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4th Quarter Challenge 2018

4th Quarter Challenge 2018

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The theme of this year’s challenge has been Surface Design. So far, we’ve had Mixed Media, Nuno Felting, and Beneath the Surface. I was torn between a couple of ideas, but went with the one I had when the 4 of us discussed the theme for this year: something about rolling and twisting fibres. So my challenge is: Twists, Tubes and Yarns. I made a post not too long ago with some pieces I made with wool twists and tubes, and there is a video at the bottom which shows how to make the tubes using a kebab skewer. This is a pile of softly twisted wool I made:

To make the twists, I take small amounts of wool and fibres and while holding one end, roll the fibres across a surface, a piece of bubble-wrap is good. I then hold the other end, and twist again. You can ‘set’ the twist by spraying with a little water too. I made this piece about 10 years ago, it’s still one of my favourites:

You can make blends of wool in different colours, or blend fibres in. This piece is made with twists of wool and plastic fibre:

And, this piece is made with twists made with wool and commercial novelty yarns:

The wool tubes, or ‘kebabs’ are something I love to make, just making a pile of them feels creative and is really relaxing. I first made them accidentally when I realised a kebab skewer was great for poking into my little hand carders to pick up trapped fibres, and they’d come out easily if I rolled it around. I ended up with some funky/random tubes.

Like the wool twists, the wool tubes can be made of just wool, or wool blended with fibres, threads etc. Have a look at this post for some ideas: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2017/08/14/felted-wool-kebabs/
This is one of my fave pieces, probably because it had very little planning/thinking involved, I just grabbed a couple of colours of Merino and a handful of already made tubes:

Handmade yarns can be made from anything you can twist (try organza or plastic bags if you haven’t already!) and can be used in many ways. This piece is made with wool and some old threads and unravellings from fabric, from a previous challenge:

This is a wet felted piece I made using some of my earliest attempts at making hand made yarn on a drop spindle:

I tried out some other early yarn that I made on two pieces, one was wet felted:

And the other was needle felted:

It’s great for weaving with:

Or, if you want something a bit more adventurous, how about needling it onto a vessel (scroll down) https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2012/12/12/yarny-vessel/

So, there’s just a few ideas, if you’ve tried some or all of these before, step out of your comfort zone, try something new, and maybe even use some of this years previous challenges for inspiration or in combination!

Cords and Knitting

Cords and Knitting

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I haven’t had chance to do much felting lately, apart from making a few ‘spare’ cords for future use.

I just used some colours I had out from when I’d made some felted soap:

I did start on a couple of knitting projects though. I just wanted something to do, so haven’t decided definitely what this first one might be, but a headband was one idea. It’s made with the pencil roving waste from World of Wool:

I also started some other knitting, this is with ‘proper’ pencil roving, I thought I might make it long enough to make a simple bag out of:

I have a nice green version of the wool too:

One thing which has stopped me doing many knitting projects is my first attempt at sewing up. I don’t know if you remember some pieces I made a while ago:

I made them with the intention of sewing them into arm warmers. I don’t think I ever showed them sewn up. I watched lots of videos and could not work it out, so in the end someone at a knitting group did one for me and I copied. Well, they look pretty horrible:

I’d planned to use the same pencil roving waste to sew up, but was told it’d be better to use something thinner. I was even talked out of using pencil roving, like the variegated one, and used Arran or something similar. I have a couple of other pieces I’d made for arm warmers, but they’ve stayed knitted rectangles because I don’t want to ruin them!

If anyone has any suggestions or can point me in the right direction for tutorials (think ‘explain like I’m 5’ kind of thing!!) I’d be very grateful 🙂

More Crochet Adventures

More Crochet Adventures

Comments 12 comments

I took up Lyn’s challenge to crochet a wool bowl then felt it.  I got as far as making a small bowl.  I haven’t had time to felt it yet, but will show you the results when I do.  It’s a little floppy now, but should be firmer after felting.

Then I’ve continued to try new stitches.  Here is the Box stitch which is alike on both sides.

The Crocodile Scale stitch was a bit of a challenge but  definitely has interesting dimension.  It looks like little tongues or leaves, too.

Of course, I had to try a hexagon, this one has a flower center.

Spring is finally here in the Midwest, so I couldn’t resist the Tulip stitch.  Here it is in one color.

 

Then I tried another Tulip stitch and learned how to change colors. It looks entirely different. I decided to finish it with the same stitching as the bottom.

 

Here is the back.

The front really looks like like mini tulips.

