On looking through my file of possible posts I have found that there are several subjects on the list about which I don’t have a lot to say, so I thought I’d put them all together.
First, my work basket. You may recall that I told you about the craft basket makeovers that I had done some years ago https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/06/12/craft-basket-makeovers-part-1/ After we moved to Dorset I acquired a marketing basket, can’t remember where from now but at the time it was “in” to be seen wandering around the shops with a basket on your arm. I didn’t use it for that for long though as I was worried about my purse sitting on top of shopping and being a bit of a temptation. So I decided that I’d turn the shopping basket into a work basket. At that time I hadn’t been introduced to felt, I was still spinning, crocheting, tatting, sewing and embroidering so a market basket would be ideal for that.
I used some more of the fabric remnants which I had bought from the same shop in Maidstone where I’d got those which I’d used for the spinning baskets. I lined the basket, having attached some internal pockets to the lining and made a padded/quilted lid. That was fixed at one end of the lining and a covered button and loop held it closed at the other end. I had found a miniature washing basket at a charity shop and I turned that into a pin cushion and I made a small pouch to hold small accessories like cotton reels. That was fixed to the side of the basket lining with a snap fastener.
The basket got quite a bit of use, as you can probably see from the state of the lining. One drawback I’ve found to sewing the lining to the basket is that it makes laundering it a bit difficult!
My marketing basket.
The lining sewn to the top edge of the basket. A bit rumpled I’m afraid.
The underside of the open quilted lid
Work basket with quilted lid.
Miniature cane basket with handles, containing a pin cushion made from more of the same fabric
The small accessories pouch.
One of the first projects I undertook once I had learned to needle felt was a challenge from a company which used to supply packs of mixed yarns – at least I think it was from them though it might have been a Guild challenge. It was back in 2002 and as I did not make any notes that I can find, I’m not entirely sure. I seem to have taken some progress images as I have found lots of these though unfortunately they are not of particularly good quality.
What I do remember is that I had decided that I would make a miniature of a herb knot garden but |’m afraid that my memory of how I found/chose the design is now so hazy that I can’t be precise. I do remember that when I learned to needle felt our teacher gave us pieces of old woollen blanket on which to draw a design that we could fill in with needle felted fibres. The idea was that we could then wash the work and it would become permanent. I have amongst the progress pictures images of the design as drawn on a piece of blanket and of the lines becoming “box hedges” and the spaces being filled with “flowers”. I can also see from the last couple of pictures that I added a “topiary tree” in each corner.
Knot Garden design
Initial needle felted sample (made a sample? me? Now that’s very unusual!)
The design drawn onto a piece of woolen blanket.
Starting to fill in the spaces with fibres and yarns.
The “box hedges” and most of the “flowers” filled in.
Finished Knot Garden with topiary trees in the corners.
A couple of years later, I acquired a quantity of (I think) Jacob fleece which had been carded all together so that what I had was a sort of grey mixture. I didn’t really want to spin it as I think I had been duped into buying a bag of really rough fibres. At about that time I had become interested in stone carvings – gargoyles (water spouts), grotesques, and heraldic beasts – particularly the Queen’s Beasts which are statues on display at Kew Gardens. Anyway, I decided that I’d have a go at needle felting some gargoyles using the grotty grey Jacob. No progress pictures I’m afraid, just finished pieces mounted on fabric covered card or canvas blocks.
The “Infernal Goat” gargoyle. The colour reproduction is poor it does actually look like grey stone (from a distance!)
Stone Man Gargoyle.
This Gargoyle is a direct copy of a waterspout mounted on the corner of a church tower.
Horned Man gargoyle. His curly hair and beard was, I remember, quite “fun” to do!
Ann’s idea made me think that some miniature gnomes impaled on the metal “spike” could look good as bag charm gnomes to sell in the Museum shop. I had to change the description from key chains to bag charms because the gnomes were a bit too fragile to sit inside someone’s bag/purse, but should look good dangling on the outside. Here are photos of the “shaft” on which the gnomes are made, and a few of the gnomes.
As I sit down to begin this post the sky has darkened and the rain (fingers crossed) is about to fall, heaven knows we need it, but what a fabulous summer it’s been so far here in sunny Lincolnshire! I don’t know about you but I tend to not do too much in the way of creative stuff through July and August as there are too many distractions and this year the intense heat has made me feel very lazy so lots of time spent relaxing, reading and watching creative videos. Consequently I’ve now got a table of projects I want to finish and a head full of others I want to start!
A couple of projects I did do this summer are two wet felted vessels. The first one, inspired by a shrivelled seed pod, was made at the İFA Region 8’s Summer School in Arnesby near Leicester. Our region encompasses several counties and is so spread out we struggle to get our İFA members to attend. On the other hand we have a regular group of creative ‘non members’ in the locality who are more than welcome to come along to our events, and thankfully they do! It was a busy and fun two days…..
My seed pod began life as five leaf book resist measuring 27cm x 36cm and various colours of Merino and Corriedale fibres.
It’s final shape was formed after lots of pushing and pulling and using strong clips to get it to stay as I wanted it.I decided to keep the opening as tiny as possible and, as a consequence, the resist had to be ripped to shreds in order to remove it! I’m wondering about adding some hand embroidery here and there in the shape of circles using a dull gold thread, I think it’s lacking something but is that it?
The second vessel was started last Friday when I was working at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. I’d seen a post somewhere mentioning they were having their second Artist Studio Day and inviting local artists to apply. If successful it meant I would get the use of a table in their ground floor workspace and get to spend the day with four other artists. It sounded like a great opportunity and I’m so glad I applied! Only four artists turned up on the day and unfortunately one of those had to leave early. My other two companions were both painters and it was nice to get to know a bit about them and watch them work. We had a few members of the public come in to see what we were doing but for most of the time it was very quiet which allowed us to focus on what we were doing.
Knowing I wouldn’t get finished, but would need to get my vessel to a stable state before leaving the gallery, meant I needed to do a bit of prep the day before. So I decided on a size, cut my circular resist and made this piece of prefelt combining threads, fabrics and fibres to cut up and use as surface decoration.
