Browsed by
Tag: needle and wet felting

Just Playin’

Just Playin’

Comments 22 comments

The last twelve months have, as my Irish granny would have said ‘put manners on me’.  Cataracts, which were a ‘by the way’ diagnoses in my late 40s finally and quickly caught up with me.  Eight increments of sight deterioration over a three month period!  No more night driving, reading became a challenge and my creative curiosity disappeared.  And so, the waiting game began.  I am currently recovering from surgery on eye number 2.  What a difference it has made and while it will be some time before I get my new glasses, I can function without them for the first time ever! Also, life in all its facets is so beautifully colourful.

So why do I mention it in my post.  It feels awkward mentioning it as I am a very private person.  Awkward, but necessary.  Many of us go through times in life where we lose our creative mojo.  Initially, I found myself angst ridden and questioning my abilities.  The feeling never really went away but I had to find a way to go with the flow and tap away at bits and pieces for a while.

So now that the eyes are fixed I have started playing.  Nothing too serious (well except for my last piece but more of that later).  I am now a week and a half after the operation and here is what I have made over the past week.

Sample 1:

First up, a bit of a back story.  I have committed to a felt swap later in the year.  The theme is brooches so I thought I should start thinking about this.  I used to like felting with basic resist shapes and distorting them so I thought this might be a starting point for this experiment.

First of all, I cut a 15cm square resist and rounded the corners.  Then I covered both sides of the resist in eight thin layers.  I started and finished with a rich orange colour and sandwiched in between were two layers of mustard and two layers of green.  I used 16 micron merino which I purchased from Leiko Uchiyama https://www.leikofelt.com/merino/.  Leiko’s fibre is hand dyed and the colours are sublime.  She is based in Ireland and ships worldwide.

Sample 1 fibres laid out and wet down 8 thin layers

I made a prefelt in the usual way.  I wanted the prefelt to be strong so I kept working it until it started to distort the resist.

solid pre-felt shrinkage has started

Then I made a small incision on one side of the resist, extracted the resist and sewed the raw edges back together with some nylon thread:

Sample 1: repairing the hole which was cut to remove resist

Then it was time to play with the square shape.  I brought the edges of the square to the front of the piece and I started playing and shaping it.  Once I was happy with the shape I handsewed them to hold them in position. Then I worked hard at felting the edges together and to the flat back side of the piece.

Sample 1: working on manipulating the shape

 

Sample 1: working on a pleasing shape

 

Sample 1: Shape has been secured with stitching and fulling begins

Once it was felted, fulled and rinsed, I removed the threads and started cutting. Lots of cutting!

Sample is fully felted, stitches are removed and cutting has started

 

I got a bit scissor happy! I sliced through a little at a time

Here is the finished piece.  I have popped it on top of its original resist to give it perspective:

Sample 1 finished piece laid on original resist for size comparison

Here is a close up of the piece. The inch ruler underneath gives some perspective on size.   Do you think it would make a suitable brooch?

Sample 1: close up of finished piece

Sample 2

Next up, a flower.  This year sees the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Irish felting group Feltmakers Ireland, by our esteemed member and incredibly creative Elizabeth Bonnar.  There is a celebration planned for later in the year where members will focus on making pink flowers.  I thought I might take this down time to make at least one.  But I wanted to play and not produce my usual style of flower.   I wanted to make a three layered flower but I also wanted to do some free  motion embroidery on each petal.  I decided to make the three layers separate, felt them to my satisfaction then attack them with the sewing machine.  I cut out a template for the petals (small, medium, large) and then cut these shapes from prefelt as a foundation.  I laid different tints of pink merino  on top and finished it off with some tints of pink viscose.  Once this was wet felted and fulled, my work with the sewing machine began as I did free motion stitching on each petal.  After that, I needle felted the layers together and added a central yellow disk which I needle felted and then cut back the fibre until I was happy with the dome shape. Here are some photos I took of my progress.  I was really getting into it so forgot to take photos as I went along (maybe the mojo is returning):

Sample 2: prefelted flower petals and the start of the layering of the lighter colour pinks

 

Sample 2 is ready for wetting down

 

Sample 2 has now been fulled

 

Sample 2 dried and ready for free motion embroidery

 

Sample 2 with free motion embroidery completed

 

Sample 2 Layers are joined together and central disk has been needle felted into the flower

 

Sample 2: view of finished flower (still damp so not fully shaped).

