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September Adventures

September Adventures

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September has been a busy and exciting month in contemporary textile art (specifically felting art) in Ireland so I thought I would feature what I got up to, I will call it my September Adventures.

Weather wise, the month started as we hoped it would continue (it didn’t by the way) with a return to fine warm weather – something we had not seen since last June.  So I took the opportunity to visit our National Botanical Gardens (https://www.botanicgardens.ie/) which are situated on Dublin’s north side.  The gardens (there’s free entry, if you ever visit Dublin, Ireland) opened in 1800 and are an oasis of calm with restored glass houses, magnificent specimens, bee hives and, of course, a tea room.  There’s also a pedestrian access to the historical cemetery next door which I suspect is not seen too often.    Glasnevin Cemetery also houses a genealogical archive for anyone wishing to trace their Irish ancestors (https://www.dctrust.ie/genealogy/home.html).

But, I digress.  Let’s go back to the gardens.  My visit coincided with their annual exhibition ‘Sculpture in Context’.  The exhibits feature artworks in various media including ceramics, wood, metal.  I decided to focus purely on the textile element of the exhibition and to photograph any pieces I came across as I wandered around.  I was aware that some of the members of Feltmakers Ireland had pieces accepted for the exhibition; Clare Merry (http://www.merryland.ie/index.htm) an exceptional artist who quietly creates her pieces was featured.  If you would like to see some of Clare’s work please check out her website, which, she tells me, is not really up to date, or Google her and feast over the images; Fiona Leech (https://www.instagram.com/feltathome/?hl=en) had three beautiful pots which were originally housed in the cactus house.   Annoyingly two of the three pots were stolen within a matter of hours of their arrival and the remaining one was moved to a safer spot in the garden’s gallery.  I thought I would show you the three pots as they were originally grouped together.

Fiona Leech’s three pots (source: Fiona’s Instagram page)

I searched but could not find Leiko Uchiyama’s beautiful work but here is a link to her website if you would like to check her out: https://www.leikofelt.com/my-felt-work/  I found two other exhibits from members of the guild.  Their featured work while not through the medium of felt were equally stunning.  Congratulations Mel Bradley (https://melbradleysilks.ie/)  and Mette Sophie Roche (https://metteroche.com/)

I put together a slideshow of my textile finds in the gardens which I hope you enjoy.

  • Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi
  • Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi (detail)
  • Mette Sophie Roche; The vital matter of Fungi (detail)
  • Fiona Leech; Drought
  • Fiona Leech; Drought (detail)
  • Frances Crowe; Terrain
  • Frances Crowe; Terrain (detail)
  • Frances Crowe; Terrain (detail)
  • Claire Merry; Floral Path
  • Claire Merry; Floral Path
  • Ella Quinn; It’s nothing but a dead fish
  • Niamh O’Connell; Cocoon
  • Mel Bradley; Grasses
  • Mel Bradley; Grasses

We had our first meeting after summer in Feltmakers Ireland and as usual the committee put an incredible amount of preparatory work into making it successful.  It was a busy morning as everyone beavered away felting flowers to create a tapestry as part of the 20th anniversary celebration for the guild.  Much to everyone’s delight, the guild’s founder Elizabeth Bonnar joined us. I thought I would feature Elizabeth here as without her it is doubtful that there would be such a vibrant community of feltmakers today.   Here she is with her granddaughter and with the committee.

Feltmakers Ireland founder Elizabeth Bonnar and her granddaughter
Feltmakers Ireland committee with founder Elizabeth Bonnar (3rd from left)

Here are some photos taken on the day.

  • Feltmakers hard at work
  • Breda and Elizabeth hard at work!
  • Lots of flowers were made that morning by members
  • Suzanne, Breda, Deirdre and Elizabeth catching up

The finished tapestry was revealed at Feltmakers Ireland ‘Bountiful’ juried exhibition which opened on 30th September.

Feltmakers Ireland members: The Floral Tapestry to celebrate 20 years.

The exhibition also saw the launch of the new book “Exploring Irish Wool for Feltmaking”  The book is the product of a collaboration between many members of Feltmakers Ireland guild, sheep farmers, shepherds, shearers and suppliers and not forgetting the various washers and carders who took the raw fleeces, converting them into usable fibres for testing.  I think this approach was quite unique and it will certainly be a worthwhile and useable addition to any textile maker’s reference library.  Understandably it was a huge project so congratulations are due to all, especially Annika (Berglund), Breda (Fay) and Sinead (Doyle) who collated all of the findings into an invaluable resource on Irish wool.  It’s so full of well written practical advice and it was made extra special by the presence of one of our Government Ministers, Pippa Hackett an ardent supporter of the project, who officially launched the book and the exhibition . Here is a quick look at the contents page to give you an idea of the scope of the book:

Exploring Irish Wool Contents page

An added bonus is that feltmakers/wool artists can now make direct contact with numerous artisanal suppliers so there is no excuse for any of us not buying closer to source and of course for anyone overseas who wishes to use Irish wool fibre in their work purchasing from source.

