Freemotion..

I mentioned that my (long anticipated) freemotion embroidery foot arrived last week :)  I could not wait to try it out!!  After doodling on the kids old school shirts that were destined for the rag-bag, I jumped in to my first little project.  This has been brewing in my mind for a while..  Finally got it out on Sunday :)

I think this might be classed as mixed-media? :)

I cut out a wave shape from cotton fabric - 2 different patterned pieces of fabric (can you see them?)  I used one for the main part of the wave and another for the curling under-part of the wave. 

I positioned the wave on my piece of felt, covered it all with a piece of blue organza and stitched around the outside of the wave.  Then I sniped around the outside of the stitches to remove the excess organza.. and started doodling :)  I covered the raw edges of the organza with tiny swirly movements... indicated movement with lines of stitching... added surf with white cotton thread... tiny little bit of metalic thread for sparkle on top of the wave.

Next I handstitched it to a slightly bigger piece of felt, and added a row of glass seed beeds to the edges of both felt pieces.  Pin back sewn on and a scrap of felt to cover the metal bar.  For fun I embroidered my initials on the back.. then kicked myself because I could of signed it with machine embroidery! lol.. 

I'm happy :)

brooch measures 6cm x 4cm (2.5" x 1.5")

So, there you go.. my first freemotion.. mixed media :) adventure with my new foot! 

Experimental Felting #2

Following on from yesterday, I promised to show you my latest bargain felting tool.. it may not be pretty, but my goodness does it do the job?!

Industrial painters roller tray £4 from B&Q, makes a fantastic alternative to a washerboard!

I have an Ashford wooden washerboard, which I rarely use (the woodgrain swole up on its first use making it far to rough to use without covering it in thick plastic first - a real pain).  Glass washerboards cost about £30, so this alternative is a real bargain.  The ridged part is at just the right angle, and the paint trough is perfect for dipping the felt in while you work - its a washerboard & mini sink all in one :).

I did find a few snaggy bits around the edge which I flattened by heating them briefly with a lighter flame and pressing flat with the back of a teaspoon.

Back to the nuno scarf.. 

Once the fibres had migrated through the silk well I added heat, rolled it by hand for a while, then tossed it to get the lovely nuno texturing of the silk chiffon.

Stood on a towel it doesnt slide around while you rub.
I personally prefer it to a washerboard!

Once I was happy with the texture I ran it over my ridged roller-tray to really tighten up the felt.



All finished. 
When first laid out this measured 7feet x 45cm.. finished it measures 4.5feet x 20cm

This still took quite a few hours to make with the time spent laying out & finishing by hand (not counting drier time) using the tumble drier to replace most of the rolling made it physically a much easier job.  I dont plan to do any more nuno scarves in silk chiffon using this method..simply because I find that wool fibres travel through silk chiffon easily with the normal rolling method, and I like to use as little electricity as possible.

BUT...  my second experiment was with synthetic organza which takes forever for the fibres to catch hold of with the traditional rolling.  I have to say I was very suprised & thrilled to bits with this experiment; using the tumble drier the fibres worked through synthetic organza faster than they did the silk chiffon!

When it came out of the tumbler I treated my sample piece the same as the scarf above, heat + tossing then rubbing on ridged roller-tray.  I was left with a very pretty & sturdy piece of nuno.. that I just HAD to make something from



So, I machine stitched around the flower petals to define them and
turned it into a pretty & ethereal clutch bag

I have been BURSTING for weeks and weeks to do some freemotion embroidery onto my felt.  Actually, its been on my 'to do' list for about 3 years now..ever since I first saw Helen Melvins (Fiery Felts) landscapes.  I would love to go on a workshop with Helen..hopefully one day..

More recently RosiePink's beautiful wallhangings, and the adventures of many blog friends have rekindled the desire.  Just over a month ago I managed to find and order a freemotion foot to fit my machine.. it had to come from Texas USA to the UK, and unfortunately it still hasnt found its way here.  The seller is lovely though and has just refunded me.  I have now found the same foot in the UK and repurchased it (why couldnt I find it a month ago?!).. hope the postman doesnt lose this one.  Until it gets here I am making do with my normal open toe foot for my decorative stitching (my machine missed stitches without a foot).