Prefelt for surface decoration
By the time we had to leave I had a stable prefelt that looked like a pizza and could be folded into my bag….it was too large to carry it flat!
The finished rock inspired vessel
One of the Summer pieces I’ve yet to finish is an Iris which I started at the end of July. This is going to be for the Lincolnshire Textile Groups Bountiful Botanicals competition taking place in October. I’m creating it from hand painted Tyvek fabric and wire and the flower will be approximately 30cm dia by 115cm tall. I’ve just got the leaves to do now and then I’ve got the perfect spot for it in my lounge when it’s finished. I don’t want to reveal too much before the competition so this is a sneak preview for now…..
Finally I’ll leave you with some images from this year’s fabulous Asylum Steampunk Festival. As ever there were some outstanding costumes, some very strange costumes and some that looked like they’d missed the theme altogether but it really didn’t matter! There were steampunk enthusiasts represented from all over the UK and from various European countries. One lady said she had come over from Hong Kong especially to join in the festival! The atmosphere is the friendliest you could imagine and the whole Cathedral Quarter was buzzing!
True to form I didn’t make time to create a costume but this year I did dig out a long skirt and a waistcoat as a (very) token gesture in order to wear my oversized steampunk dragonfly brooch.
The International Feltmakers Association has been running an annual Felt Swap – setting a theme and linking members who’ve elected to join the challenge with a “swap partner” from somewhere in the world – since 2020. I spotted the invitation to join in the 2025 swap on one of the regular emailed Newsletters and decided to have a go. I started to write this post about the entry and remembered that I’d entered the first Swap and had posted about it. However, when I trawled back through my posts to find the link for you, I found that I hadn’t actually written the post, let alone published it. So we’d better start there.
The subject of that challenge was “Light”. I thought a lot about this as it seemed such a wide subject and I didn’t know where to go with it.
To begin with I listed as many things as I could think of that could have anything at all to do with light and came up with: Light bulbs; Bright light – dazzling – blurred; Rainbow; Prisms and light splitting; Dark area with light coming in from one side; Sun beams from behind clouds; Fire light; Moon light; Lighthouse; Northern Lights.
Clouds and especially stormy skies fascinate me and I thought that I could do something with this idea. Initially I went for a sun low on the horizon just showing through some dark clouds but with rays going upwards behind the clouds. For some reason this was not a success so was abandoned.
Then we had a thunderstorm and I had a lightbulb moment! So I looked through some of Mr Google’s images just to remind myself what forked lightning looked like and then went for a storm over the sea, and used this image for reference.
Lightning at Sea
I have a collection of fibres, yarns and fabrics in my “stormy” project sack – too big to call a bag – and my first thought was to use some of those in the picture I had in mind. I had already made a mixed media image of a storm at sea using various textiles and fibres and thought of doing something similar.
Storm at the Coast
So I looked out some of the fabrics and yarns and other bits and pieces to see what I might use.
Part of my stash of “stormy” textiles
Some stormy fibres and some sequins to give light?
But in the end I decided that I wouldn’t use these for a couple of reasons: 1. this was supposed to be a “felt” swap; and 2. using the mixed media would possibly need a larger picture than I was making – we were limited to A5 size – 5.8 x 8.3 inches (sorry I don’t work in “the foreign” if I can help it). I did use my stormy fibres though.
I was reasonably happy with the picture after it had dried, but decided to do a bit of tidying up and embellishing with some needle felting.
This is the final result
The swap picture of LIGHTning
My swap partner, from Denmark, sent me a felt bag, which was really good. I didn’t want it to get dirty or damaged before I was able to use it and show it off so I wrapped it up and put it in a safe place. So safe that …..!
Anyway, back to this year’s swap. The theme for this one is “Inspired by an Artist”.
Again this was a very wide subject, first choose your favourite artist then find a piece of their work that sparks an idea. I don’t actually have a “favourite” artist, I love the work of many: Constable; Canaletto; Turner; Rowland Hilder; William Morris and most of the Arts and Crafts artists and architects; Rennie Mackintosh…. I could fill up the page with names. I trawled through works by most of these, bearing in mind the maximum size of the piece I was to make (8″ x 8″) the while. In the end I decided that I would go with Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
I searched google and found several stained glass windows, one wall carving and a draft fabric design that I liked.
Stained Glass at The Willow Restaurant
Rennie Mackintosh Roses
The terracotta tiles on the wall of Queens Cross Church
Stained glass window thought to be by Rennie Mackintosh – the whole window
In the end though, I decided to go with a section of the last one, which I squared up and manipulated to make it the right shape and size. The window is typical of the Art Nouveau period and “attributed to Mackintosh”. I could not find out if it is actually his design but it is certainly very like his work.
Stained glass window thought to be by Rennie Mackintosh – the whole window
Picking the reference section
Squaring the image (sort of)
I picked the centre of the window to work on and the enlarged and reshaped (slightly) design was printed off in greyscale and laminated. I would be able to use the laminated design as a base on which to lay out the fibres.
All ready to lay out the fibres
While I was looking through my stash for suitable fibres and pre-felts for the project I happened to glance at the design which was inverted. I immediately saw a face with an extremely runny nose!
This was when I spotted the runny nose!
Nevertheless I thought it would be fun to use the design of the face, since we were to produce something “inspired by” a favourite artist, rather than copy what s/he had produced. This would allow me to get rid of the runny nose and I also wanted to change the colour scheme.
I had decided to use a piece of pre-felt which I had bought from Wingham Woolwork some years ago, especially as it was slightly moth eaten and I could use what I might otherwise have to throw away. This was a lovely strong purple colour so I decided that my colour palette should be purple, turquoise and orange.
Picking colours and materials
The basic design was laid out in reverse, that is with turquoise knitting/felting yarn “face down” on the design, with some fillings-in of orange fibres on top and two squares of turquoise where the “eyes” would be. The purple pre-felt backing was placed on top of that and the whole wet felted. Unfortunately this resulted in the straight lines becoming distinctly wavy – a good job this wasn’t a straight copy of the original!
