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This Weeks Felting

This Weeks Felting

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This week, I managed to make a few small felt pieces.  My husband has been asking me to make some more handle covers for his cast-iron pans.

 

Second. I have a wrap for my travel mug.  I don’t really like the feel of the metal of the mug, especially in the cold. I have several travel mugs, but only one cover.   I have been using the same one for about 10 years. It still looks good, but I thought I should have more than one. I wanted it to be a little longer and wider than the one I’m using at the moment. The one I have now is purple and blue. This one has a green background. The colour is shartruse, I think. The curls are Blue Faced Leicester.

Then I flipped it over and folded the edges in neatly.

This is the finished piece. It still needs a couple of buttons and some elastic to hold it on.

sheep curls felted int the green back ground A close-up of the curls.

close up of curls on green background

Lastly, I finished the strange-looking book resist. This was round one. At the time, I thought it was stiff enough, so I went ahead and rinsed it out and added lots of clothespins so it would dry correctly.

green 5 pointed 3d sat shape with clothespins outside of same piece with clothespins

After opening it up, I was not thrilled with it. It opened wide. I thought maybe ironing it would help. I was showing it in a Zoom chat, and Karen asked if it was completely fulled. My first thought was yes, it was stiff, but as I played with it, it got softer and softer. So I wet it down and kept working it while watching a cosy mystery.  It shrank more and is much sturdier. I needed a lot fewer clothespins. So I rounded the bottom of the arms.

same piece fulled again with clothespins . much stiffer

This is after it was dry. It doesn’t stand on its own. I will need to flatten the bottom or make a little holder, if I want it to stand like this.

same piece, dry without clothspins

Next, I thought I would try partially turning it inside out. I think I like it better this way.

same piece semi inverted, top shot same piece, semi inverted, bottom shot

One not felt thing. Spring is here, Lambing has started.

This little lamb was born on May 2. he will end up cream coloured. You can see the true colour past the dark tips.

wooly sheep and lamb

 

 

Plans, Shopping, Lambs and Flowers

Plans, Shopping, Lambs and Flowers

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Spring is so busy and we have a lot going on. First, even though it is already the 13 of May I have just picked out a piece of felt for my May slow stitch page. It is thin and soft so it will probably need some stabiliser on the back when I am done. There is a little sparkle that the camera is not picking up.  I have picked some things to stitch on it but I will keep that for when it’s done.

a rectangle of multicoloured handmade felt

Also only in the planning is another spiral. I am thinking of using some locks on this one.

Next was shopping. The first fibre show of the year for me was last weekend.  Well, if you don’t count the shopping at the spin. It’s called For the Love of Fibre.  It’s a small show but lots of great stuff. I picked up a small amount of 2 colours I don’t have, just to have them. What better reason could there be? I am sure Jan will have lots of pictures to show you

blue and purple fibre top

 

and 2 art batts. this first one just screams summer beach and will probably get used as is with a few embellishments.

a fiber art batt for spinning or felting.

 

This one I don’t know. I may deconstruct it and use it in a picture or spin some. I don’t know yet.

a fibre art batt for spinning or felting, blues and greens

 

And some lovely dark brown Gottland locks because I can’t resist locks. Well, actually, I resisted a lot of locks, despite Jan’s best efforts to get me to pick other colours too.

Next, we have lambs, there are about 20 in the barn and maybe 10-15 sheep waiting to have their lambs. We now have 2 in the house. 2 I showed you  Sven and Henna and now we have Jett. Poor Jett. his mom likes him but won’t let him drink. he has sharp teeth or rather he had sharp teeth. We used a fine emery board to gently file them but Mom was not willing to take a chance, so he had to come in. He has only been in a couple of days and hasn’t worked out drinking from a bottle yet. We are working on it.

 

A black lamb

Here the 3 of them are in their outdoor pen.

And now for some inspiration. Spring is so inspiring. My front yard has very little grass, mostly it has violets. Most are the standard purple ones.

violets

But also some white and purple ones, and some purple speckled ones.

 

white and purple violets

I think the speckled ones are my favourite.

And soon there will be lilacs. I can’t wait to smell them.

Lilac budds

I hope your spring is going as well as mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April round up.

April round up.

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April is now gone and May will hopefully bring more sun and more flowers.

I started the month with some felt stars. It was a fun little project and might work for a fast free workshop. Maybe at a guild social. You can read about how I made them here

wool and silk felted stars. Green and Yellow

Next was an eyeglasses holder for beside my bed. It was an interesting project with some strange wool. Here it is hanging up beside my bed. I didn’t realise how dusty the bookcase was until I took a picture. Then I had to dust and take it again. The things I do for our followers. LOL

wet felted hanging eye classes case.

 

I taught 2 workshops this month, Nunofelt Scarf and  Felt Birdhouse/Feeder workshop. We had a lot of fun. Here are the ladies with their finished scarves. Sorry, I forgot to get a group shot.

And the finished Birdhouse/feeders.