It is available to purchase from the following link and I understand will also be available in eBook format shortly:  https://feltmakersireland.com/exploring-irish-wool-for-feltmaking/

I hope you have enjoyed my September adventures.   It has been an exciting month.  Once again I would like to thank Feltmakers Ireland and their hard working committee who work tirelessly to maintain this vibrant community – it makes such a difference that, as textile artists, we can gather together and create regularly. I take my hat off to Elizabeth Bonnar and her decision to found Feltmakers Ireland twenty years ago; the catalyst for lifelong friendships, masterclasses, collaborations, exhibitions, networks and travel.

To complete September’s birthday celebrations, I thought I would produce a slideshow of the Bountiful exhibition which is running for the month of October in Phoenix Park, Dublin Ireland.  I took photos on the day so I apologise where the light may be shining on the artwork.  There are over 30 pieces of art and it will give you an indication of where Ireland’s vibrant felting community is at in its journey.  I hope you enjoy it!

  • Annika Berglund: Variations on a Green Theme II
  • Astrid Tomrop-Hofman: Positive Vibes
  • Deirdre Crofts: A good Day’s Catch
  • Clare Brophy: Share the Bounty!
  • Helene Dooley: Visualizing the beauty of the Sunflower Field
  • Mel Bradley: Flame Silk Velvet Devoré Nuno Felted Wrap
  • Aisling Hassett: Seeds to Life
  • Fiona Leech: Fading Memories
  • Karena Ryan: Saol Fluirseach (Abundant Life translated from Irish)
  • Eithna O’Dea: Plenty of Fish
  • Juliane Gorman: Emerging
  • Claire Merry: Danu, Celtic Mother Goddess
  • Maria McGarry: Conference Call
  • Breda Fay: Torthuil (Bountiful in Irish language)
  • Sharon Wells: Kerry 1
  • Joanne Foley: The Gathering
  • Sandra Chase: Seed Burst
  • Adrienne Dempsy: Where Wild Things Grow
  • Annika Berglund: Variations on a Green Theme 1
  • Astrid Tomrop-Hofman: Life is Funky!
  • Sharon Wells: Stay Awhile
  • Mel Bradley: ‘Royal’ Silk Velvet Devoré Nuno Felted Wrap
  • Caoimhe Tuthill: Nature’s Bounty
  • Neasa Ryan: Scattery Island
  • Valerie O’Ceallaigh: Bountiful Love
  • Neasa Ryan: Suaimhneas (detail)
  • Caitriona Nolan: Particles
  • Beibhinn Delaney: Faith in the future
  • Sandra Reynolds: Summer’s End
  • Helena McGuinness: Inspired by Traditional Arran Patterns
What makes an Art Yarn Scarf into a Stole?

What makes an Art Yarn Scarf into a Stole?

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I’ve been practicing my spinning skills for a while now, and although I have mastered the technique of spinning finer yarn, I have a true passion for the more bulky, art yarns.  I’m not a great knitter, I do occasionally enjoy crochet but I much prefer to weave.  When I first took up spinning, like everyone I found that my yarn loosely resembled an ‘art yarn’ more than a fine yarn. It lacked a sense of purpose and it didn’t have that look of “yes, I intended to make this”!  So my priority was to be able to spin an art yarn that looked like it was meant to be an art yarn!   However, at the same time, having read so many comments about people who can only spin fine yarn or art yarn I didn’t want to reach a point where I was only able to spin one or the other.  So I have tried really hard to chop and change my ideas, to try and avoid the pitfalls associated with spinning only one style of yarn.  I’ve also tried really hard to make an art yarn that looks like it is meant to be an art yarn.  I definitely think I am making some progress on this front.  Let me know what you think…

 

I started with a selection of merino wool top in various colours, including an orange, cerise pink and teal as a base for my art yarn.  I then decided to jazz it up with some beautiful turquoise bamboo, which I thought would add some sheen and lustre to the project.  Like all good art yarns, I wanted to add in some interest so decided I would use curly locks of various different colours.  Finally, to finish the interest side of things, I decided to include some recycled sari silk that was made up of different random colours.

 

To start off, I began to add the base merino to the carder.  Unfortunately, I have broken one of the belts on my carding machine – it’s the one that operates the smaller of the two drums.  But for this project, it didn’t really matter as I was not wanting a fully blended batt.  So I was able to add all of my fibre direct to the larger drum.  I did use my little packing brush to flatten it down as I went along.

 

You can see some of the recycled sari silk running through this photo.
You can see some of the recycled sari silk running through this photo.

 

 

In this photo, I’m adding sari silk again to the the mix.  It was helpful that it seemed to work using it like a bangle, wrapped around my wrist enabling me to place it where I wanted it.  If I hadn’t done it this way, it would have been hanging down and could easily have got caught up in the drum.

 

Once I’d finished carding a nice thickness of batt, it looked like this…

 

A completed wool batt   

 

I was happy with the way in which it turned out as I wanted to keep the definition and not have a muddy blend at the end of it.  But before I started making any more, I decided to spin it, just to check I was happy with the way in which the colours turned out.