After the piece was rinsed, dried and ironed, the remainder of the design was added by needle felting (which, together with the shrinkage during wet felting, had effectively removed the moth holes) and finally some simple embroidery stitches.
Beginning the reversed layout of fibres
Just finished wet felting
Needle felting more features
With more features added with a sewing needle
The piece has been mounted on foam board for stability.
In my last post I showed you my wet felted conch shell made from Merino and Corriedale fibres with ribs made from Sari silk yarn. I liked the shape of this and wanted to make another, this time in off white with pale coloured ribs. I found a site on Etsy selling a beautiful subtle coloured variegated sari yarn but unfortunately when it arrived it was so loosely spun I realised it wouldn’t be suitable for this particular project.
As I was in the mood for felting I didn’t want to have to reorder so decided to search for a pastel “slubby” knitting yarn which I knew was hidden somewhere in the depths of my yarn stash.
It turned out to be far easier to work with than sari silk as it was less inclined to move while felting and it had just the right amount of colour and texture for the look I was after. I was intending to leave this shell plain white but now it’s made I think it will benefit from a bit of shading so that’ll get added at some point.
I increased the size of this one to approx 31cm long x 15cm wide x 6cm high. My spinning group has a coastal theme for our 2026 exhibition so there will be lots more shells being made in various fibres, fabrics, techniques, shapes and sizes.
Wet felted spiral shells crop up a lot online and I’d been wracking my brain for ages trying to work out how these are made. I had a light bulb moment back in December when I made this small spiral shell from 10gm of carded Corriedale. Since then I’ve worked out another way of achieving a similar shape and so made this larger version using 20gm of carded Corriedale fibre and measuring approx 13cm x 9cm.
At one point the shell was sitting next to this bowl and I wondered how the centre piece from the bowl would look inserted in the shell…..
…..I quite liked it so I’m now wondering whether to leave it in there as an abstract hermit crab or make the effort to felt a more realistic looking crab, what do you think?
Another theme I’m working on right now is insects, particularly dragonflies and butterflies. It all stemmed from a tutorial by textile artist Anastasiya Goleneva to make this beautiful dragonfly brooch. It’s made from hand and machine stitched and painted calico. At 16cm long x 21cm wide it worked out a bit too big for me to wear as a brooch so instead I’ve put a Command strip on the back and mounted it to the wall.
Having enjoyed making it I decided to do another but using interfacing and my own technique for the body and legs that would allow it to stand and give it a more delicate, longer, slimmer look. One thing I’m not happy with is the “flat” face which suited the brooch but doesn’t look right on the standing dragonfly so version three is underway!
The dragonflies led to my friend Diane asking me to show her how to make a simple butterfly brooch so I made a couple of samples with body and wings made from painted cotton velvet. This fabric takes on a beautiful leather like look and feel when painted with fabric paints or acrylics and remains very soft and flexible. I was thinking of hand embroidering the wings but decided to keep it basic as Diane could add more detail if she wanted to.
I had been wanting to go back to needle felting sculptures for some time, so when I came across a tiny picture of a hare in our local free newspaper New Blackmore Vale Magazine, I knew I’d found what I wanted to do. Rather than the usual boxing hares, which I may well have a go at sometime in the future, I felt called to this solitary speeding hare. He only had one fore foot on the ground and was obviously in a great hurry.
Original Inspiration
On getting my necessary supplies together, it was clear that I would obviously need a good strong armature for him and a solid base to hold it steady. Trawling through my drawer of wires, I found what looked like an unused coil of old, cotton covered, bonnet wire (probably pre-WW2). I’ve no idea what gauge it was but it was obviously strong enough to hold up an old fashioned bonnet brim, so I was sure it would keep the hare upright. Having resorted to Google for images of hare skeletons (naturally I wasn’t able to find one in the actual pose I needed, but I did find a couple of useful references) I looked out some other wires which would probably do for the pelvis and rib cage. I fiddled with the images and printed off one enlarged to the size I wanted to make the hare and then made a tracing/drawing to use as a working pattern.
Skeleton for size
Working drawing for skeleton – armature
My idea was to have a base made from two pieces of wood, with extended leg wire from the only leg actually touching the ground passing though a hole drilled in one piece of wood, and then bent at an angle of 90º. The wire would then be pressed into a slot cut into the underside to stop the hare swinging around when mounted.
Showing the extension of the armature from the grounded foot protruding from the bottom of the base
The second piece of wood would be fixed under the first piece to keep the wire in place and also to add extra weight to avoid the whole thing being top (or hare) heavy.
I would use the bonnet wire for the spine and head, and pipe cleaners for the pelvis and ear armatures, then go back to bonnet wire for the limbs.
While I was working up the armature I first had the leg wire stuck in a heavy reel of wire.
Subsequently, when I was needle felting, the leg wire was passed through a newly made slot in my felt needle felting cushion.
beginning the armature – spine and pelvis side view
beginning the armature – spine and pelvis top view
Armature with head, ears and legs – side view
Armature with head, ears and legs front view
Armature with head, ears and legs
pelvis armature
Armature with head, ears and legs – underside
Armature with head, ears and legs – back view
Using more of my scoured merino, which I had bought quite some years ago now from Wingham Woolwork, I started to fill in the inner body. The wool is scoured but not otherwise prepared, so it required quite some carding to get it into a state where I could use it to wrap the armatures and to fill in the muscles to give some substance to the animal. Here are some views of that work in progress.
starting to fill in the body
more core fibres added
core nearly done
I had of course gone to Google Images for reference pictures of hares from an all round perspective, both for body shape and for colour, from which I blended various colours for my palette. Here are a few of those.
Reference pic 1
Reference pic 2
Reference pic 3
choosing the colours to mix for the body
The mixed colours – except that they are not showing correctly in this image
Then I started adding the “top coat”. Working on a sculpture rather than on a “painting” was a bit complicated (and painful at times) until I found myself a small piece of polystyrene packing foam to use when I couldn’t rest the part of the hare I was needling onto my felt cushion.
