I have finished my flowers but I don’t think I am finished with the picture.

The last time I had gotten this far

I started adding flowers, thinking that the branch end would be the last to open, I started with a darker colour and fewer threads to make buds. I made smallish french knots.

Next, I went to a lighter shade of pink and a few more strands for the next size-up flower buds

For the next group, I used my final pink colour but added in a few strands of the darker colour. I should have probably used half and half because the darker pink didn’t show up as much as I hoped. I did these at home so you got 4 progress pictures.

Today while I was at the market, I finished, with the lighter pink being for the bigger flowers. I decided to try colonial knots instead of french knots. I am not sure I wrapped them all the right way band I added some extra wraps around the needle to bulk them up a bit.

I liked the way they turned out. I am thinking maybe I should add a little bit of yellow to the middle of the bigger flowers to make them look more open. I also think adding some green flower buds might be a good idea too. So that is next, and hopefully, I will make it before the end of June.

And now just because they are cute, the 2 ducklings that visited our booth this morning. they belong to the Farm and were out for a walk with their youngest.

I have started adding flowers to my branch. It is slow going as I am still fighting my cold but it is started, so that’s something.

I started adding the purple backgrounds for the flowers. I took a picture partway along.  I remembered to take pictures before finishing so everyone should clap…… or something. LOL

Taking the picture made me look at it more and wow, dead straight

So I went back and poked them into a more organic shape.

Next was the stems and that’s as far as I got. I am not sure about the blank space bottom right. I can’t decide if I like it or not.

And just for fun, sheep and lambs. theses are bad sheep who escaped in the rain and decided to eat the grass between the two houses on the farm. They are not very good at being sneaky. This was a little earlier in the spring. They are out in the pasture during the day now.

And some cute Lambs

After thinking about the flowers for my branch (here’s the last post if you missed it https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/05/13/tree-branch-progress-and-shopping/ I decided it would be better to do a sample so the colours could be seen better than in the pencil drawing.

I grabbed an offcut of a fulled sweater to use for the sample. It’s a bit lumpy but it should work for this.  I have already decided I wanted a purple background to the flowers like the hairiness you see around some flowers.

I thought orange would be the best idea for the central stalk of the flower. I had a lighter and darker orange so I did some of each to see how it looked.

Then it was time to add flowers. Someone on the last blog post said to try gradient colours for the flowers. that sounded like a good idea. I am using embroidery floss the stuff that comes as 6 strands.  I started with a darker colour and smaller knots at the top. Then I added a lighter colour strand and made a little larger knots. Then just the light colour but more strands and bigger flowers.

It’s not the best knot-making. On some, I just couldn’t get the knots to line up in neat rows. It’s probably the stitches of the sweater, you can see it’s fulled up quite lumpy.  I am leaning toward pink. The yellow is nice too.

And now as promised some lamb pictures. We have 3 sets of twins and t singles so far.

Also last year you might remember that we had a bottle lamb named Storm.

Here is what he looks like now. He is a messy eater as you can see.

I forgot to share the finished first-quarter tree so here it is.

After some final fiddling with the width of the trunk and shadow and adding a little red bird for interest, I decided I am done with the winter tree.

Next is spring so I have to figure out what kind of tree I made. I wasn’t thinking of a particular tree when I started the experiment in making a tree. Here is the original tree experiment post. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/02/22/an-experiment-thinking-about-the-year-long-challenge/  After doing some picture searches I think it is most like an Oak tree. The other option was a Maple but the bark on a Maple is quite grey and Oaks have much more brown and textured bark. Naturally, neither of these makes the kind of flowers that pop into your head when you say tree in bloom. They make droopy green (sometimes red) tassels. Maples make maple keys and Oaks make acorns.  What kind of tree do you think it is?  I may decide it is a fantasy tree so I can make blossoms anyway. What do you think?

The other exciting thing Jan told you about too. I got my Package from Georgia (Russian Federation whether they like it or not).

Here are some unboxing pictures.

I was surprised it was all assembled. Jan had some assembly required with hers. The other fun thing is it is purple and has a cute little bee. It has 4 what look to be size 36 felting needles in it. It holds 4 of them.

Purple and a bee are all very well but how does it work? It took a little experimenting on how where to hold the machine in relation to the felt surface to get the best felting. It worked well but it is hard to engage all the barbs on such a long course needle. We decided to switch out my big needles for one of the smaller crown needles. This also helps with a comparison of Jan’s machine to mine as hers only holds one.  I like it. It is bigger than Jan’s and I like hers too.  I like the Chinese one the least. A lot of that is the way you hold it. It is a much slower machine and we all know that patience is not one of my stronger qualities. One thing I would recommend is that you get an awl or sewing stiletto or something similar to use to hold new fibres down so you are not getting your finger so close to the machine. Unless you have long talons like Jan for doing such things.

In this last picture, you can see how much ( the white fibres) gets punched through when you fully engage all the barbs of the large 36 triangle needles and how big the holes are even when you only engage the first barbs( yellow fibres).

You will get to hear about the rest of the testing later. Jan is making a chart and doing some analyzing of data. Better her than me. 🙂

I recently heard about a no water, no needle way of making prefelt. I thought I would give it a try and see how it works. It’s fairly simple. You layout your wool on a mat or plastic and roll it dry. When I teach resist felting I usually dry felt the layout by just pressing and wiggling to make it stick together well enough to pick up and move, so we can make the second side. I am sure we have all found that ball of roving in the bottom of a bag that is well on its way to bing a solid felt blob. Taking this idea further just makes sense.

On Sunday it was Library day at the guild and I knew it would be a fairly quiet one so I took my supplies with me. Here is my try at dry non-needled prefelt.

