Category: Wet felting

Seascape Progress

Posted on by Ann

I have worked a little on my seascape so it is progressing. Last time I showed you the beginning 2nd-quarter-challenge-started/

After I felted it, the front wave mostly disappeared and the white for the flowers was gone too. I should have known I would need more. Oh well, onward I go.

I thought the best way to do the boardwalk would be to make some felt and then cut it up. This was the best match I had for the wood. It is not white but it’s not really beige either.

I laid out a small rectangle of the wool and of course that was much to flat so I added the next shade up and some black wisps.

You can see better when it’s wet.

After it was dry I cut it into uneven strips. The pictures above are taken in my studio and these are in the guild studio, much different light. There are fluorescent but also lots of natural light. in the guild studio.

And here they are just lightly attached. I needled them down more after. I may put some black or dark brown between the boards. I haven’t decided yet.

Next, I started adding the greenery. I wanted more texture. The picture had gone very flat and it made the boardwalk look like it was floating.

I will work on the lost wave and add some stitches to help the plants look more vertical and then flowers of course. It should be done before the end of the month. Are you doing the challenge? How is it coming along?

 

Second Quarter Challenge Started

Posted on by Ann

I finally pieced a picture for my second quarter challenge piece. If you remember is it seascape this quarter. this is the picture I chose.

I found it on the internet, where you find everything. It should be ok as I aske for free to use pictures.

I started with a piece of prefelt a little bigger than a piece of paper, with the idea it would shrink to an to be the size of a piece of paper. And for a change I have a piece the right size. It is a mazing what some planning can do for you. You would think I would learn.

Next I layered some more prefelt to make the basic shapes in the picture. the mottled piece at the front was dyed by a friend.

That is v

That looks very boring and flat so now it has to be brought to life. I added some silk hanky scraps to the water to give it some depth and movement.

Then I added the surf using throwsters waste.

And lastly I added some foliage and flowers

Now it is all ready for wetting down, I plan to add the wooden path to the beach later. I am not sure I have the right colour for the wool. what colour is that anyway?

That is as far I am now. more next time.

Pots within Pots

Posted on by Ann

Just lately on Facebook everyone seems to be doing pots within pots so I thought I would give it a try.
The first post I did was just a simple round ball type pot. This is the first side. I didn’t crop the picture because the only picture I have of the second pots resist. It can be seen in the background at the top.

Then this is side 2. The yellow is done and the green about to be done.

The idea is you cut holes in the green one. Then when you are done fulling, you push the yellow one inside the green one and you will see it through the holes. Side 1 has quite small holes and side two has the bigger ones. You need at least one hole big enough to pull the resist out. Sorry for the not so good Pictures. I did take some with my new camera but I am still trying to figure out how to sink it to my phone with Bluetooth so I can get it onto the computer. I should be able to use a USB cord to my computer but I have to buy the cord.

Here they are with light inside. My cheap fake tea light was pathetic in the amount of light it gave off so I popped in a LED flashlight.

I did a second pot that I quite like. I put some silk hanky onto the resist and then added the wool for the inside pot.

And lit up.

The first 2 are a success. The third was not a success. My idea was to make a cone as a night light. I thought to make the inside one smaller so you could have some holes with nothing behind them. It was a disaster. I could see it was not going to work quite early in the process. So I did not really take much care with making nice holes.

It looks like a demented gnome hat. There are 2 main problems. One is that I couldn’t figure out how to block the bigger one without squashing the smaller one. The other problem was that I would making something with a round base but when you do that with a flat resist you make the bottom edge curved so when you open it up it is flat. There was no way to do that with the double resist. I did try to stretch the middle bottom to make it longer but I just deformed other parts. I think next time I will try for a pyramid with a book resist. I have some other interesting ideas to experiment with too. The problem with pots is they do not seem to sell well and I only need so many decorative pots. its not as fun to play if you think you are just going to toss it in a box when your done.

A Scribble Tree

Posted on by Ann

Last week in Ruth’s post Batik Post she had a scribble tree. I have always liked them so Ruth suggested I make some. Ok them what to make. then I remembered these felt pieces I made a long time ago, I think, because I do not remember making them or what they were for.

They seem to be white felt with black silk hanky on them that were make to the prefelt stage, then cut out and put on some black prefelt(maybe) and felted again. I had no idea what to do with these but then thought why not just treat them like pieces of tile and just make a picture on them like painters do.

First I needed some tree green yarn so bot out my carders. It is some sort of curly fiber maybe Blue Faced Lester as that is what I have most of and the curls are small.