Starting the undercoat
more work on the body and feet
using the extra felting mat
Another complication was transporting the hare from home to the various venues where I was working on him. In the end I used an empty plastic box and turned him upside down into it. It was a bit of a squeeze but he just about got in safely.
Bit by bit, over several months, he began to emerge from the fibres.
more work on the body and feet
beginning to blend the coat colours with the reverse needle
more blending the coat colours with the reverse needle
I had originally thought to use a pair of glass eyes which I had in stock as they were the right colour and had the black surround which can be seen on a real hare. Unfortunately they were too big so I fell back on giving the hare orange woollen eyeballs and working them up from there.
Trying out the glass eye
Beginning the felt eye
Almost there – Enjoying a good run
When he was substantially finished, I added some “grass” and “rough undergrowth” to the “soil” on top of the wooden base. This consisted of all sorts of odd bits of fluff, fibre, yarn and fabric selvedges, plus some suitable acrylic paint.
Some of the bits and pieces of scrub and grass
The footwire was poked into the hole in the ground and bent under so that he was running across the scrub land. Then, using his carry box as a stand, I added and secured the second piece of wood.
showing his carry box and adding the 2nd part of the base
Although the 2 pieces of wood were from the same larger piece they did not look good when screwed together so I painted them green, obscuring the fact that they were not one large piece. I thought I was done then, but unfortunately one of the pieces of wood started to warp and spoiled the illusion. Eventually, after some thought, I removed the bottom piece of wood and glued some non-slip matting over the base (having first taped the footwire into its slot in the bottom of the base) and painted the underside the same green as the sides.
Whilst working and looking at the reference pictures of the whole animal, I realised that he probably had had lots of whiskers. So I looked for more reference pictures of hare(y) faces and saw that indeed he did. So how to add these essential appendages?
harey faces
I have for some years now been collecting cats’ whiskers. (They make great fishing rods for fishermen living in the countryside of 00 gauge model railway layouts!)
It’s the cat’s whiskers
I would use some of these for the hare. Initially I was adding a dot of glue to the end of the whisker, poking a hole in the hare’s muzzle and pushing in the whisker. The problem was that the whiskers were life-size for a cat, but too big for my hare. The whiskers were actually strong enough to be poked into the hare’s muzzle without first making a hole, (provided there wasn’t a bit of armature in the way), so in the end I just poked them in and through and out the other side, chopping off the protruding bit and leaving the right length behind. In fact, unless someone tries to pull them out, the whiskers will stay where they are.
cutting the poked through whisker ends
I am hoping to find some form of clear box to cover the hare and stand, if only so I don’t have to keep dusting him.
Here he is.
Out enjoying his run, whiskers and all
Since making him, I have inherited a book all about gnomes.
Cover of Gnome book
One of the fascinating things I have learned about them is that they can run as fast as a hare and are small enough to take a ride. So you never know my hare may gain some friends some day.
Final thought – what should I name him, any ideas? (Don’t say Harry, I don’t think the Prince would be amused.) I understand that Hares were introduced to the UK, probably by the Romans, so perhaps he might be named after a Caeser!
Back in March Mark announced that he fancied taking up a new hobby and was thinking of having a go at making automata or possibly creating “gravity art”. He’d been looking at examples online of incredible, complex rolling ball creations by a guy who goes by the name of Copper Gravity. I love anything like this so did a bit of my own googling and discovered there’s a place in Stratford on Avon called The MAD (Mechanical Art & Design) Museum that showcases this type of art. If you look at their website you might get the impression that it’s geared for children, and maybe it is, but on the day I visited there wasn’t a kiddie in sight…..it was all adults having a great time marvelling at the exhibits! Stratford isn’t exactly on the doorstep but I knew I would be down that way mid March to run a workshop so decided to plan my visit around that. On arriving in the town the first hurdle was to find the entrance which is very discreet. Even with Google maps telling me I was in the right place I walked past the museums narrow open door a couple of times before spotting it! On the positive side, having walked in the wrong direction to begin with, I did get to see Shakespeare’s birthplace.
The museum exhibits range from very simple to incredibly complex with everything in between and in front of each exhibit is a button which you wave your hand over to start the automata working. If I tell you the vibe is a mix of Wallis and Gromit, Heath Robinson and Scrapheap Challenge you’ll get the idea. Some of the pieces are behind glass, which made it difficult to video them, but hopefully you can get the gist of this one. Keep your eyes on the tank and the rabbit!
There were several clocks on display but I thought this one, Gold Clock by Gordon Bradt, was particularly beautiful…..
The majority of pieces were displayed on open shelving. This submarine and its wonderfully weird operatives has to be my favourite! There is so much going on here and it’s quite hypnotic the way those little characters move. I would love Mark to make something like this, but I’m not holding my breath!
The “Platform Lift” by Keith Newstead was amusing and this was very “Wallace and Gromit”…..
Some of the exhibits are wall hanging and I loved this one by Chris & Angela Margett. It has three cheeky gremlins defacing a portrait of Shakespeare, Stratford on Avons most recognised figure!
Although the museum is small it’s jam packed with exhibits as well as having a small cinematic area playing a fascinating video and there’s a small shop selling automata kits and souvenirs. I must have spent over two hours in there and absolutely loved it!
The following day I was at Stitching Kitchen in Brackley to teach my Wet Felted Chickens. This was my second visit to this venue run by a lovely lady called Hannah Thompson. I had six students which meant plenty of one to one time and they all worked really hard to get their birds finished in the time allowed. What was all the more impressive was that two of the ladies had never wet felted before!
I’ve done very little felting since my last post but I have been collecting images of shells and thinking about how I can interpret those as “Structures” for Waltham Textile Groups next exhibition. This image inspired my first wet felted Conch shell.
The Conch is a medium to large sea snail which inhabits the Indo-West Pacific. This is my wet felted version of the Conch made from Corriedale, Merino, sari silk and paint. It’s approximately 25cm x 12cm.