These are some shots of the spun art yarn on the bobbin but only after I plyed it!  Unfortunately, I got slightly carried away because I was enjoying myself so much, I forgot to take any photos!  For the main art yarn, I spun this using a fine mohair yarn to core spin around.   I made a mixture of thick slubs and thinner spun yarn, so that when I came to plying I could make some nice twirly spirals to add interest.  When spinning the core yarn I also added in some random curly locks, which were all sorts of colours, that contrasted with the base colours I’d used in the batts.  I also added some extra sari silk into the spin at random points through the yarn when I felt it needed a bit of Va Va Voom!

I was quite pleased with the spin…but as I said, unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the yarn before I began plying.  However, I did take a photo of one of the fat singles in teal.  I also spun some in orange but no photo sorry.

Fat single in teal
A fat single in teal merino. 

As you can see, there was quite a lot of twist in this as I was scared it would all fall apart when I was plying!

 

This was my first attempt at core spinning, so I was pleased to see it coming together as I intended.  I started plying the art core spun yarn with the fat single, and it looked promising…

As you can see, I'm using an Ashford Jumbo Bobbin with my Ashford Traditional Wheel.  

As you can see, I’m using an Ashford Jumbo Bobbin with my Ashford Traditional wheel.

I then transferred it to my niddy noddy.  I didn’t want to soak the yarn in case I damaged the slubby spirals, so decided to set it using a hand held steamer.  These are a few photos of the yarn on the niddy noddy.

  I tried to take different angles to show the range of effects.

All in all, I made two batts of art fibre, which were about 100g each that I used for the core spin.  I didn’t weigh the fat singles but by the end, I had four skeins of art yarn, weighing approximately 300g.

Looking at three of the skeins hanging up together, it looks quite ‘jewel’ like.  So pretty, I’m pleased with the colours…

These skeins look almost ‘jewel like’

I wanted to use my yarn to make a woven scarf.   However, I’m not confident enough in my home spun yarn yet to risk using it as a warp.  This was especially true as I was hoping to use this project for the blog.  I was mindful that the art yarn was going to be quite chunky.  I only had a 7.5  30/10 dent reed for my rigid heddle loom, which would have been much too small for the art yarn.  This was another reason I had to choose a different yarn for the warp.  Having used mohair in the core spinning, I toyed with the idea of using it as a warp.  However, I had read that mohair is very ‘sticky’ when used in weaving, so I did some research first before trying it.  I did find some advice that said you can use it, if you utilise a pick-up stick behind the heddle to help clear the shed.  The only way to know if it would work was to try it!  So, having looked at my reed, I decided that given the thickness of the art yarn I would only use every third reed.  That way, I envisaged that I would be able to space the warp out evenly when I when I separated each strand.  Also, it would allow more space for the art yarn to show in all its glory.

This is the warp before I started weaving.  As you can see, I decided to use three different colours of mohair, just to see what the effect would be…

  This photo show how fluffy that mohair  really is!

I started to weave with the art yarn, and to my surprise it was far easier to weave with than I had anticipated.  The ‘stickyness’ of the mohair really didn’t present any issues for me.   I think that because I had only warped every third reed, it didn’t have the impact it could have had, which was good.

I only took these two photos of the actual weaving process.  One thing that I discovered when doing this project, was that I don’t actually have the weaving loom that I thought I did.  When I first got this loom, as I always intended weaving with art yarn so I also purchased a freedom roller.  I didn’t want to have the restriction in length of weave that I would face when using really chunky art yarns.  Having never used the freedom roller before, I decided I would fit it onto the loom for this project as I really didn’t know how bulky the final weave was going to be.

However, when I got the freedom roller out and started looking at how it would fit on the loom, I soon realised that there was no way it was going to work!  I struggled to understand why, so I took some photographs of the freedom roller and my loom, and sought some advice on a Facebook weaving group.  It was only then, I discovered that my rigid heddle loom was in fact a samplet loom!!! I realised that what I thought I had ordered, was not in fact the loom I did order! School boy error on my part, as a complete novice!

In the end, all was good as it turned out, I didn’t need the freedom roller after all (she breathes a sigh of relief!).  When the project was finished, I removed it from the loom, and considered what to do with the ends.  The mohair was very thin and sparse, so would not make for a good fringe.  Having twirled the mohair into little tassels, I then decided to tie some additional curly locks to pad out the effect.

Here, you can see one end completed…

  When I tried on the scarf, I realised that I had made it a little too wide to make it into a comfortable scarf.  So it was at this point, I decided that rather than using it as a scarf, it would work better as a stole.  However, this now presented me with another need…

If I was going to use this as a stole, it would need to have some sort of decorative pin to hold it in place.  I didn’t want to have anything too colourful or fussy, as that would be lost in amongst the art yarn.  So I decided to make a wet felted butterfly, with wings that were primarily one colour, with some accents of a different shade.

Here is my blue butterfly…who does have an orange body, just to make the body stand out a little…. The wings and body are made from merino and the accents of paler blue, are made of the bamboo, which I fixed with wisps of the merino to felt them into place.  I decided  to leave the resist inside, just to provide a little more firmness to him.

