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Theatre Textiles – Intermission

Theatre Textiles – Intermission

I had intended that the next Theatre Textiles post would be about the costumes which I had made for us once we had transferred to our new venue. However in the meantime I had started work on part of a costume for our next Pantomime – The Little Mermaid. No, not the Disney version, but even so the Director has decided that the Sea Witch will be part human/part octopus (to be named Iphelia – pronounced I-feel-ya, which gives an idea of how our pantos appeal to adults as well as children!) and I have been asked to dress her. Other than make the designs and collect fabrics and accessories matching the palette of purple and “sludge” green, there isn’t much I can do until the part is cast.

The piece of the costume that I have started on is the necklace which Iphelia will wear when she takes full human form for part of the panto. So I decided that I should keep detailed notes and photos of what I’m doing so that I could tell you about it.
I have designed her “human” costume so that it will have as many references to octopuses (octopi?) as possible. I was inspired by a necklace which I saw on the BBC News website (can’t remember what it was about though) and I did a quick screen clip which I added to my “costume ideas” folder. The necklace is, I think, of a snake about to devour a cabochon stone. I had also spotted, some time ago, part of a piece which appeared to be a tentacle holding a sphere. Nothing like an octopus but the stone made me think of an octopus “head”.

I thought that the tentacles could issue from behind a large stone and form the links to the rest of the necklace. Since the necklace will be worn with a top which is asymmetrical and therefore has an off centre neckline, I wanted a necklace which was also asymmetrical. This would mean that it would have to be very light so that it wouldn’t keep slipping round while it’s being worn. I knew that I could make felt look like something other than wool – I had made the horns for my highland cow from just felt, plus lots of PVA glue and a bit of graphite from a soft pencil, so I didn’t see why I couldn’t make the necklace in a similar way.

cow horns

I want the necklace to look like proper jewellery from a distance, that is a large cabochon for the head with bead eyes, with the tentacles smooth and shiny.
Let’s see if I can do it.

Equipment, materials and design ideas

I decided that the best way to make the tentacles bendable would be to use a wire armature and since I still have a quantity of craft pipe cleaners I went for them. I would use my core wools – scoured merino – and some coloured tops for the surface layer.

Starting the tentacles

I carded some scoured merino and wrapped 8 half lengths of pipe cleaner, leaving an end uncovered on each. Then I made an octopus head shaped “stone” from the core wool and covered it in deep purple merino tops.

First body

I wet felted the tentacles, smoothing them out as much as possible. While the tentacles were still wet I curled up 3 of them and fixed them with light wire to help them “remember” the curves when they had dried – at which point I lost the curled up ones. (I blame The Borrowers.) As a result I had to make three more tentacles and, since they were to be curled anyway and I needed them quickly, I just made wet felted cords which were curled up.

New Curls

By the time these were dried the Borrowers had obviously decided that they didn’t want the original curled tentacles as they had reappeared. I tried various positions of body and tentacles to see how the necklace might look.

mock up of layout

That was when I decided that the octopus body should not be purple but green, looking a bit like jade, and that the tentacles needed to be purple rather than the muddy green I had pulled out to use. So I stripped off the purple tops from the body and replaced it with more carded scoured merino. Then I wet felted it and gave it a good coating of PVA glue, and I also PVA’d the tentacles.

Colour change

When they had dried I got out the metal nail file and the emery board. A good filing with these smoothed out all the ridges and bumps caused by the hairy surface under the glue.
I gave them a couple of coats of Chinese Evergreen acrylic paint on the body, and of Mulberry Cream on the tentacles. These were “match pot” paints which I had acquired from a local DIY store. I find that decorating acrylic paint samples are very useful, since they have very good coverage and a fantastic range of colours. When I have a project like this, I visit and select from as many of the local(ish) stores as I can as they usually all carry a different range and therefore different colour choices.

When the paint had dried I decided that I would give the tentacles a coat of metallic purple paint (which I had acquired some time ago from a branch of The Range’s artists supplies). If it turned out the way I hoped it should look a bit like enamelling. I liked the result and, with the addition of a coat or two of clear nail varnish, it could be said to resemble enamel.

More Paint and Nail Varnish

I thought that the “jade” body stone might look good with a little purple “marbling” so added a few fine lines of a lilac coloured acrylic match paint, rubbed it a bit with my thumb and then varnished that too.
Then I filed, painted and varnished the curled tentacles. Since I needed to have only two tentacles reaching up to each side of Iphelia’s neck, the rest would need to be curled around elsewhere. I thought that they could be grasping smaller pieces of “jade”, so I painted some wooden beads green and varnished those too. Having shaped the tentacles as I thought might be best, I gave everything another varnish.