I made some rolags to spin. It is full of lumps and nepps so it will be a textured yarn.

I spun up a single, then plied it and made it into a center pull ball ready to use.

I used the yarn to needle felt a scribble tree onto one of the bigger pieces.

I decided it needed a star so used some embroidery thread to add one. I would like to add some hanging Christmas balls but there really isn’t room for them. The piece is only about 4 inches square.

I decided to try it on one of the smaller pieces too about 2×3 inches. The picture on the right is the back. I love how all the little stabs of fiber stick out.

So thats been my weeks worth of daily doses of fiber.

As It is so close to new year I am going to Wish you all a Fibrey New Year full of creativity. I am planning to do more hangable art work, work out an online workshop and an intermediate vessel class for my guild. But also to learn how to use my new camera to make and document my work. See you next Year(8 whole days form now).

Wet Felted Slipper Class

Posted on by Ann

This last Saturday I taught a slipper class to 6 lovely ladies. I gave them a choice of templates, so there were different types of slippers being made at the same time. We used the one that looks like bunny ears, the one with little pointy the ears on the sides, boots and some pointy ones. They used Corriedale wool for the slippers. I prefer something like Fin wool but it is hard to get it in colours and everyone wants colours. So Corriedale is a good compromise. After everyone made templates it was onto laying out the wool.

Then on to rubbing rolling Once everything was hanging together well, it was time to take the resists out. You might remember Christine made one of the pixie hats in the hat workshop a few weeks ago. Hat Class. Hat Class She is planning for curly toes. And on to fulling. There is scrunching and throwing of course and we had a washboard and a car mat to help with the shrinking. Sorry I have no pictures of that.
You can custom fit your slipper right on your foot of course. You can really see how much it has changed compared to the one that hasn’t been fulled yet.
This one was almost done.
Judy’s are the only ones managed to get a picture of at the end of class. She put a little of all the embellishment fibers on them to see how they felted. She still wants to a just the top at the opening.
She is going to make insoles and add a leather sole.
I am adding this in. Judy had some felt insoles and she needled some special supports for her feet onto it and fit them into her new slippers.
And Christine’s curly toes
       

 

A class with Moy MacKay

Posted on by Ann

Last week I had the opportunity to take a 2 day class with Moy MacKay. I went with a couple of friends and we had a great time. We did the wet felting on day one. We had 2 pictures to choose from for the landscape.

I chose the one the left.

Moy demonstrated and explained to us how to work and what to do. We got to ask questions. She told us to take lots of pictures as we went because you see things in the picture that you don’t see in just looking at it. Still I didn’t take enough.

First we laid out the background

Then we added the foreground and details. The house is prefelt and the flowers in the front are chopped up curls

We wet them down and gave them a 2 or 3 min rub and then rolled them for about 3 min one way and then the other for another few min and we were done. They are very lightly felted but that’s ok because they are pictures not hats.

That took the morning. After lunch we did another piece, a still life, flowers. We had a vase of red flowers and babies breath to use for inspiration. We were not to copy it but to use it to see how flowers look. You can see it in the group picture. Moy demonstrated again and explained again and then we only had about an hour to put the picture together and then a short time to get it felted before we had to be out of the room for another group.

We started with the table then the foliage and then the vase and then moves some leaves around. Then we added the flowers. The babies breath is nepps.

I quite like it at this stage. Not as much after it was felted.

On day 2 we started the embellishing. Moy talked about and demonstrated needle felting accents and refining the pictures. Also some machine embroidery and stitching. we could try the machine stitching if we wanted but my picture wasn’t ready for that yet. This is what they are like now. No where near done but works in progress.

This is after I straitened up the house and removed the mangled fence and added a new one.

This is where it is now. I added windows and ivy to the house. I removed the cobwebs from the trees. I added some shading to the trees. I added in some stems for the flowers in front and another fence. I think the field behind the left fence needs to be darker because it’s farther away. It doesn’t show well in the picture but right now it is lighter and more yellow than the front field. It needs a lot more work but I think I know what I want to do to it.

And the flowers. I forgot to take a picture of when it was wet felted but had no embellishments. But here it is so far. I am not as keen on the flowers but they are alright. I may like them better after I work on them some more. The table needs straitening up and lots more texture. And notice the nepps have stuck. We had chopped up some green fibers as part of the foliage and I think the short fibers under them made them stick.

And lastly a picture of everyone’s works at the end of the second day. the flowers we used are beside Moy.

It was a great class. I think it’s given me confidence to try some more. Jan will be doing more posts for us and I hope she will do one about this class too. She will have taken at least a hundred more pictures than me and be able to show you her works in progress too.

