January 2025 a review of the Moose bag landscape.
January is full of appointment this year. The first of the doctor visits was no fun, but I did get more done on my present moose bag.
You have seen my various moose(’s) in their partly 3-dishness. The project bag I started with is made of the same medium weight canvas for each bag. When I was working just on the moose I used a 14” quilters hoop, (It’s like an embroidery hoop but much stronger). Since I was not working on the whole surface of the bag, the hoop encircled the moose and kept that part of the canvas tot to work on.
1.1) the bag with no embellishments
1.2) two of the previous moose only augmented bags (Glenn’s on Left, Mine on Right)
I could not use the round hoop and have the full working area available while I am working on the background. Instead I selected one of my foam (like a pool noodle) garden kneeling pads. This is what I have been giving my picture felting students to work on. I also remind them to keep the plastic covering on to reduce wool pick up on the work surface. Once the plastic starts to detach, its time to put it in a large Zip-lock bag and possibly start on the other side of the foam pad.
2) Close up of bag with toggle holding the working surface (foam garden kneeling pad and bags of wool behind it)
If you are working on a larger bag or an oddly shaped bag, you might consider the pink ridged foam basement insolation. It is very loud in its ah…., ok it sound like it screams in displeasure at being stabled but this helps anyone who is overenthusiastic about impaling the wool into your backing fabric.
This project also emphasizes the rule of the vector the needle goes in is the same vector the needle comes out or you are buying more needle! no changing your directions from insertion to extraction!
Last rule, which is just an obvious tip. don’t leave needles in the front face of the bag. Inevitably the fabric will shift or you will knock your needle into something and it will again brake.
Its also important to look at the needle you are using, how many and how far up the needle are the barbs paced. This determines the working depth. Particularly with picture felting, you only need to engage the fiber with the barb and move it into your ground, in this case the canvas. So the barb has to move past the canvas but does not need to keep going after that. The extra stabbing distance is unnecessary to embed the fiber and the extra work will fatigue you so you can’t keep having fun. <Pouty face> we want more fun and less work!
In this case I want the wool to be securely attached to the canvas without damaging the canvas. I found the T38-333 (medium barb spacing) needles worked well at not being too fragile, while still small enough to not damage the canvas. Make a test patch on a piece of your ground fabric you may find you don’t like the T-38 and would prefer a T-36? Watch for breaking of the woven fabric you don’t want to weaken your project bag. There are committal needles designed to work on ground fabrics but are not commonly available to us at the moment. Maybe in the future.
3.1) the Doer brand Needle, I have been using to felt the bags.
3.2) I have been storing them in the kneeling pad, but should remove the needles from the aria I am about to work on. you can also see the puncture marks of the needle in the working surface.
This is a project that will help you slow down. Speed stabbing, and deep stabbing will often lead to having to get a new needles. with needles getting more expensive this could be a good incentive to slow down and consider where you are going to stab next. Think of this more like a silver (mettle) point drawing rather than a quick gesture drawing. If you have not tried silver point drawing, you use a mettle stylus on a prepared (gessoed) ground. The line made by the stylist looks like a 2H pencil. When you tip the picture on its side to catch the light, then it has a hint of gold silver or coper to the line, depending on your stylus. It was use to teach drawing in the renaissance, no messy ink spills. Lines cannot be erased,. Misplaced a line and the ground must be redone and you start again. so each line is considered carefully before being adding. It make for a slow carefully considered drawing. Working with canvas is a bit similar, but with needle brakeage rather than having to re-gesso!
The waiting room at the last doctor was not really conducive to having my photo reference out to consider as I worked, so I guessed. I was laying in what I remembered, generally, and will correct with wisps of fiber like transparent water colour washes later. I didn’t take any pictures while working there, since there were no photos signs in other parts of the hospital. Normally I do take photos to check my progress. You often see something in your photo that you didn’t see looking directly at you picture.
4) Moose bag landscape in progress working on trees with light coming through them.
I have been working in the upper right corner of the landscape adding tree in between the bits of light peeking through them. I started by adding the light backgrounds and then have been adding the trees. I still have a lot of the deep shadow to work on. you can see the blank areas.
The size of the project bag allows me to have the working surface (holding extra needles) and multiple bags of fiber I had been using. I have one larger baggie of the green dark to light shades and a sandwich bag of yellow/peach shades and tints.
5.1) Various bits of green blends in one large baggie, and a smaller baggie of blends of yellows, to peaches.
5.2) I am mainly working from these two bags, but have the base colours in bags underneath them, in case I need to make more.
The majority of the fiber is coridale, but there is some unknown wool, and I am sure a bit of white was blue faced leister.
I get a lot of curiosity about what the inside of the bag looks like with the wool attached. If the short fuzziness bothers you, or you are afraid it will catch on things in the bag, I would suggest a cotton or if you want something more posh, maybe silk would be the lining for you? I think I will likely leave it and see how it wares.
6) The inside of the needle felted bag, still in progress.
I still have to do a bit more felting on the front. It is not a flat as I would like. I was given the suggestion of gently wash it mild soap and adjitasion. I am leery to try that in case I shrink the bag and ripple the image.
My next doctor visit is chatting with an anestatist, I think I may be his first patent for the day, so I may not get to do much felting there. I will bring it just in case, it will reduce my stress levels I hope. If I don’t finish it before the 31st I will work on it during my recovery.
Have fun and keep felting, wet, dry, or damp!