My sister Carol’s ewe Dusty recently had a new lamb.  13 lbs. 12 oz!

Happy Spring! (For those of you that are experiencing it now.)

Wild and Crazy Yarns Woven then Felted

Wild and Crazy Yarns Woven then Felted

Comments 17 comments

I still had a bagful of yarns left over from my Wild Table Runner so I decided to do a little weaving with some odds and ends. It was a mixture of synthetic, wool and wool blends.

I used a black metallic acrylic yarn as the warp.  It was a bit stretchy but I intended to felt it when finished so I wasn’t concerned.

Here it is still on the loom.

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I went back and forth on what to use as the background. Finally I decided I wanted to keep the colors from getting lost and chose a white prefelt covered loosely with a white merino batt.

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Here it is after felting.  As you can see even the white merino is more beige than the white bamboo.

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Its kind of wild, but fun.  There is a lot of dimension since some of the warp and that crazy eyelash yarn  are sticking up.  Most everything else including the wide orange and purple synthetics felted in nicely.

Some closeups:

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From the side:

20170205_135941It was fun to see how the different yarns reacted.  I’m not quite sure of what it reminds me of, or what I’ll do with it. But it was a quick and easy project after traveling.

If you missed my Caribbean Inspiration you can see it here:  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2017/01/30/some-inspiration-and-fun-from-the-caribbean/

 

More Natural Dyeing with Cochineal

More Natural Dyeing with Cochineal

Comments 26 comments

This is the last of my summer experiments with natural dyeing.  Cochineal are those little scale insects that are picked off of cacti.

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I’ve seen some really nice results using cochineal such as Nada’s experience she posted on the forum this summer.

As with my previous experiments, I used small amounts of silk habatoi, silk gauze, silk mulberry, wool yarn, and merino and corriedale rovings.  They were pre-mordanted.

The cochineal had to be ground.  I used a wooden mortar and pestle, then put them in a blender, then made it into a paste before adding boiling water.

The mixture was then left overnight before adding to the pot. (This was divided into three parts first to use with different modifiers.)

The first pot I used only cochineal.

20160625_155500The second I modified with cream of tartar.

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The last I added iron.

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After each batch was removed from the pot, I left it “cure” for two days.  Since I didn’t have both the a lot of room to spread them out I left them bunched up hence the lines. They also dried much lighter as you’ll see.

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This was cochineal with cream of tartar.  You can see the little bits of bugs on them.20160628_112634Once they were cured, I rinsed them out and hung them to dry.

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Cochineal only.

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With cream of tartar modifier. A nice bright pink.

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With the iron modifier.

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While the results were not exactly what I expected, I believe because the bugs weren’t finely ground I got lighter colors.  I may over dye the first batch when I find an electric grinder.  If I had to order cochineal again, I’d look for powder.

Have you done any natural dyeing lately?

 

 

 

Natural Dyeing with Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

Natural Dyeing with Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

Comments 16 comments

This summer I’ve been playing with a lot of natural dyes with the help of Cathy (Luvswool).  This is the third in my series of natural dyeing experiments.

As with the other dyeing sessions all the silk and wool rovings were mordanted with alum potassium sulfate.  I used the same silk habotai, silk gauze, silk organza, merino and corriedale roving and wool yarn as I did in my previous experiments.

I started with cutch which was in powder form.

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The colors for silk and wool were pretty much the same gold peach except for the the organza which seemed to soak up all the color.

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I decided that I wouldn’t use a modifier with the Cutch because I had enough browns and goldens.

So, I moved on to rhubarb liquid extract.

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The resulting colors were also in the peach/gold family.

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A couple of years ago Cathy and I had an indigo dyeing day.  I had a piece of dark crimped silk left over and decided to use this as a modifier for the second rhubarb batch.

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I thought perhaps I’d get a muted green, but here’s what I did get:

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There is a hint of green, but it’s not obvious in these pics. the silk gauze and habotai closest to a light turquoise.  The organza is dusky turquoise blue.  The wool is more of a baby blue.

Here is the indigo silk piece after being used as a modifier.  Still a nice indigo color.

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Have you done any natural dyeing this season?

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 2

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 2

Comments 23 comments

I’ve been trying out different natural dyes using similar materials.  This time I tried alkanet roots and logwood with and without iron.

Here are the alkanet roots before preparation which took two days to get ready to use.

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The logwood also had to be prepared ahead of time.