When the varnish had dried I fitted the, now green, beads in the curled tentacles and stitched them in where necessary. One of them actually fitted over the tip of the tentacle and didn’t need stitching. I gave those tentacles a further final varnish to fix the beads firmly.
It then occurred to me that to make the tentacles look more like jewellery I could make use of some of the jewellery findings which I had accumulated. I found some cord tips and, having added them to the ends of the tentacles without beads, painted them with an iridescent nail varnish since their “silver” colour had deteriorated to dull grey.

Varnished parts and Tentacles before brightening the cord tips

As I was about to assemble the octopus I realised that it hadn’t got any eyes and, although it is possible to sew through the painted and varnished surface, I decided that I didn’t want to risk poking a needle through in the wrong place. I needed to glue something down, but I’ve learned not to trust glue on stage. It always lets go just at the wrong time. Belt and braces are best!. I remembered then that I had acquired some glitter glue some time ago and having turned it out (eventually)I decided to just use blobs of it as the eyes. If they came off I doubted it would be noticed. I also decided that a “setting” was needed for the “cabochon” so I added a little braid which was painted and varnished.

Next I had to find a piece of the right green ribbon which I would permanently attach to one side of the necklace, and with a hook on the other end which could latch round the opposite side. Since the necklace would need to be removed quickly during the quick change which the actor would have, I would need to find a fastening that wasn’t fiddly. I had some furrier’s hooks and eyes, which are large and wrapped with yarn. I used a hook which I painted with the Chinese Evergreen acrylic and stitched that to the other end of the ribbon. And we were done.

Here is the finished piece. Hopefully in due course you will see it worn by the actor in costume.

Finished necklace

Throwback Post – Texture

Throwback Post – Texture

We were talking about doing some ‘throwback’ posts this year, and while I was giving the site a bit of a tidy-up and adding a new 3D page over the New Year, I came across this one of mine from September 2014, and thought it’d be a good one to start with. Do you ever revisit your old work and get inspired with new ideas?

A while ago I bought a weird fluffy, knitted, tubular scarf from Poundland to try felting with. If you ever buy one, make sure you cut it over a bucket or newspaper or something to catch all the bits! I laid out a couple of layers of very wispy pink Merino tops left over from a book cover I made last year, then I added the piece of scarf, and 2 more wispy layers of wool tops. It didn’t take long to felt. This is one side of it:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the other side:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is what it looked like holding it up to the sky:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI don’t remember how long after, but I decided the scarf sampler might make a nice sculptural piece similar to one I’d made before. I didn’t make it in exactly the same way, I concertina’d it and stitched in place, then twisted and felted and fulled more. This is the top:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAClose up of the ridges:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASuper close up of the texture:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAA close up of the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd a super close up of the texture:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERANow, what do I do with the other 8 square feet of fluffy knitted stuff? 🙂

Using Resists

Using Resists

I mentioned in my last post that we’d started playing with resists at the well-being centre recently, I showed the piece I’d made using strips and said we’d used flat resists for pouches. This is the one I made, though we all made fairly similar ones:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALast week, we used flat resists to make 3D vessels, or at least mostly make, as some of us ran out of time! This is an action shot of Louise, fulling hers:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAStill working on it, but it wasn’t far off being done, and this wasn’t much over an hour after starting:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt looked a lot nicer, but we’re in a basement with yellowy ceiling lights. I had to finish mine off when I got home:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAStopping and starting and nattering, and probably general lack of concentration meant my inner two layers of Cheviot were separate from the locks and top two layers of Merino around the top a little bit:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI thought this week, we might do something sculptural, maybe something like this shell shaped piece:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOr maybe something more ‘abstract’ and textural, like this:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI mentioned in the comments to my last post that we’re running out of dyed Merino, the group who originally bought the supplies have moved on to a different centre so we’re going to have to come up with fundraising ideas soon, but for now The Felting and Fiber Studio are our new ‘sponsors’, so I’m going to do a stock-check tomorrow then order some lovely new colours 🙂

If you have any suggestions for future themes for us to explore, post them in the comments 🙂

Year End Round Up

Year End Round Up

Every year I think I never had much time to do everything I wanted, but at least I did get to do some things which I enjoyed. I always enjoy the challenges we do on the Studio site and seeing everyone’s entries. I think this was my favourite piece from all the challenges, from Ann’s Stewart Stephenson challenge:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI tried a few new things this year, one of them was making a hat for the first time:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI also tried commercial prefelt pieces kindly donated by Heidi Feathers.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI also tried a new embellishment fibre, Kapok:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd some new animal fibres. This is yak, it was the softest fibre I’d ever felt (or felted!):