After teaching I decided to treat myself to a Workshop. I signed up for Helene’s Felt Spiral Workshop. I really enjoyed making my spiral. I learned a lot along the way. It is wonderful to see how different people do things. It would be wonderful if we all lived close enough to get together regularly.

I am full of ideas for more spirals now.

purple spiral movie

I couldn’t get the movie to work so here is a still.

With April finished I have another completed page for my slow stitch collection.  I decided to include a little needle felting this time. I included some flowers but also the solar eclipse we had here, a cloud and rain because we have had a lot of April showers and my purple umbrella to keep me dry. I really do have a purple umbrella. I added the Autism Awareness infinity symbol because it is autism awareness month.  Then I was left with an empty spot at the bottom and I couldn’t figure out what to put there. I did a special days in April search and on the last day of the month, I was reminded of the first day of the month and added the fake glasses nose and moustache for April Fools.

a piece on hand made felt with needle felt and stitched pictures for the month of April

and lastly, because it is spring this last week we have started having lambs.

Lambs and moms in a group pen

And these are my current bottle babies. Sven( thanks to Jan for the name) who no one would claim. He is doing a good imitation of a Valies Black Nose with his black nose and knees.  And Henna whose mother hates her( probably because she is really good at yelling at the top of her lungs for no reason) Once they are both drinking well and down one feeding per day ( they are on 5 times a day right now) they will go live in a lambing pen until they are a little bigger then they can join a group.

 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

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Welcome to Christmas Morning, for those who celebrate, I hope Santa was good to you and maybe brought you some fibery goodness. For those that don’t celebrate, I hope you are enjoying a nice day off and have time to felt.

I was stuck about what to blog about today. I haven’t made any presents or really anything much. I haven’t been feeling very Christmasy until the last few days when we got some snow. But then we had this surprise last Saturday.
 

Yes, they should not be born now but some of our sheep are able to breed all year and this Ewe and the Ram seem to have plans that were different than ours. Best laid plans and all that.

That was a good start and I bet the cuteness has hooked you to keep reading.

Chatting the other day about sketchbooks, some people said they don’t have one because they can’t draw. I can’t draw but I keep them anyway. I try to write things beside the pictures so I know what I was thinking later. I don’t always do it and later wonder what on earth I was trying to draw. Sometimes it sparks new ideas.

I thought I would share a few pages to encourage people. Sketchbooks are just for yourself, for ideas or inspiration not an art project in themselves.  I have seen some that are published, they are beautiful. Mine are not like that. I am sure you will recognize some of these ideas.

I use them to doodle shapes

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Do sketches. Can you tell I like sheep pictures?

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And work out how to do things.

 

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I like smallish flip pads. These are 6 inches by 9 inches. or 152mm by 229mm. I have some that are a bit smaller A5 size. I think that’s a standard everywhere but in North America. We always have to be different. 🙂 I like them because they fit easily in my basket or a bag. They are also cheap pads. $1.50 at the Dollar Store.

I will be doing some sketches for some Christmasy things for next year. I just need to remember to look at them in October so there is time to work on them.

They may not be pretty but I find them useful. I hope I have inspired you to give it a try. It doesn’t matter if you can draw, once you stop worrying about it, its fun.

Thanks for reading and commenting and joining us all year. You have all kept me going as we all work our way through these difficult times. All’s wool that end’s wool.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A new hat started and why it isn’t finished.

A new hat started and why it isn’t finished.

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This week I decided to try a new style of hat. As it’s the first one and I don’t know if it will work I am making it fairly plain.

To save time I started with a template I already had.  I traced around it so I would have the nice round part in the right size all ready to add the new part.

                          

 

This is the final shape.

                    

Next, I added some silk from silk hankies. The hankies are gray and pink.  I stretched the hankies out long so I could wrap them around. They are hard to see, you can see them sticking out the sides.

                 

After I wrapped the first side around, I added another hanky going the other way as well.

                 

Here is how it looks with the first side of wool wrapped around.

                

And lastly where I had to stop. On the outside of the hat, I added more of the gray and pink hankies. They are very hard to see, on the wet felt they pretty much disappear. I am hoping the pink and gray on the light gray wool will make it shine nicely. It is a very conservative hat but this is a government town so that would work ok.

And here are some of the reasons I haven’t got back to it yet.

The red light is a heat lamp. It has moved to another pen now. They just needed it the first night as it was very cold. These 2 moms and babies are not much trouble but these three below take a lot more work. It is not a great picture but to get a picture of them not moving, standing in front of one another or showing the camera their tails is quite difficult.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Spinning and a New Loom.

Some Spinning and a New Loom.

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Things are still very busy here with the bottle lambs. So there is not much time for felting.

I have managed to do some spinning. It all still needs plying.

This one I think will have to be plied with somthing else. I think that if I try to pull the yarn out of the middle as well as the outside it will get hopelessly tangled with all the curls.

Sunday I am picked up a new to me ( and Jan of the polar bear and bull frog). This is an upright tapestry loom. The loom has come all the way from Sudbury. It was transported down by a lady down to visit her daughter saving Jan or I from having to do the long drive up there. As you can see it is all in pieces in my van. I have to clear space for it. that will hopefully happen over the next moth or so as my husband builds his new space and I get to take over his old space. My plan is to make some fleece rugs. I think Jan is planning a Viking cloak.