  I did try to add some sequins as way of creating more sparkle, but as they were so small, I found them difficult to sew on (my fingers are not so nimble as they used to be!).  I tried gluing them in place, but that didn’t work either!  So in the end, I just left him as he was.  I do intend making him some antennae, but I haven’t had time to add those in yet.  He is attached to a large kilt pin, so he can be used to hold the stole in place.

       

I’m really happy with my first project, using my own spun yarn, hand woven, and completed with wet felted butterfly pin.  I’ve used three different skills in this project, and I’m really pleased with the end result.  I was surprised at how dense the weave turned out.  Having only used every third reed, I expected it to be much looser than it ended up.  Perhaps next time, I will try an even wider warp, using the whole loom and leaving a larger gap between the warp threads.  It’s all a learning curve, but for now, I am really pleased with the results.  It’s lovely and warm too!  I’m almost sad summer is on the way, but I’m sure I’ll get lots of use out of it next winter,

 

 

9 Vases & a Plant Pot

9 Vases & a Plant Pot

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Some of the first felt objects I made were vases: made around a flat u-shaped resist that I designed to try to get a good even layer of felt on the base (wobbly bases not being good for vases). Every so often I get the urge to make a few vases, so I thought I’d show you some I’ve made recently.

My felt pictures are often inspired by my coastal environment. So, I thought I’d make some coast-inspired vases.

silk layout for prefelt pebbles
Silk laid out ready to prefelt
Prefelt pebbles cut out
Vase layout ready for felting
Finished vase (with glass inside)

I prefelted some recycled silk scarf pieces to make pebbles then added pebble shapes to the lower section. The sea area had a pewter-coloured merino base with blue and green wisps of wool plus some silky fibre for the sea foam. The wave was a combination of some sort of knitted yarn I’d also found in a charity shop, with added mohair and the same silky fibre (I’m not completely sure what it was, it was just hanging around and looked suitable!)

2 more coastal vases – in the wild

I made 3 in total – here are the other 2.

Sometimes it’s the materials themselves that suggest pieces rather than the local scenery.  I put some beautiful bright coral-coloured dyed locks against contrasting duck egg blue and teal merino and thought that might be interesting

‘Locks’ vase

Continuing my vase-making spree: I’d dyed some merino for a workshop last year and I thought it might be a good idea to use up some of the hand-dyed wool on vases.

Purple 18.5 micron merino
Blue / green 18.5 micron merino
Red / orange 21 micron merino
The purple vase with hyacinths
Red / orange vase with roses

Now enter stage left the plant pot.  A friend who’d previously bought a plant pot holder from me asked about making one specifically to suit a plant she had.  I wrote a blog a while ago about my love / hate relationship with commissions but that was about pictures – I felt much happier about a plant pot as it’s not such a big commitment.

I was keen to include her in the design so I did a couple of very quick potential design sketches and consulted her on the fibre colour choices. As the plant was only in a plastic pot with holes in the bottom, I scoured my local charity shops and found a beer bucket to make the plant pot water-tight.

We decided to go for coral / pink / burgundy colours to highlight the under-sides of the leaves and an overall texture rather than a leaf-shape pattern.

Inner 2 wool layers
Outer 2 wool layers

I decided to do the top of the inner 2 layers green so it would show when you look down at the pot. With hindsight I should have done the whole of the inner layers green but I wasn’t sure I had enough of the green so did the lower section white. I carded together various colours of merino and silk fibre rather than use the fibre labelled ‘carded’ on the fibre picture – but keep and eye on that as it comes back later on….. Then laid locks on top.

And here’s the plant in its personal designer pot. My friend was very pleased with it.

Then it was back to the vases but with a twist.  I recently found in a charity shop an old chemistry lab heavy glass 3 neck flask and, as ever, I thought….I wonder how that would work with felt.  There’s a little corner of my brain that is devoted entirely to felting possibilities and it kicks into play whenever I’m mooching about charity shops, which is often!

On the same day I found some interesting yarn in another charity shop so I splashed out a further 20p and thought I’d bring these 2 finds together.

I was clearly wearing my sensible head that day as I made a sample with the yarn to make sure it would felt and see how it came out.  Even more sensibly, I used it on both sides of my sample (I wish I always remembered to do that) so I could decide which effect I liked best

Interesting yarn – cotton?
Sample side 1
Sample side 2

I stared to ponder the engineering challenge of the 3 neck vase and decided I’d have to have a hole underneath.  Usually my vase covers are solid on the under side and the glass slips into the top. With this I wanted the felt to fit tightly round the necks so I’d have the glass entry point on the base.  I carefully measured and calculated at least 40% shrinkage then made my resist.  This time an upside-down U-shape

I laid 4 layers of natural white merino over both sides of the resist then ran a single strip of the yarn around.  I then added single black nepps below the yarn line, more densely near the yarn and just a few further down the shape. This seemed like a good idea but it took absolutely ages to separate out individual nepps, pick out only round ones and of a similar size, and then place them where I wanted them to sit.  One of those decisions you regret before you’re half-way through but can’t bear not to finish as you’ve already invested so much time in it!

Anyway, here’s the finished vase.  Actually, I’m pleased with the pattern, although I’d intended the yarn to sit a bit further up the flask. I’d not properly taken into account how much of the felt would be underneath.