??????????????????????Until I got some camel fibre, even softer!:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI know a lot of people prefer to make felt with a ‘purpose’, but I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of experimenting and trying combinations of different wool breeds or animal fibres with various embellishment fibres, just for the fun of it. A few of my favourite pieces: Dark Brown Corriedale with Ingeo:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAngora goat with black and white viscose:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnother things I love is texture, surface design and sculptural felt, I did a bit of that this year too:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI do like colour too, so had fun dyeing a lot of wools and embellishment fibres recently. The milk protein was especially gorgeous:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThanks a lot for all the support this past year and all the nice comments an helpful advice, I hope you’ve enjoyed your past year too 🙂

Texture

Texture

A while ago I bought a weird fluffy, knitted, tubular scarf from Poundland to try felting with. If you ever buy one, make sure you cut it over a bucket or newspaper or something to catch all the bits! I laid out a couple of layers of very wispy pink Merino tops left over from a book cover I made last year, then I added the piece of scarf, and 2 more wispy layers of wool tops. It didn’t take long to felt. This is one side of it:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the other side:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is what it looked like holding it up to the sky:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI don’t remember how long after, but I decided the scarf sampler might make a nice sculptural piece similar to one I’d made before. I didn’t make it in exactly the same way, I concertina’d it and stitched in place, then twisted and felted and fulled more. This is the top:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAClose up of the ridges:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASuper close up of the texture:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAA close up of the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd a super close up of the texture:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERANow, what do I do with the other 8 square feet of fluffy knitted stuff? 🙂

2013 Review

2013 Review

How does the time go so fast? It really doesn’t seem like almost another year has passed since we posted about our plans for 2013. Looking back over what I’d hoped to achieve this year, I had the same feeling as last time we did a review: I didn’t expect to have done many of them, though it seems I mostly wanted to be more organised and felt for the fun of it more 🙂
I think I did manage to get a bit more organised, or at least more efficient with time, starting with Ruth’s Daily Dose of Fiber challenge. I also rearranged a couple of my rooms to make my sewing things more accesible, so it’s easier to pick things up for a few minutes here and there, or while watching a film or being read to.
Probably the first big thing of the year was publishing my e-book ‘Beyond Nuno‘. I have received lots of really nice feedback about it, which was all very much appreciated and really made it worth while 🙂

Beyond Nuno 70 perc fits A6Although I didn’t post about them earlier in the year I did have a few things I hoped I’d be able to achieve, such as opening an etsy store, maybe writing another e-book, doing craft fairs. I did open an etsy shop, and have sold a few things. I did start with some samples for a new e-book, but going into spring the light wasn’t really working for photos. My girlfriend convinced me to do a tutorial about Polymer Clay instead, but that soon grew into an e-book! I had fun doing that, though I could have used a few more hands, and better light 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI did finally get a chance to do a craft fair as I blogged about recently, that was a great experience. And I did get chance to make some felt pieces just for fun. One of my favourite pieces was one I made recently when I was exploring sculptural felt and bamboo fibre. It made me smile that most people thought it reminded them of a shell, I didn’t mention it in the post or caption the photo but I’d thought the same thing and had named the photos ‘shell’ though it wasn’t obvious unless you clicked on them 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHow did your year pan out? Did you have any definite plans? Did you stick to them or did you have a few surprises?

More Bamboo and a Couple of Diaries

More Bamboo and a Couple of Diaries

It was bright enough yesterday to take some photos of one of the other bamboo pieces I worked on over the last few weeks. This piece was made mostly from English 56’s, the base was two layers, then I added some thick twists to the top to help define the ridges I wanted. I added 2 very fine layers of 18.5 mic merino over the top, then positioned some black bamboo over the raised parts where the twists were. When it was almost felted, I folded it concertina style, secured with sewing thread and finished felting by rubbing, and rolling one end at a time to get a twist in it. It’s about 8 inches long.
This is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the front:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAClose up of the texture on the inside of the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd close up of the bamboo:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve mostly spent the past week getting ready for the Craft Fair this coming Saturday (it’s at the LGBT Centre on Sidney Street, Manchester if you’re in the area!) I’ve printed tags and business cards and have made and cut out felt for 5 Diary covers. I’ve only got 2 finished so far, but it takes about 8 hours just to position/reposition/double check the closure straps, and then blanket stitch around them and all the edges (I’m up to episode 24 of Prisoner Cell Block H!) This is an orange one that I finished first:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is a green one I finished yesterday:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThanks for all the tips last week about fairs and markets 🙂

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