Hopefully I will have a few more shells to share next time…..or maybe I’ll have gone off at a tangent and be doing something completely different, who knows!
Back in November last year, I was asked by Tanya, the author of our upcoming pantomime, if I would make a parrot puppet for the show. I was a bit surprised since the show was Cinderella and I wasn’t aware that there was a parrot in that panto. But then, when I read the script I found that it had a camel in it too, so what was a parrot between friends?
I agreed to make the puppet and, having found the appropriate place in the script, I set about working out how it was to operate.
The scene was nearing the end of the panto when the comedy duo, Stanley Wright and Ivor Watt (you can imagine the “he’s right and what’s what” dialogue), were returning from their holiday in South America and had arrived at Compton Abbas Airfield in Dorset. Upon being so requested by a customs officer Mr Watt placed their suitcase on the customs desk to be checked. The customs officer proceeded to pull out of the case what appeared to be a dead parrot. This parrot would, after having been banged on the desk (à la Monty Python sketch) and thrown back into the case, climb back out of the case, hiccupping the while.
It would be necessary for the puppeteer to be inside the desk so as to manipulate the parrot whilst assisting the customs officer to pull odd things out of the case like the vodka bottle the parrot had emptied, a washing line (for shopping on line) sporting all sorts of odd bits of clothing; an old fashioned phone with ears eyes and a mouth ( a head phone); a basket (for the on line shopping); a bag of apples (Apple Pay); a fish and two tins (a perch for the parrot and toucan as company for him); a credit card, and a teddy dressed in a PayPal tee-shirt, just in case the Apple Pay and the credit card weren’t enough to pay for the shopping; and an email invitation to the wedding of Cinderella to Prince Lee.
The puppeteer had to manage this while at the same time holding the drunken parrot high above his/her head so that it could be seen to be watching the action and hiccupping loudly from time to time.
This needed some thinking about. Obviously it was necessary for the base of the case to be removed and for a similar sized hole to be cut in the top of the desk so that the various items could be handed up to the customs officer – that seemed straight forward.
The puppet would need to be at least life-size, and reasonably strong to withstand being bashed about. The scene was not a long one, but nonetheless a sufficiently substantial puppet might be so heavy that holding it up in the air would be painful. The answer of course was two parrots. One which could take the abuse, and one which was light and manoeuvrable and the beak on which could open and close. To be able to manipulate the beak the puppeteer’s hand would need to be inside the parrot’s head, but since it would be way above the case on the desk the puppeteer’s arm would have to be inside the parrot’s body as well.
My thought was that the parrot could stand on the rim of the case and this should help the puppeteer hold the parrot up for the length of the scene. I discussed this with the director of the panto and it was agreed that this would be the best option. I also offered to be the puppeteer, mainly because it would be easier to fit the parrot to my arm if I was to “wear” it than to have to keep checking the fit with another person.
Unfortunately the customs desk and the suitcase were not available for me to work with – the desk not yet having been constructed and the suitcase not chosen, but I was anxious to get on with making the puppet because the cast members who would be in this scene would need to be able to rehearse with both the parrots.
The puppet would need to have legs and feet so it could stand on the edge of the case. I could also have it “walk” along the edge of the case by having one of the legs more moveable than the other and attaching an operating stick to the foot. I would then be able to make it side step along the case and back again. I might also be able to mimic the parrot scratching it’s head with that foot.
I’d decided on a red macaw so I did a trawl of our two charity shops to find some really bright red and blue fabrics. On my first foray I found a large Christmas stocking in bright red foam-backed velour, some red lining material and a bright blue plastic mac. Subsequently I came across a bright royal blue velour jogging suit – trousers and hooded top – and I used that instead of the mac.
As the puppet would have to be at least life-size, I did my usual trawl through Google for skeleton and size information as well as reference pictures. It was at this stage that I decided to go for a Red and Green Macaw because it’s a bit bigger than a Red Macaw and has green rather than yellow feathers on its wings. (I can’t remember now why the colour was important).
2 scarlet Macaw skull for size reference
3 scarlet Macaw skull from above
a print out of the skeleton, the pattern made from it, the bottle skeleton and a sample milk bottle
5 reference pics re feet and feathers
Red and green macaws “getting friendly”
Next I got out my stash of empty plastic milk bottles, wire coat hangers, some thinner wire and my masking tape. Having consulted the skeleton for sizes and fashioned the legs from bits of the coat hangers, attaching feet made from the thinner wire, I wrapped the “thighs” with some of my non-woven cotton cloth and covered the lot with masking tape.
7 pair of legs and milk bottle beak.
Then, using the skull images for size and shape, I made a rough shape of the head from bottle bits.
After first attempting the parts of the beak using curved bits from the life-size milk bottles, I decided that I’d be better off needle felting them, especially as I had been advised that the parrot’s head should be oversized for the body, to be more easily seen by the audience – the milk bottle beaks weren’t big enough. The felt beak was a better idea anyway as it enabled me to stitch on the inside a piece of foam tubing just big enough to get a finger inside which would help with opening and closing the beak. I stitched the beak parts to the head – one advantage of using milk bottle bits is that you can stitch through them quite easily.
8 armature for upper beak
9 needle felting the upper beak
10 upper beak ready to be attached to skull
11 milk bottle skull plus upper beak with finger tube and lower beak waiting to be attached
I drew a line on the skull where the white skin of the face would meet the red head feathers and covered the face with masking tape. Then, using black glass eyes, I constructed slightly protruding eyes surrounded by masking tape eyelids, Next came the head “feathers” using part of the toe of the Christmas stocking, which was basically the right shape. This was stitched on following the line I had drawn and the top of the beak.
Finally I painted the face white and added the red lines which appear on a parrot’s face and I also added extra pieces of the red velour to the puppet’s neck.
12 Puppet skull with upper and lower beaks and prominent eye. Also showing use of red velour “feathers” on top and back of head.