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Again, I used mordanted corriedale and merino roving, mulberry silk, wool yarn, silk habotai and silk gauze as I did in my previous post  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/06/28/playing-with-natural-dyes-part-1/

According to some of the charts I saw on the colors to expect from the alkanet roots, it could be anything from gray to deep purple.  I had also read it was possible for blues or even red.  As you can see from the pot, there was a light purple tinge to the water. The dye liquor was definitely dark purple but then it was diluted with the water.

aklanet only pot

 

The result was a silver gray.  For all the experiments I leave the pot to cool overnight to get the most color.  This was a lot less than i expected, but its a pretty color.

alkanet

The next step was to add iron to the pot with another set of materials.

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The top picture is wet, the bottom is dry.  So, I now have silver and gold colors.

Next was the logwood. From all the pictures I’d seen and roving Cathy had dyed in Arkansas I thought I would get some type of purple.  It looked pale in the pot.

logwood pot

So, I was surprised when it dried and it was more of a taupe color. But surprises are half the fun!  Then I added iron and did another batch.

logwood side by side logwood iron top wo bottom

The darker ones on the bottom are with the iron and its more of a charcoal color.

Again, these are all experiments and results can vary depending on water, temperature, etc.  While I had a little different expectations, I’m not unhappy with the results.  I can always overdye.

What have your experiences with natural dyeing been?

 

 

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 1

Playing with Natural Dyes Part 1

Comments 16 comments

With summer finally here in the US, it’s wonderful to see color in the yard and all around.  I recently had lunch with Cathy (Luvswool) and she showed me some of the prints and natural dyeing she’s been doing with lately. She’s been devoting most of her time natural dyeing and got me interested in trying it.  You can find her dye blog here https://naturedye.wordpress.com/

So, with her guidance I took the plunge and began experimenting. I ordered some dyes online from the Woolery and Dharma Trading.  My first try was with Osage Orange.  What I didn’t realize was that the item I ordered was Osage Sawdust so I had an extra couple of steps to get the dye liquor prepared for the bath.

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For each dye experiment I used a small amount of silk gauze, silk habotai, silk mulberry, wool yarn, merino and corriedale roving.

I could have used a copper penny to make a brighter color, but I was happy with the results. The top pic is while wet, the bottom two are after drying.  Its actually more light yellow than coffee color. You’ll see two small pieces of felt I threw into the pot without mordanting at the bottom.  They did take the color.

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20160627_150117The next dye I tried was madder root.  I had recently used up some of the madder roving Cathy had given me from her Arkansas residency last year in my coral piece.  So I was anxious to see if I could get the same color.

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/06/04/under-water-again/

Again, I didn’t order powder, but actual roots, so there were extra steps involved to  get to the bath.

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While wet:

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After using the madder alone, I divided the fibers in half and used iron in a separate bath.

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Here they are dry:

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Its interesting the mulberry silk on the right with the iron did not get dark.20160623_120335

With each other, without iron on top, with iron on the bottom.

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Subtle differences, but not the same color that Cathy got in Arkansas.  But then there are differences in water, temperature, etc. But I’m pleased with the results.

Thanks Cathy for helping me through the process.

 

Making a Gift for a New Grandma

Making a Gift for a New Grandma

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As you may be aware my daughter in law Mari  is due to have a baby girl any day.  While we wait for the “phone call,” I decided to make her mother a small cosmetic case/clutch.  This is her first grandchild and she has traveled from Japan to be with her daughter and my son for the big event.

I made a template allowing for a 30% shrinkage rate.  I had planned to use some prefelt and merino, but I realized I was almost out of black merino.  So, I substituted some black Corriedale for a middle layer.  The bottom half of the resist was 9″ x 11″ (23 cm x 28 cm).

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The inside layer was a turquoise merino.

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The second layer was the Corriedale batt and the last layer was a black prefelt.  Then I laid out the embellishments.  As usual, I was so engrossed in the process I forgot to take pictures.  The embellishments were 100% Peruvian thick and thin hand dyed wool yarn, a turquoise and metallic silver mohair yarn, silk hankies and green and turquoise throwsters waste.  The template for the flap was not used as a resist, but as a pattern for the shape and size of the flap.

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Once I was finished felting and fulling, I shaped the bottom and sides using an ice cream scoop. The shrinkage was less than I expected.  But it was well fulled so I was satisfied. The finished size was 8″ x 7″ high (20 cm x 18 cm)

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I used the yarn to put on her initials — ST on the flap and embellished it with a silver button and will either use a velcro or magnetic closure.

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I was pleased with the outcome.  It is sturdy, yet not heavy or bulky.

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