic, so I used a small tail on a prefelt when I was making samples and it felt in very nicely.  However, because it has such great dimension I didn’t want to lose that either.  Finally, I made some gray batts with merino and corriedale and decided that’s what I’d do and use a resist under the center so I wouldn’t lose that nice dimension.

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I purposely left the center open so that would be firmly attached.

Here is the result:

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I don’t know why this one looks orange.  Lighting I guess.  But you can see where some of the gray migrated up through crochet piece.20160609_123520_001

My next dilemna was what to do with it.  I tried it over a small pillow, but didn’t like the way it pushed the design up.  Then I tried a couple of pre-made square frames.  But I didn’t like them either.  The frames were either too wide, the wrong color or not big enough.

There was something lacking.  I just couldn’t put my finger on it.  Then I tried stitching a design around it.  That gave it a little balance, but I’m still not sure.

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I may take it to a professional framer and have something like this done.  I tried a new program — Ribbet to super impose a frame.  I know the top and bottom are  cut off a little but it was just to see if I liked it.

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Or this?

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What do you think?

At least now I have a piece of my crafting history preserved and not stuck away in a box.

Felt Pictures Ready

Felt Pictures Ready

Comments 18 comments

My felt pictures that will go on display next week are framed and mounted now. They look so much better Framed.  I had them proficiently done.  he covered the back in paper, put the hangers on and even little clear feet on the bottom corners so they will hang strait.  You will have to excuse the quality of the pictures. My husband had to hold them up for me to take the pictures.

This is the biggest one. I used wide extra strong Velcro along the top and small Velcro squares on the bottom corners and half way along the sides and bottom.

cityscape

 

The two smaller ones that are much lighter and brighter I gave the mottles silver and gold frames that look much nicer in person. They match the summery feel of the 2 pictures. I used Velcro the same way for these pictures as well. They end up looking like they are hovering just in front of the canvas.

summer fun beach hotel

I will get better pictures when they are hung at the gallery.