 

Lambs

Lambs

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This is a short post today.  There is not much time for felting at the moment. We have started lambing here on the farm. We are a little early. Seems we missed a ram lamb and he was a very active little  fellow. Naturally with the weather being cold and wet we have some in the house.

Here is a brand new lamb, still all wet. Mom and baby were moved to a pen of ther own shortly after I took the picture.

These are the house lambs They are on bottles. This is ther first top in the living room. They have now moved to a Big pen in the basement.

And this is one that is getting warm sitting on my knee as I type this for you to read.

I am not sure how I am supposed to get ready to teach  Techniques for Intermediate Felters on Saturday. No rest for the weary as they say.

Well thats it from me , I have lambs to feed.

 

 

 

 

Finishing an Eco Piece

Finishing an Eco Piece

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Last year Cathy (Luvswool) and I did some eco dyeing.  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/11/03/eco-printing/

They pieces have been hanging around and I was going through them again and decided I liked the heavy cotton one in particular.  It was time to finish it.  Of course, it wasn’t that easy to decide what to do.  At first I thought I’d stitch the flowers and leaves, but I’m not that great at embroidery. So it sat for awhile again.

I really liked the straggly edges. Besides, if I turned the edges over I’d lose some of the nice design. Here is part of the design.  You can see at the top the ragged edge.  The two long sides were not that way, but I spent some time in front of the TV pulling out strands so they would all look the same.

I chose some embroidery threads that reflected the colors of the imprints, but subtle enough not to fight the design.

I did three rows of stitching around the whole piece.

I had decided it would be a wall hanging so I attached a small dowel with loops on the back.

The next question is where would I hang it so it would really look good.  I have a lot of dark walls and some light gold.  It’s hard to see the gold here, but there was some contrast.

My kitchen is teal and generally sunny.

The living room is a deep bronze color.

The family room is deep moss.

We’ve had a lot of dark days here, so I know the photos aren’t the best.

What do you think?

 

Just a quick addition.  This past weekend I met with my siblings in Madison, WI for lunch.  My sister Car brought me a fleece from one of the twin boys born last year – Little Will.  Here’s a quick peek at the open bag which was quite heavy.

While we were having lunch Car’s Granddaughter Madison received pics of two new twins that were just born.  A little boy at 8lbs 12 oz and a girl at 9lbs 6 oz born to ewe Mary.

What a great way to celebrate the get together!

 

It’s That Time of Year

It’s That Time of Year

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Instead of doing another crochet post, I thought I’d share my sister Carol’s good news.

On March 19, I received an email with pics of the latest additions to her sheep family. Twin girls!  They were born at 5 a.m. to Secret Seven. One weighed 10 lbs 15 oz and the other weighed 11 lbs.

The Mom is Dorset & Corriedale.  She was  bred with an East Friesian & Lacaune dairy ram for these cute little lambs. Carol’s granddaughter, Madison, named them Joy and Snowflake, for now.

I had written about her new sheep acquisition last year here:

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/04/25/welcome-to-the-family/

Carol is expecting her East Friesan/Lacaune dairy ewe will deliver this week.  Her other two Corriedale & Dorest mix will deliver next month.  She has 9 older sheep and the two babies at the moment.  Three Corriedale & Dorset ewes, three Corriedale  & Dorset wethers and two East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ewes and a East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ram.  She’s hoping to get a Corriedale ram this year.

I hadn’t heard of the Friesian or Lacaune breeds. So, I looked them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Friesian_sheep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacaune_(sheep)

Evidently, they are both known for their milk being used for gourmet cheeses.  So, my sister plans to milk two of them to make cheese.

While they will be busy with babies, they will also be shearing the sheep soon. Yes, I will be getting fleeces to play with!

 

 

 

 

Not Much Done but a Cute Surprise

Not Much Done but a Cute Surprise

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As the title says I really haven’t done much with fiber this last week. I did start my Free motion embroidery class this week but haven’t had much time to do more than watch the videos read the PDF and fight with the tension on my machine. I have it sorted now and I hope I can do some practising this weekend. Pictures of messed up tension are not very exiting so I wasn’t sure what I would tell you about and then we had a surprise late yesterday, on the coldest day in March. -23c I took these pictures at about 10:00 last night after chasing the 2 calves back in because you know there is not better time to “fall” out of the barnyard but late at night when its freezing out.

This is mom wanting to know what I was doing.

and then letting lamb have a drink. I like this one she looks like she is smiling.

And this is the best shot I got of the two of them. Mom had just stomped at me as she was fed up with me trying to get a decent shot of both of them.  Just as well my iPhone shut down right after that as it was too cold.  My son put a heat lamp in so lamb wouldn’t get to cold. The temperature is on the rise again to day and we will go up to +2c today. This is the first lamb of the season. this is early and not on the schedule. There shouldn’t be any until late April early May. Best laid plans as they say.