13 pupped head with facial markings added
14 As before but with added red velour to cover the neck
Next the body, which needed to be hollow so that I could get my arm up through it with my hand protruding from the top so it would go inside the separate puppet-head. This would dictate the size of the body – from my wrist to the crook of my elbow – as my elbow had to be outside the puppet. I had already made a pattern for the body based on the skeleton image which I had downloaded and luckily it was the same length as my forearm. The body “skeleton” was constructed from a couple of milk bottles stitched together and covered in masking tape.
The legs were then attached to the body with more wire and so that the right leg could be moved up and down and side to side using the stick which was attached to the foot for ease of manipulation.
The legs and the lower part of the body were painted red, rather than covered in fabric “feathers” . The body front was covered with more of the red Christmas stocking fabric.
15 Milk bottle body
16 body and legs front view
17 body and legs back view
A tail was needed and this would have to cover up that part of my arm which wasn’t inside the puppet. I made it from pieces cut from the foam sling which the hospital gave my husband last year after he tried to cut his thumb off with a circular saw. I covered this (the foam, not the thumb) with blue velour from the jogging suit. I also cut three foam feather shapes which I covered in some of the red lining material and these were stitched to the blue tail and then onto the bottom end of the body front. I also added some more blue velour to the front of the body between the legs.
Next some wings. These I also made from the foam sling and covered with blue velour and red lining material and also some green fabric – painted calico. When all was stitched down, Polly was finished.
18 Body showing red and blue fabric covering tail and wings, with red painted breast and legs. Also showing stick attached to right leg for manipulation of leg.
19 nearly dressed body back
Time was getting on by this stage, it was January and the desk and suitcase still hadn’t appeared so I couldn’t practice the moves Polly would have to make. However I still had to make the other parrot – the “dead drunk” one. With so little time available it would have to be a lot less detailed if more substantial than the puppet.
Out came the milk bottles again and the foam sling. The body was just one bottle – a bit square-ish but it would have to do – covered in red lining material. I made a pair of legs with feet with wire covered in masking tape. These were attached to the body – stuck straight out in a “dead bird” position. The shape of the wings and tail was cut out of the last of the foam sling and this was stitched to the body, then covered in red, green and blue fabric. The head was made in a similar way to the puppet’s but with closed eyes. The beak was actually the one previously made from bottle plastic covered in masking tape and painted. The head was stitched – very firmly – to the body. It stood up well to being bashed against the table, thank heavens.
20 Part made head of “Drunk Parrot”
21 Drunk parrot’s wings & tail foam base
22 drunk parrot body trying wings & tail for size
23 completed “drunk parrot”
24 completed “drunk parrot” dozing on its side
I think it was barely 2 weeks before actual performance that the customs desk and the suit case turned up for us to rehearse with. It transpired that, because of the size of both, I was only going to be able to get head and shoulders and body down as far as breast bone visible to the audience, so I needn’t have spent time with the legs and tail after all. Had I known I might instead have made the wings so they could open. After a few rehearsals I decided that, for operational reasons, I would actually fix the puppet’s head to its body permanently.
Here he is performing his little heart out!
25 Performing parrot with assistance from Mr Watt, Mr Wright and Customs Officer. Note Watt & Wright’s “sunburnt faces”
26 Performing parrot with assistance from Mr Watt, Mr Wright, Customs Officer and Security Officer
27 Performing parrot with assistance from Mr Watt, Mr Wright, Customs Officer and Security Officer
I know that some of our readers are members of the International Feltmakers Association and therefore know all about our upcoming exhibition “Connections”. For those of you who don’t, the Feltmakers organisation uses their AGM at the end of March as the launch for a themed annual online exhibition to showcase our members work. The wonderful thing about these events is that they are not juried, there is no right or wrong so no one is judged, it’s open to any ability and how you interpret each theme is entirely up to you. All of the online exhibitions can be viewed by anyone, not just members, simply visit Feltmakers.com and click on Our Feltmakers from the menu and then choose Online Exhibitions. Last year’s theme was Hats Off! Hats and fascinators are simply sculptures for the head so we could let our imaginations run riot and you can see the wide variety of headwear created for that event here.
For me this year’s brief took more thought as there are so many different ways it could be approached…..”you can find connections in the way you interact with other feltmakers, in the way you are inspired by nature, other mediums or other artists. You can also explore the literal: how can I connect one part of the felt to another?”
I finally whittled my thoughts down to two ideas. The first would take the form of another head piece, because I’m developing a bit of a thing for fascinators, and the second would be a 3D vessel.
I am a huge fan of the Dutch Feltmaker and Milliner Saar Snoek. Saar has a different approach to many other feltmakers I know and her imagination and creativity when it comes to felted headwear is phenomenal!
Some of Saar Snoek’s amazing wet felted headwear.
How I approached my Fascinator might sound like a cop out to some of you but remember the theme of the exhibition is Connections🤩 So rather than start from scratch I decided to “connect” three existing pieces of my own to create a Fascinator, these are pieces that were never intended to be worn on the head. One of these was originally designed as necklace which I’ve worn on several occasions along with the second piece which was a matching bracelet. They were both Nuno felted, stitched, embellished with beads and backed with fabric.
Next I looked around for something suitable to top off my head piece. I’d been working with organza earlier that day so auditioned a piece of that but decided against it. It needed something with much more impact!
The organza wasn’t doing it for meThe Splash would make more of a statement!
I’d previously made a blue version of the Splash, inspired by the wonderful Australian feltmaker Pam de Groot, and thought I’d try that out for size. Although it was far too floppy at this stage I could envisage it working as the third piece of the Fascinator. I used acrylic paint to colour it to complement the other two pieces and to give it enough rigidity to keep its shape.
Next I removed the necklace chain and invisibly stitched everything together.The final stage was to attach it to a gold metal headband repurposed from another project and then talk a friend into modelling it for me. Fortunately Maria was all for it and I think she really suits it too!
I called this piece Crowning Glory.
For my second piece I started by sketching a variety of shapes including cords, spikes and balls which could be used to join individual pieces of flat felt in a decorative way. While I was considering how this would look my design changed several times and ended up becoming a four sided hinged structure. At this point I realised it would be a good project for Waltham Windmills next challenge which is Structures. So having only made four connectors I decided to park that design for now and moved on to plan B.