 

Sample 2: view of finished flower (still damp so not fully shaped).

 

Sample 2: view of finished flower (still damp so not fully shaped).

Sample 3

My last piece this week is a personal piece I felt a compelling urge to complete.  When I left the hospital I was given instructions and bits and pieces to help the eyes heal.  Among these were non woven swabs which I found were really soft and well aerated.  I have no idea what they are made from but I reckoned they would work nicely on felt and I had lots left over.  So I made a bowl using two layers of undyed merino.  I wet this down, and then placed the non woven fabric on top, cut the pieces to size so that they fitted around the curves.  I then felted it in the normal way.  I cut a hole in the piece and removed the resist.  Then I sealed the raw edges.  When it came to fulling the pot I threw it quite energetically as I wanted to get additional texture on it.  Then I dried it.  There was nothing particularly spectacular about the result except that it was really soft and tactile.  I did not take any photos of this process as it was just the result of some personal urgency.   Using the 3cm hole at the back of the pot as an access point, I did some free motion embroidery stitching on my sewing machine.  It was as close as I will ever come to performing keyhole surgery!  It was challenging but I am pretty pleased with the result,  Again, the ruler at the bottom of the photo gives size perspective:

Sample three: small bowl covered with free motion machine embroidery

 

Sample 3 rear view featuring 3cm hole through which the embroidery was worked

Back to the question of creative block.  I don’t know if it is lifted but I think two things are helping me at the moment.  The first is making that commitment, whether it is to a person or a project, the second is keeping things small and manageable, that way I can handle complexities if a notion hits me on how I might enhance a piece.  Oh yes something else too, I have started to consciously seek not to be too precious about these pieces.  I have thrown paint and ink on pieces and woven stuff through them.  Not always producing happy little results (to paraphrase the artist, the late Bob Ross) but the process is freeing.

 

Have you had issues with creative block?  I appreciate that it is a personal journey to find what will work to free yourself up.  What may work for me may not necessarily work for someone else but if you would like to share your journey I would love to hear from you.  Together, we may be able to help others free themselves up and immerse themselves once again in this beautifully creative world we occupy.

hugs

Helene x

First Quarter Tree Challenge well on its way.

First Quarter Tree Challenge well on its way.

Comments 7 comments

After doing my tree experiments( here if you missed it Tree Experiment ) and being happy with the results I am moving on to doing the first quarter challenge. If you haven’t seen the challenge it is here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/01/01/2023-first-quarter-challenges/

I picked a piece or felt I had and added the sky and snow backgrounds. I used 3 shades of natural white wool for the snow so that it wasn’t so flat. I used Merino, Corriedale and something strong and shiny. the shiny wool may have been BFL or even Mohair.

 

Then I started working on the tree. I worked on a separate surface so as not to disturb the background too much as it is only lightly needle felted. I decided to work in two layers for the tree so this is the darker back layer. I started by just fluffing it up and then using a knitting needle to move fibres around to get a better tree shape. then gave it a dry felting ( just flattening and wiggling it a bit so the fibres stick together) to move it onto the background.

I picked a redder brown for the second layer. I forgot to take a picture of it when it was separate. I must have been in the felting zone. I put the tree slightly off-center. I tried it in the middle and I didn’t like it.

Here’s a close-up so you can see the 2 layers

 

I poked the tree all over to tack it in place and started fiddling with the roots, so it won’t fall over in the wind.

and some more  snow

And that was as far as I am right now.  I will probably fiddle with it more before wet felting it and then fiddling more, of course. I am thinking of adding a shadow but not sure how to tackle it. I am not sure where the sun is.  I may have to go out to the field and look at shadows.

Have you started your tree challenge or maybe you’re going with making something useful or both?

We would all like to see photos of challenge pieces and if you are unable to upload photos directly onto The Felting and Fiber Forum ‘studio challenges’ thread, then please use the link below.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/community-photo-submissions/