3 neck vase – with & without tulips

I thought I’d find some more old 3 necked lab flasks. Having consulted both EBay and Google it rapidly became clear that they are not to be had.  I have not found a single similar 3 neck flask (there are new ones which are much thinner and tend to have domed bases, no good for vases).  The nearest I could find was a similar heavy glass 2 necked flask which is on EBay for £40.  £40!  I now feel I can’t sell my vase as I don’t want someone to buy it for the flask and rip off the felt! So, that one is staying with me, at least for the time being.

And finally we come back to the pre-mixed fibre I mentioned (labelled ‘carded’).  If you’re ever lucky enough to visit World of Wool in Yorkshire, you’ll see they have two huge skip-type bins full of ends of lines and wooly remnants (one with coloured fibres and one just cream /white). There’s a low fixed-price per weight for the content of each bin and you can ferret out all sorts of hidden gems. I can spend a long time almost falling into those bins. This mystery fibre-mix was one such find.

I thought I’d make a vase using that plus a piece of a pink silk scarf I’d just found in a charity shop.  That day, alas, I was not wearing my sensible head and didn’t think to make a sample: partly because I didn’t have a lot of the fibre and partly, well, because I just didn’t think about it.

I laid out 2 layers of a matching pre-dyed merino, 2 layers of the mystery fibre and a strip of silk and set about felting.  Fairly soon my error became clear.  The mystery fibre was not felting at all.  I persisted.  It still didn’t felt.  I persisted.  And persisted.  In the end it did felt, presumably with help from the 2 inner layers of merino.  It shrank more than I’d expected and the fibre hadn’t been all that keen on pushing through the silk, which means the silk ruching is rather loose in places. But it’s fixed completely round the edges and anyway, I like a bit of loose ruching.

Fibres being laid out
Vase with tulips
‘Raspberry Ripple’ Vase

So, here are my recent adventures in vase-making, with a little diversion via a plant pot.  I hope you’ve enjoyed them. Do you have a favourite?

Monstera

Monstera

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Happy New Year to all!

At the Waltham Textile group we normally have a biannual exhibition of our work but, due to Covid, it was cancelled in 2020 rescheduled for 2021 and then had to be cancelled again. It’s now been confirmed for August but in the meantime I’ve sold my main “Leaf” themed piece so recently made this mixed media “Monstera” to replace it.

I’m also thinking of submitting this piece for the 2022 IFA online exhibition which has the theme of Flora & Fauna. I’m waiting to hear if a mixed media piece will be accepted. I can’t imagine it being a problem but, if it is, I can simply crop one of the images to show the felted leaf.

I bought a 40cm x 80cm canvas with the intention of painting Monstera leaves on it and then adding a 3D Felted leaf. After drawing a template onto paper and offering it up to plan the layout I changed my mind about painting onto the canvas. It’s not something I’ve done before and the surface appeared to be a bit too textured for the look I wanted to create. Instead I sketched the leaves onto a piece of white cotton fabric, outlined them with an Inktense pencil and added a little shading. The aim was for very simple, very smooth, perfectly formed leaves looking more like curved metal than the foliage on my cheese plant. I think this was influenced by the very smooth metallic looking Tyvek seed pods I’ve been making lately. The Monstera in our lounge has been a bit neglected, to the point that I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it for this post!

I don’t consider myself a painter but I do like painting on to fabric. If you need to paint precise lines a good tip is to use aloe vera (by far the cheapest) or acrylic medium instead of water when applying acrylics on fabric. This keeps the paint where you want it to be and avoids it bleeding into other areas. I managed to get a tiny bit of black paint on the lower section of the fabric but stopped short of starting all over again when I realised the felted leaf would cover it up!

My paper template for the painted leaves was 13” x 18” so to make the felted leaf I multiplied by 1.4 enlarging it to 18.5” x 24” to allow for shrinkage. Layer one was a very yellowish green Merino (might have been lichen but not certain). Layer two was a combination of various shades of grey with the yellowish green running down the centre. This was topped with a layer of dark green Merino and Ireland Viscose all around the edge and snippets of gold Viscose down the centre. These images don’t give a true representation of colours but you get the gist.

After wetting out I measured the fibres and found they had spread to approx 20” x 27”. At the fulling stage, every now and then, I put the original template on top to check for size and ensure I was keeping to the right shape.

Once it had shrunk to the correct size it was left to dry. The next stage was to add wires to the back of the leaf so it could be shaped. This could possibly have been done with directional laying of the fibres and lots of fulling but I wanted the option of posing the leaf once it was attached to the canvas and wires are a good way of doing this.

The wires were spaced out and attached on the reverse using a zigzag stitch which also formed the veins on the front side. You can see that bright yellowish green colour on the reverse of the leaf. Once that was done it was just a matter of cutting into the felt to form the individual leaves and the characteristic little holes of the cheese plant.

After attaching to the canvas with a few strategic stitches the leaf was given its final shaping. It’s now hanging in the lounge above my cheese plant where it will stay until the exhibition…..although if I do get the chance to sell it I suppose there is still time to make another!!