The first four connectors are now being saved for another project
Plan B was based on a very rough sketch but became more of a “let’s make a start and see where it goes” sort of plan to avoid any more procrastination!!
I started with an egg shaped resist, covered it in green and grey Merino fibre and worked it to prefelt. Various thicknesses of hand made prefelt and fully felted offcuts were then arranged on one side and covered with a thin layer of white Corriedale fibre. At that point I decided to add the grey concertina protrusion before attaching the ropes, balls, cords and several other pieces of prefelt on the top side. In all I connected at least 60 separate pieces of felt as well as small pebbles, acrylic wallpaper and dried seaweed. It’s very tactile and I’ve left it hollow so it can be pushed and pulled and reshaped allowing the viewer to also connect with it.
I’ve called this one Biomorphia
I hope you’ll take the time to visit the Feltmakers website after the 29th March and see the exhibition for yourself.
I have made quite a number of props for various productions put on by my local amateur dramatics society SNADS and they usually get used. However, because of one thing and another, there are some that ended up “in the bin”.
Last February our pantomime was Aladdin. It was the version which has a genie of the ring as well as the genie of the lamp. The ring belongs to Abanaza, the baddie, and when it is rubbed the genie appears.
The script did not indicate what type of ring it was – finger/ear/curtain/boxing/circus – though the former was probably what was meant. It was felt that a finger ring would not be seen by the audience and, since this was a pantomime not a play, and “over the top” was the order of the day, we’d make it big enough for the back row to see it. It was to be bangle size.
I showed the production team a page of different types of ring for them to decide what the ring should look like. The director chose the ring with the dragon’s eye.
This is what I showed the Production meeting and asked for a decision on the required design. The dragon’s eye ring is 2nd from the right on the top row.
To begin with I decided to use a wooden curtain ring as the base but it soon occurred to me that unless I used glue I would find it very difficult to safely attach a glass dragon’s eye to it. Glue is always a last resort in stage props or costume because if it is going to fail it will do it in mid performance, sod’s law being what it is.
The original materials for the ring
So it had to be textile based so that I could sew everything to it. I used some scrap felt “moulded” into a circle and wrapped it with strips of the non-woven cotton cloths that I tend to use for just about anything these days. The felt and cloth together would keep the shape I needed by the time I’d finished with it.
scrap felt strips covered by strips of unwoven cotton cloth, yarn wrapped and stitched down.
I had researched glass eyes but could not find exactly what I wanted that could easily be affixed to the ring so in the end I decided to use one of the Fimo eye blanks I had made some time ago. They had short pieces of pipe cleaners embedded in the back to help with fixing. I did use an image of one of the glass eyes as reference for painting the Fimo eye, which I did with acrylic paints, glitter glue, glitter nail varnish topped with several coats of clear nail varnish.
The finished fimo eye, painted with acrylic paint, glitter and nail varnish
I attached the eye to the ring with the pipe cleaner and then stitched the pipe cleaner to the ring to make sure it stayed there. I added a piece of scrap felt around the eye in the shape of the edge of eyelids which I stiffened with PVA glue, at the same time adding the glue to the rest of the ring. After a couple more coats of PVA had dried I set about decorating the rest of the ring.
The original design of the ring was somewhat “steam punk” so I fished out some chains from my stash, some lengths of threaded black bugle beads and some wires. I also found some gold cord and, pinching an idea from Lyn which she showed us in one of her posts, I wrapped some wire around the cord so that I’d be able to bend it to my will.
The silver chain I used mainly to surround the eye, and wrapped the rest of the ring with the black chain, the gold cord, with and without wire wrapping, and the black beads.
The gaps of the ring showing between the wrappings I painted with a couple of coats of silver, bronze and gold metallic acrylic paints and there we have it.
The finished ring
I delivered this to the rehearsal space and a couple of weeks later, when they got as far as rehearsing the scene in which Abanaza would remove the ring from wherever he was wearing it and hand it to Aladdin, it was decided that it would have to be a finger ring after all (and we had plenty of those “in stock”). So now the ring is hanging on my bedroom wall.
The other props that I have made that didn’t get used were intended for a play entitled “Chase me Up Farndale Avenue S’il vous plait”. I don’t know if any of you have heard of the Farndale Avenue Townswomen’s Guild productions – they are plays within plays. I think it likely that the original “Play that went Wrong” was based on these. Anything that could go wrong did, of course. This latest production was to take place in May 2022 and the main thing that went wrong was that it wasn’t performed after all – various problems mounted up and it was decided not to proceed with it. By that time, with sod’s law still operating, most of the props that were my responsibility had been made.
The three main things that I needed to make were a vacuum cleaner, a paper bag of baking flour, and an iced cake.
“Simples” do I hear you say? Well the flour bag falls open at the bottom on being picked up, and lets loose a load of flour. The cake gets trodden on during the play but was sufficiently intact to be offered to someone to eat. As far as the vacuum cleaner was concerned, it had to look like a Hoover Junior, which does (or rather, did,) have a distinctive appearance.
I actually make my own bread so have ready access to paper flour bags. When I had emptied one of these, I carefully opened the bottom of it. Using some white polystyrene, I made a “pile of flour” shape that would fit inside the bag. I smoothed off the polystyrene and gave it a coat of PVA glue and some of my non-woven white cotton fabric. When that was dry and placed inside the refolded bag, I added a little loose flour – enough to be seen to puff up when the bottom opened, but not enough to cover the stage in it. I had also asked Mr Google for a suitable image which I could manipulate so that I could paste a recognisable baking flour design over the bread flour image on the bag. It would have been quicker to just write “Cake Flour” in large letters and if we had been producing a pantomime that’s what I would have done. However a play requires a little more verisimilitude.
The loose bottomed bag and it’s load of flour
Next the vacuum cleaner.