Don’t forget to sign up for the holiday card exchange on the forum. Read all about it here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/10/10/time-for-the-holiday-card-exchange-again/

A Picture for Exhibition

Posted on by Ann

Last week I missed doing my blog post because I had no power or internet. My area was hit by 6 tornados. We were not hit we had no damage. Some areas near us were hit very hard, the large power substation near us was hit and some of the cell phone and internet towers too.

Before all that I did manage to work on my piece for the guild exhibition and sale. I do not think I will get it done in time as it is due in a week. The theme was a 100-mile inspiration. I decided to do a scene with the Parlement buildings. I am using 2 prefelt layers with a piece of cotton gauze in the middle for the background.

First I found a simple outline picture I could use for the outline of the building. I cut that out and tried it on the background.

I pinned it to another piece of prefelt and cut it out.

Then it was time to work ou the clouds.

After I took the picture and looked at it I realized I had made the clouds to symmetrical. Its funny how looking at a picture sometimes shows you more than just looking at it. I tacked all the pieces together with a few jabs of a felting needle

Next was adding fireworks as I am thinking it should be Canada Day.

Then I cropped the picture to see better how it will look.

I wet felted the piece and now I need to do some stitching around the building so it will show better.and my daughter said I should add beads around the fireworks like the sparkles you see with fireworks. I thought maybe some sparkly thread and a bead at the end of each firework. What else would you add to this silhouette picture?

Ruffled Neck Scarf Workshop

Posted on by Ann

Last week I taught a Ruffle Neck Scarf workshop. This was the first time teaching it and it went very well. I was worried about the timing but it all worked out. I thought the class at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum. They have a nice big classroom with lots of light. and water.

As usual, I forgot to take pictures early but here are two of them being laid out

You can see the template they used to get the layout right and keep it even from one end to the other. I drew it with the outline to follow and a line on them to let them know when they had shrunk enough.

Here they are using the plastic under their scarves to make nice edges.

And a shot of the class working.

Here are the results. I really like the ones where you can see the wool that migrated through the silk.

The Class was a lot of fun. I made the written instructions more detailed than normal because I want to make it a kit. If I ever figure out video iI would like to make an online workshop.  If you were to buy a kit for a ruffled scarf would you want it to be a short neck scarf or a long scarf? the only difference really would be the amount of wool included and the length of silk. I was thinking a short scarf but include the sizing to make a longer template too. I am wondering about the template I usually use thick plastic to draw it on. but it is too bulky to fold flat and too big to ship cheaply rolled up. Should I include a template on thinner plastic or just the instructions on how to draw it up on whatever you want to use?

Next steps for small bags

Posted on by Ann

Posted on June 12, 2018 by

Last time I showed you the parts of the bags ready to be put together. Now I will show you how I do it.

First I wet one side. I use the resist to press the wool down and make sure it will be wet where I need it to be.

Next I add one of the pieces of silk.

Then I add the resist and the 2 pieces used to close the bag.

Next I add the second piece of silk and wrap the wool around everything

I add the second side of wool and wrap that around too.

After I’ve done that to all the pieces I add some embellishments. I am using a multicoloured top for grass on the blue one and the pink one got a rolled up ball of silk scraps. I covered the ball with more pink wool and will cut the top off near the end.

This is after several rollings. you can see they are curling as they shrink.

I cut the slit for the bag and rub it with well soaped fingers to heal the cut edges.

Next will be more rolling and some throwing to get the fulling done. I will show you the finished bags next time and some I finished with some embroidery.

Ann

Making Some More Little Bags

Posted on by Ann

I haven’t had much time to felt and today I finally got some time to start some new little bags.
The last time I made little bags I forgot to add the spikes that end up as the closures so I made a bunch of spikes to be ready this time. Now to remember to make the rings for the bottom.

I make these bas self lining by putting fabric next to the resist. This creates a nuno felt lining and I don’t have to do it later. I licked this silk scarf a friend gave me for it’s nice bright colours and interesting dye pattern.

The other thing adding the nuno lining does is add strength allowing me to make a thinner, less bulky bag. I set up 4 resists because if you are going to rub and roll some felt you might as well do make it worth while.

Here are the 4 bags ready to be put together. I try not to match the linings to the bag colour to much so it doesn’t disappear when I am done. I may have to switch the 2 middle ones.

At this point I had to stop and switch the laundry and got distracted with other things so I haven’t made it past this point today. You will notice that I have forgotten the rings at this point but I have a chance to fix this when I get back to them. It is not to late …..yet. Next time I will hopefully have some progress to show you.
Ann