Inspired by the Northumbrian Countryside

Inspired by the Northumbrian Countryside

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Two weeks ago I took advantage of Covid restrictions being lifted for self catering holidays in England and took off for a weeks holiday in one of my favourite UK destinations. Rothbury in Northumberland is a small, picturesque town nestled in the Coquet Valley.

Looking towards the town centre from south of the river
Heading downhill from my apartment into town

Unfortunately the weather forecast was looking bleak but I was going to make the most of it. I set off with my car packed with as much crafting gear as I could fit in i.e. fibre and felting equipment, fabric, sewing machine, etc, etc the plan being to have a relaxing break, do a little walking and create a piece of work inspired by the Northumbrian countryside. I would return home feeling refreshed, fit and with a finished piece of work…..if I only managed two out of those three (and I did) I wouldn’t have guessed which would have fallen by the wayside!

The view from the patio was pretty good.

Although there were occasional (very) heavy showers and lots of cloud the weather turned out be a bit better than I had expected so it made sense to pack a rucksack and walk during the day and leave the creative stuff to do in the evenings.

Rothbury is a great base for anyone who likes walking with beautiful scenery and lots of trails in the surrounding hills, forests and along the riverbank. Plus it’s only a forty-ish minute scenic drive to Beadnell on the coast, another favourite haunt, with almost deserted beach walks to Dunstanburgh castle heading south or Seahouses and Bamburgh Castle heading north.

Climbing the hill behind my accommodation gave stunning views of the Simonside Hills on the opposite side of the valley.
Crossing the river and heading for the Simonside Hills
A terrific downpour has just passed over!
One of my favourite lunch stops on the riverbank
Harbour at Seahouses
Pace Hill is a tiny spit of land jutting out into the sea just to the east of Seahouses Harbour.
After clambering over the rocks I reached the curious stone construction which turned out to be a Grade II listed building dating back to 1886. It was built to store gunpowder used in blasting when the Long Pier and New Harbour were being built. On the horizon to the left you can just make out one of the Farne Islands.
Lunch stop on the Harbour Wall on my way to Bamburgh Castle
Approaching the imposing Bamburgh Castle from the south on an almost deserted beach.
This is one of my favourite images of the castle and will definitely inspire a textile piece. I’m seeing the background and castle painted and the foreground grasses stitched.

I also came home with lots of dry stone wall images…..as if I don’t have enough already!!

Although I had every intention of being productive in the evenings the combination of loads of exercise, beautiful clean air, wine and a well stocked book shelf in my apartment, meant I didn’t get much creative work done at all while I was there! Who cares!! I had a terrific time and came home with a few of what I refer to as my ‘bacon rashers’ (lengths of abstract felted pieces, often with fabric included) in colours and textures inspired by my walks. Plus all the inspiration I needed to produce a large abstract mixed media piece based on the Northumbrian countryside including those beautiful rolling hills.

‘Bacon rashers’ formed from a variety of fibres and silk fabrics drying in the sun
Pinning together with sheer fabrics to try different layouts.

Since getting home the rashers, plus various other slivers of sheers and painted Lutradur, have been assembled onto a background of painted Lutradur measuring 110cm x 60cm and are now being stitched in position.

So far so good but the top left corner needs some thought.
A few extra pieces of felt have been made to fill gaps while a fine tip soldering iron is used to cut the slivers of painted Lutradur.

Now I’m happy with the placement of all the pieces it’s just a matter of adding more free motion stitching until it tells me it’s done. Lastly I will make a wooden framework to mount it on and then it’s ready to include in the ”Final Show” (of the now defunct CCN group) Exhibition at the Sam Scorer Gallery in Lincoln from the 8th June.

It’s still a work in progress but the end is in sight!
Mystery Fiber – Identify It, Felt It, Take it Further

Mystery Fiber – Identify It, Felt It, Take it Further

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Hello all.  My name is Arlene Toth and I am a Fiber Artist.  It sounds like I am owning up to an addiction, and I am.  I am addicted to working with wool.  If you don’t know me already, I have a blog called Adventures in Felt.  I took up needle felting in March 2019 where they were giving a demonstration at my local haberdashers.  The first thing I ever made was a bumble bee from a kit.  From then on I was hooked and it just snowballed from there.  As with any addiction, I eventually got hooked on the hard stuff, wet felting.  The first thing I ever wet felted was a very tiny vessel.  I used to paint for 10 years, but painting hasn’t had a look in for over a year.  I wonder at times how I have lived so long and didn’t know about felting until now.  I feel I have a lot of lost time to make up for.  Starting any new hobby is an adventure and I am always up for one of those.  I love this so much that I have immersed myself in it completely.  I have amassed a library of felting books, watched tons of videos (good and bad), and taken online classes.  I am so grateful to those out there that share their knowledge.  So I blog about what I learned.  As far as I’m concerned, it is all an experiment, and like painting, not everything is going to be a masterpiece.

One of the things I have learned is that making samples is important.  Most of the time I just jump right in, but there is value when making small samples especially if you are unfamiliar with the product you are using or the method you will be felting.  For instance, I bought some Botany Lap Waste from World of Wool.  I ended up with a lot of fiber that I thought was merino as it was so soft and felt like superfine merino, but turned out to be alpaca.  How do I know that?  Well, I initially felted with some of it, but it didn’t felt like the merino.  Fortunately, the item I was making was mostly merino, so this mystery fiber did ultimately felt.  I then decided to make some samples as I had a lot of mystery fiber.