Not surprisingly, no-one had a Hoover Junior to lend us, so I had to do my best to made a cordless electric carpet sweeper look like one. All that there was to the carpet sweeper was a base with the brushes in it on the end of a pole/handle.
A generic cordless electric carpet sweeper of the type used as the base of the Hoover Junior
So I found an old fabric bag of about the correct size and colour to replicate the dust bag and suspended this from the handle on some string attached to a slide-on plastic filing bar. The bottom was gathered onto a plastic ring and attached to the top of the cardboard mock up of the hoover body which was affixed to the sweeper body with masking tape. My husband produced a length of cable with a plug on one end. The cable was secured down the handle and onto the mock up body, again with masking tape. Google had kindly supplied me with an image of a Hoover Junior (complete with adoring housewife thanking her kind husband for the present!) from which I was able to obtain a print out of the Hoover logo and also the appropriate font for the word Hoover.
Reference pic – a Hoover Junior and a “housewife” delighted with her birthday present! It also gave me the logo and the font needed to add “Hoover” to the dust bag.
The letters of the word were affixed to the “dust bag” and the logo to the mock-up of the body of the cleaner.
Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the completed cleaner, or any of the stages of construction, but it would look sufficiently like a Hoover Junior when viewed from the auditorium.
Finally the cake. Since we manage, during panto rehearsals, to empty quite a few of the round tubs of chocolates that abound around Christmas we usually use one of these to represent a cake. Turning it upside down we paint it white, or whatever colour the icing is supposed to be and stick on pretend cream or icing decorations. We actually had one in stock, well it was a work in progress, the tub base/cake top had been painted, but the sides were awaiting completion. All I had to do was insert a size 9 footprint.
Mr Google (what did we do BG?) gave me an image of a suitable footprint and I enlarged it to the appropriate size, printed it out and, using it as a template, cut out the footprint shape from the surface of the “cake”. I then stuck the printed foot print onto that piece of plastic and, using stiff white paper, suspended the footprint below the hole in the cake surface, to replicate the damage that treading on the cake did to it.
The lid of the sweet tub aka the bottom of the cake
The footprint from underneath.
Someone’s size 9’s in the cake
I would then have painted over the cake again, including the sides this time, but by this time the powers that be had decided that the production would not go ahead.
So the cake was binned, the Hoover dismantled and the flour bag put into storage, and we all went home!
You may recall that in a recent post I told you about the outsize flea I had been asked to make for the play “Flea the Pandemic”. About a month ago the director of that play asked me to make a prop for one of the three one act plays he had written which SNADS have just performed under his direction. He asked for a dead fox!
In fact the play called for a vixen which had been killed by hounds and he wanted it to be as gory as possible.
Once again I asked Mr Google for some assistance with basic reference images – of live foxes. From these I determined the colours of fur fabric which I would need to use.
Reference photo – All round a Fox.
Having spoken to our wardrobe mistress and acquired some bits from our stash, I realised that I was going to have to get some paint as we didn’t have much in the way of correct colours. I was able to obtain some “match pots” of acrylic decorating paint in tan, and dark greyish-brown together with a “fresh blood” red and a “drying blood” red. I collected together other items which I usually find helpful in making props – some of my non-woven cotton cleaning cloths, empty milk bottles and other plastic vessels and a couple of plastic tubes of different diameters.
Collecting the materials and reference photos.
Mr Google next helped me with the size of a vixen carcase (though from whose website I cannot now remember) and the shape of a fox’s skull.
Reference information re size of “carcase”.
skull
The basic skull shape I made from some pieces from an opaque white milk bottle and masking tape.
Part made skull “armature”
I made an approximate size body using one of the non-woven cloths, which I stuffed with some recycled polyester stuffing and I covered that with fur fabric, but leaving the “belly” open. I covered the skull with fur fabric using PVA glue and some strong thread, and stitched it to the body. I added two back legs in fur fabric, one full length front leg and, as I was then running out of the fabric, a short one leaving the paw end open and painted red, inserting some more of the opaque white plastic cut into “shards” to represent a bloody shattered bone.
Basic body shape
I was lucky with the tail, as amongst the bits in the fur fabric stash there was a piece which was stitched into a vague tail shape and it was darker and fluffier than the rest of the fur fabric I had found. So I stuffed it and added a white tip to it. I stitched that onto the fox’s rear end.
Tail Fabrics
I added some ears to the head, using scraps of the fur fabric stiffened with PVA and paint. I didn’t bother adding teeth to the open mouth as the head was likely to be less visible to the audience. I painted a black nose and black eye sockets.
I then had to brush over the rest of the light tan coloured head and body with a darker tan, which I had mixed from the new paint and some in my paint box, using the dry brush method, to represent something more fox-like.
Next came the gory bits. I fashioned some organ shapes from the plastic bottles, and some entrails from some of the tubing and a couple of the milk bottle handles.
Painted plastic organs and entrails
I noticed that a couple of the non-woven cloths which had been through the washing machine several times were beginning to break down. Stretching them pulled the centre into holes which began to look a lot like caul fat. So I cut some sections out and wrapped the “organs”. This would make them more realistic although the full effect would be unlikely to be seen by the audience.
Caul Fat
Recycled cleaning cloth “caul fat” over organ.
Then I got busy with the “blood”! The paint covered the “organs” and the “entrails” quite well, although I later found that it would flake off the milk bottle handles and would need touching up. I also treated the open belly, the short front leg and the mouth with lots more “blood”.
The fox was to be fixed to a black board, which would hopefully blend into the black flooring that was to cover the shiny wood floor of the stage. Once this had been delivered to me by the Producer, I stuck the body to the board with more PVA (what would we do without it?) and then arranged and stuck down the organs and entrails.
But something was wrong, it didn’t look right. Then I realised that there wasn’t enough blood. If the fox had been torn apart by hounds there would be blood everywhere. So I got the paints out again and spread a good deal of it over the board and added lots more to the body.
Ripped open belly
The Head
The broken front leg and bone fragments.
Dead Fox
I have now seen the play and at the end the poor fox was accorded a solo spot on the stage.
