Fibre and Thread Sketching - In The Forest

Week 10

Again I wanted a quick fix.  I enjoyed using the prefelts for the koi and decided to do similar this week.

I sketched a barn owl onto prefelt using a fine liner pen.. then cut him out

This time I wanted to try and get a 'carved' appearance.. almost like a wood cut effect.  So I cut the face out, then cut holes for the eyes and beak.  Also cut along the wing line and his legs are separate pieces.

Laid out of a dark background..  with a super simple branch and mawata silk moon

I placed a net over before starting rubbing to keep the design in place

While felting I had to keep opening up the holes and cut lines that I wanted to keep

I'm quite pleased with him, 

the slightly fuzzy features work for me - it is night after all..

and everythings fuzzy at night :)

Stash Busting - Knitting some Homespun

This year I am GOING to claim back parts of my house that have been taken over (utterly swamped) by supplies etc.  SO there's going to be lots of stash busting going on :)

First off I wanted to use up some yarn I spun years ago (?5/6 years ago).  I dyed the fibre and spun it thick and thin then plied it with a decorative thread.

This is the skein I started with.. I don't knit much so had no idea how far it would go.  

I've had this set of 'odd pins' for aaages, never used them, never heard of anyone using odd pins tbh but they were a packaged pair so I knew it must be a 'thing'..  I googled for tips before starting out and apparently it's called CONDO knitting!  The only tip I found really was to cast on and off using the smaller pin and another of the same size.. then start using the fat pin with just one thin pin.

The first skein didn't really go very far.. 

but it was looking pretty so I pulled these out to use too

Made myself a nice wide long scarf that really soft and snuggly 

The decorative thread plied into the blue yarn is a sparkly metalic.. I love the way it twinkles :)  It's nice to have something to wear and see from these yarns instead of just admiring them in my handspun yarn box.  I'm pleased with the quirky stitch too - and it was soooo easy, just garter stitch! :)

Fibre and Thread Sketching - WATER

Oh dear.. I'm getting very behind posting these on here.. and time to actually join in is also in short supply - for the last 3 weeks I haven't 'sketched'. 
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From week 9

Time was short and I really wanted a quick little project..  so many possibilities for ‘water’ would of demanded a lot of time.  I wanted to keep it simple, the inspiration for this was the ‘big fella’ in our koi pond :) although I simplified his colour/patterning a little.

I drew the outline onto commercial prefelt and cut out..

Here he is swimming across the cover of my Koi book.

I used the photos in here to get the right shape - our fish are never still long enough for my slow eyes :)

Background of dark green prefelt with blue and green silk-caps and bits of silk chiffon fabric

The prefelts melted in like butter!

Finished.. quick and simple koi :)

Gary was pleased.. this is his favourite fish!