Firstly, you need to identify your fiber if it isn’t labelled.  The first way to check if it is animal hair is to burn it.  Yes, burn it.  I used a fire lighter and took a piece of the fiber and it singed and smelled like burnt hair.  If it does that, it comes from an animal.  It doesn’t matter at this point which animal, but an educated guess reckoned that it was alpaca.  Alpaca is a lovely fiber, but some types will felt and some won’t. I have a lovely knitted alpaca hat I bought in Peru which is so soft and warm.  So either way I am going to be a winner here.

Now that you have determined that your fiber comes from an animal and it isn’t synthetic, you will then need to felt a sample, step two.

I had three mystery fibers in grey and the black is merino that I used for my control.  I laid them out with two layers.  I wet them out with tepid soapy water and started the felting process by sanding on boths sides, rubbing and rolling.  This is what they looked like.

B was looking as it should for merino, but neither A, C or D passed the pinch test.  I kept working at the samples and I finally got them to do a little something.

I can honestly say that if you want to become a good felter, you need tenacity as this is not a quick craft!  Not only was this fiber slippery and hairy, it was also squeaky!  You can see my lovely control Fiber B doing what merino is supposed to do.  Neither A, C or D is suitable to felt on its own.  D looked like a complete disaster!  Now, some people might think D was superwash, but superwash will not felt, at all, with anything.

So, I completely wasted my money right?  No!  You can stop right here, but if you know how to spin, you can spin with alpaca to make a lovely yarn.  I don’t know how to do that yet!  I was going to give some to a friend, but then we had lockdown, so I just labelled the bags as alpaca and put them away.  However, if you are like me, you will take it further, step 3.

How do you take it further?  You add wool to it.  Something you actually know is wool that will felt. People in the feltosphere suggested that.  So I did.  I got out the blending board and blended the alpaca with merino.  I used the black merino for the dark alpaca and natural grey merino for the other two.  Here they are all laid out as before.

I then wet everything out and felted as before.  As you can see below, adding the wool made a huge difference and made for a better felting experience.

Here we are above drying out in the sun.  They felted better than expected, especially D.  Here is the final outcome below.

Sample A) From 9 squares to 6 squares square, took the longest to felt, hairy, and has some fine holes in it.

Sample B) From 9 squares to 6 squares square, was the quickest to felt.  Sturdiest and best felted of the three.

Sample D) From 9 squares to 7 x 6.5 squares.  I couldn’t get it down any more than that, but considering it was falling apart on its own, this is a good result.  Has some holes, but more like superfine cobweb.

This is the condensed version of 3 blog posts regarding this mystery fiber.  My conclusion is that I shall only keep sample C as it felted the best with the merino.  The other two will be used for spinning, once I learn how to do it!  So, if you get given some fiber that you are unfamiliar with, make a sample and see what happens!

Shibori Shrug Jacket

Shibori Shrug Jacket

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Heres another throw back post. I thought if I do not remember doing this maybe you won’t either. I hope you like it.

After seeing Ruth’s jacket it reminded me I had made a small one for one of my daughter’s dolls years ago. I thought I should give it another try but life size this time. I thought about doing it seamless but decided that it would make something that is a simple design into something complicated. Although I am not a great sewer I was sure sewing 2 straight seems on my machine should not be beyond me.

There are quite a few pictures so I have put them in a gallery for ease of viewing. If I could figure out how to post pictures side by side or in groups I would but that is beyond my skill level.

First I made a large piece of nuno felt. I used silk gauze and merino wool. After it was finished I put it in a red dye bath. It came out quite nice. It’s hard to tell from the picture because my camera did not like the red at all. The one you see was the best of a bad lot.

The next thing to do was the shibori. I finger pleated the middle of the piece starting at one short end. I very carefully held it flat and tight while I tied it. The first tie is the hardest one. After that you just pleat it up tying every couple of inches. You don’t want to be too neat about it. If the pleats are to perfect you get straight lines. You want your pleats to be tight so some of the material will resist the dye in the second bath. This type of shibori is supposed to make a bark like pattern. I put the tied up piece in a purple dye bath hopping for a nice red purple to appear on my cloth. It came out black. After it was dry the gauze side had more of a purple look but still very dark.

I sewed up my jacket. I made the material far too wide so the jacket ends up long. The short sides overlapped a lot when folded up. I had to have long “lapels” to make it work. It is not a mistake it’s a design feature, just ask me :O) It is still to long for me. I think it may look good one someone who is tall and thin. Two things I am not.

All in all not a bad try. I’ve made another piece of nuno felt to try again, I made it narrower this time. Now I have to find the time to sew it up.

Autumn Necklace

Autumn Necklace

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Although we’ve got baking temperatures and scorched grass outside, indoors I’m amassing quite a collection of Autumn leaves made from Lutradur!  I’ve decided its time to start thinking about what I’m going to do with these leaves and incorporating some of them into new pieces of work.