I am using a rubbery placemat and a plastic grocery bag. The Grocery bag is because I put the little piece of plastic in my coat pocket and then didn’t wear my coat. I picked 2 colours so I can see how much migration there is if any. I did jiggle the felt to stick it together, the same way I do when I want to move a layout.

I rolled it 100 rolls in each direction flipping it between as well. It came out very flat and has started to shrink.

I rolled it some more. I had intended to do another 100 rolls in each direction but we were chatting so I am sure it got much more than that, especially on the last set of rolls. It definitely shrunk in both directions but not a lot.

I cut it to see what it looked like. the edges are thicker and flatter than the middle but it’s still pretty solid.

Jan took a movie of it with her camera. It shows how sturdy the prefelt is.

I rolled it again to see how the edges would fair. There were wisps that migrated out in the direction of the rolling. I think it would have been better to just finger rub the edges. There was really no migration to the surface by the opposite layer.

All in all, I think it worked well with very little fuss. Next, I am going to try cutting out some shapes and felting them on their own, to prefelt and on a fresh layout. Have you ever tried this method? how did it go?

Where did the time go? I looked at the posting schedule and thought I have lots of time to get my post ready but here I am down to the wire,….. again.

I did manage this week to make some progress on my small picture. I started by adding some grass/stems/leaves/. Starting with a very Christmas green.

Then adding other shades

It looks ok but it’s way too short. What am I going to do with the other 2/3 of the picture? So, remembering Ruth’s advice on the last stitch project when I wasn’t very happy with it, she said “just keep adding more”, I decided I was not taking the stitches out. I would just keep going. The next batch of grass was longer.

At this point, I notice the bottom edge was starting to curl a little. This is because I was stitching into the bottom edge. I didn’t want the bottom of the stitches to show entry points on the top side of the bottom edge. I noticed some of the threads were a little loose too. To remedy this I ironed it with steam. I think it helped.

The next step is the flowers. I was originally thinking stitched flowers, then thought maybe seed needs would be good. I asked opinions at my guild social and everyone seemed to think I should do both. I probably will.

And now the Studio Progress.

The walls and floor have been painted. The place that hasn’t been painted is where the ductwork will go for the heating. It will then get drywall put over it and it will be painted. Notice one of my favourite things about this space. It has a center floor drain. The electrical box will get a cupboard built to hide it.

Yes, the floor is covered in blue speckles, for non-slip and to hide the floor repairs.

Next are the sinks, the ductwork, painting my selves, the bookcase and the small table. They will be boring white, once the books and wool are on them they will be colourful enough. The table gets the microwave so it will not be seen much either.

That’s it for now. I plan on doing the flowers for the next post but I am not sure what else. I am sure I will find something to keep me busy and out of too much trouble.

You saw Jan’s post about the group silk order our guild did after we had a presentation about silk at a meeting. If not or you need reminding it is here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/02/05/group-order-of-sanjo-silk/ I have not seen her silk yet. I hope I get to see it the next time we are together. Perhaps she is hiding it from me, afraid I will try to make off with it after seeing what I got.

I have lots of nice silk so I decided to go the other way, I bought the strange stuff. It will be interesting to have at demos.

I got these Tussa silk cocoons. They aren’t like the regular ones you see. These are from wild silkworms and are much bigger than regular ones. I have never seen them for sale before. This is what the site says about them:

If you think Bombyx cocoons are fascinating, then you’ll be gobsmacked by these. The Tussah silkworm is wild, which means it eats in the wild. The cocoons are harvested from the forests where they feed. They’re huge compared to Bombyx cocoons; each one is about 1 1/2″ (almost 4 cm) long, not including the pedencal stem. This stem, with the ring at the end, is what the silkworm attaches itself to the tree branch with. Each of the cocoons has been cut, and the pupa removed.

I also got some of this, Kibiso. It might be interesting to use. I am not sure how but we will see. It feels very much like skinny carrier rods if you have seen those or paper. The website says:

100% Silk Kibiso, which is the outer part of the bombyx cocoon, the less refined part. It’s a bit like Excelsior, which is the woody fibre used in Easter baskets, but this is 100% Silk. It’s a nest of fibre, unprocessed, stiff, and lofty. It takes dye spectacularly,

Last is strangest. they’re 2 thicknesses of the same I am not sure why I got both. The excitement of the moment perhaps.

The finer stuff it says:

This yarn is 100% Silk – Tussah, which has been cajoled into this wonderful yarn. It’s stiff, quirky, and will add lots of texture and personality to your creative pieces. It can be woven and knitted – think about 3-dimensional pieces. Use it along the edge of a knitted piece. Incorporate it into your weaving to add body and texture.

And the thicker one says:

This is the yarn that gets the most attention when seen in person. In a whole display of beautiful, luscious silk yarns, people will zoom in on this one and say, “Wow, what is THIS???” It’s 100% Silk. We call it dreadlocks because that’s exactly what it looks like. It’s thick and glorious. It’s quite firm when you get it, but it softens a bit when soaked in warm water. This is a yarn that requires imagination. Think about 3 dimensions when using this yarn – it’s thick, has loads of body, and has the most intriguing texture. Make baskets with it. Wall hangings. Sculptural pieces. It’s truly magnificent.

“Yarn”., I put that in quotes because it is technically yarn but would not say it was spun. Looking at it I would say someone rolled some wet gummy scrap fibre in some mud or a barnyard and called it done. Calling them dreadlocks is an insult to dreadlocks and calling it glorious or magnificent, is just wrong. Interesting, intriguing, sure but glorious, no. I can’t help feeling like there is someone somewhere havering a great laugh at my expense. I can’t say I blame them. LOL

At some point, I will soak some in hot water and some with hot water and soda ash to see what happens to them. What would you do with them?