This particular leaf has been painted with Dylan bronze fabric paint to give it a metallic look.

The leaf, top right, before painting.

Bronze painted Lutradur leaf

I decided to incorporate it in a very simple choker type necklace.  The leaf is quite intricate so anything fussy would distract from the detail.

I began by cutting out a 4cm wide crescent shape from a piece of white superfine Merino prefelt 20cm x 29cm.

This was overlaid with Oyster Merino on the left and Antique on the right.


I made the felt quite thick and really worked it hard to shrink it and firm it up which resulted in a very textural effect and a subtle change from one colour to the other.  The leaf was sewn in place using a bronze coloured linen thread.  There is a chain fastener across the back but for now you will have to take my word for that…….I didn’t think to photograph it and I’m writing this post sitting in my B&B in Scotland while the Necklace is back home!  I will take a picture and add the image when I get back.

What To Do With All The Little Bits Or Fun Batts

What To Do With All The Little Bits Or Fun Batts

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I am very busy getting ready for the first Farmers market of the season and forgot it was my turn to make a blog post. I thought You might like to see this one from 2012 again.

Ann

Last week I sorted out my wool and put all the decent size pieces on the new shelves. this left me with a lot of little bits. I usually keep bins of little bits to use as accents. Now I had way to much of that too.  I sorted it all, picked out the stuff I really wanted to keep and put the rest into 4 piles for carding.

I have a large carder, a Patrick Green Cottage Industry Carder.

A friend came over and we carded it into a 4 fun textured batts.

pink/red/purple batt

orange/yellow batt

brown/gray/black/white batt

blue/green batt

The batts came out really nice and will be great for felting or for spinning textured yarn. I didn’t think I had that much until we fluffed it up to card. It is amazing how much you can compress wool when you’re stuffing it into a little storage box.

Making Socks from Start to Finish

Making Socks from Start to Finish

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Our guest artist is Leonor  from Felt Buddies who is sharing a special sock story and process.

Today I’m sharing with you some sock making, from the dye pot to the finished product.

A few months ago, I got a new tattoo from my husband’s co-worker Jim (if you’re guessing my other half tattoos for a living, you’re guessing right). In exchange for his work, Jim asked me to knit him a pair of socks – he’d seen me knit whilst in the studio and was fascinated by the concept of having a garment made especially for someone. I happily obliged!

Because I own my own fibre business, I have a lot of sock yarn available to dye at my pleasure. After talking to Jim about his colour preferences, I got to work. I loved that he asked me for three of my favourite things in socks:

  • Mismatched colours with contrasting heels and toes;
  • Bright colours (you can’t get brighter than magenta and purple!)
  • Socks that glow under UV light.

I had some yarn I was keeping for a special occasion and this was the perfect time to use it. It’s a very soft alpaca/merino/nylon blend.

For some reason, at the time I thought it was a good idea to break down the yarn into four pieces – two for the main body, two for the heels and toes. I’ve no idea why I did this, since I was only using two colours, but hey. I simply weighed the skein and took out 15 grams for each foot to make the smaller parts.

I then soaked the fibre in some water and synthrapol in preparation for dyeing. Synthrapol is a wetting agent and helps the wool absorb more dye. It’s also excellent to rinse out fibres.

After the yarn was thoroughly wet, I made my dye stock using professional-grade acid dyes and to the pots I went.

After adding the colour to the water, I placed one little skein and one big one in the pot and let the fibre sit for a few minutes without any heat. Because this yarn isn’t treated to be superwash (non-felting), the dye takes longer to penetrate the fibre, so I wanted to give it some time to get to every bit of wool.

I then turned the heat on and once the water started simmering, let it be for about 10 minutes, turned it off and let the wool cool completely in the pot. This allows for the remaining dye to be soaked up, and also makes for a brighter finished colour work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to turn my skein of yarn into a ball, I used an umbrella swift (pictured above, on the left) to hold the fibre whilst I pulled it onto a skein winder (above right) to make a neat ball. I have all the cool gadgets!

Once the yarn was dyed, washed, rinsed and dry, it was time for knitting. I had made an impression of Jim’s foot beforehand and used it as my template to make sure they’d fit. If you’re curious, this is a technique taught in a pattern called Fish Lips Kiss Heel that makes for fail-safe sock fitting (and heel-making). It’s available on Ravelry at a very low price and I highly recommend it.

And here’s the finished socks! I still had to weave in the ends in this picture, but I’m happy to report that’s been done since and I have presented this squishy pair to a very enthusiastic Jim.

Now, for a fun little extra: I asked for a photo of him wearing the socks for my social media. Be careful what you wish for! Jim took the picture, alright – he got down to his underwear and struck a hilarious sexy pose for me. If a bit of skin doesn’t offend you and you like a good laugh, hop on to my Instagram @feltbuddies and look for yourself. There’s a black and white photo with a disclaimer about the partial nudity, and after you swipe there’s Jim happily wearing my socks… J

 

Thanks Leonor!  If you’d like to follow more of her fiber adventures,  you can see her work here:  https://www.feltbuddies.co.uk/

 

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