After making this clutch I was left with a decent sized offcut.. so decided to play some more :)

Normal pin fastner sewn onto the back. 
I originally fancied this as a closure for a shawl..



..but it works much better as a companion for the clutch I think.

Next time.. my experiments got even BIGGER :)

TTFN xx

Experimental felting... #1

I have to confess to being extremely curious!  And just being told that something works is not enough for me.. I have to try it myself - cant settle till I have.  This has led to some funny situations in the past believe me..  This time my curiosity was piqued by reading about people using a tumble drier as a felting tool.  Not something I have ever done before..  The curiosity became unbearable when I heard about it being used to speed up nuno felting! 

... you may recall the large nuno shawls that I made earlier in the year - they took, what seemed, an eternity of rolling (many, many hours over 2 days) to get the fibres to migrate through the fabric.  I had no plans to felt any more of these shawls, even though I LOVE the way they turned out, because they took so darned long - and near killed my back!

Some experimentation was in order.. so I googled and found this excellent tutorial on Treetops Colour Harmonies website.. and followed it :)

For my first experiment I used silk chiffon to make a nuno scarf - using a lot less wool than I usually do:

Used a piece of the silk chiffon I dyed a couple of weeks ago

Didnt have a clear idea of the design when I started.. it just 'grew'.  I got quite carried away and spent 3 or 4 hours in a very zen like state laying out the pattern :) ..only realised how long I had taken because I got hungry - I was 1 1/2 hours late for a meal!

 

Wetted out with cold soapy water





Decorators plastic layed on top



Edges folded in to 'seal the parcel' and rolled around a damp towel

Dry towel rolled around the outside, then tied up nice and tight.

Then into the tumble drier it went - on a no-heat settling, for 15 minutes.  Then, like with normal felting, unroll & straighten, then re-roll from the opposite direction.  Back in the tumble drier for another 15 minutes.  This was repeated rolling from all 4 sides, though for the final 2 sides I only did 10 minute tumbles - this was plenty.

After all this bumping & tumbling the fibres had migrated through the silk beautifully.. and was ready for heat and throwing - this is the bit that I like.. the magic nuno moment when you get the lovely texture. 

I had also prepared a sample sized piece with synthetic organza to see how this behaved & tumbled it at the same time (this only took 3 tumbles!)

I am going to leave it there though for today.. Tomorow I shall show you how it turned out, what became of the synthetic sample piece AND my new bargain must have felting tool!

xx

Q~ What did I get upto last week...?

A~ Lots of felting!

I had a week with no work interuptions - so I felted my days away very happily.  Im not going to bombard you with photos of everything in this one post.. I'm planning to trickle them out over the next few days :)

My first projects of the week were critters!  I felted a 2nd moongazing hare doorstopper... she was made on Monday.  The lady who first suggested penguins to me, after seeing my penguin doorstop post she requested a mommy penguin doorstop and cuddly baby penguin - as a gift for her daughter. And so, the penguin family grew.. 

I actually remembered to take a couple of photos as I went along this time!  So heres a bit about how I made them :)

Covering the penguin shaped resist with merino fibre

I put a layer of dark charcoal merino down for the first layer of the body, then a nice soft grey for the next 2 layers.. the way the charcoal mottles through the grey looks like baby is starting to get his adult feathers..

Thin plastic stops the flipper felting right into the body

I fulled the felt till it wouldn't go anymore, after rinsing & pushing/pulling it into shape the penguin dries on top of a radiator. 

Once dry he was stuffed.  I sewed a sort of teardrop shaped pouch from this lovely blue wave-like cotton, with wadding in the middle.  Some rice on the inner-body side for weight, then handstitched in place.. et voila - complète!

I now have a whole family of penguins :)  Mom, dad & baby...



Mom, dad are both doorstops & baby is a cuddly with a beany bum for stability

The baby is so soft and snuggly; he is well felted from merino.  You cant see too well in the photo but he has that nice pebbly texture.

Momma is felted from the same fibres as daddy penguin & has the same feathery texture from the Norwegian fibres coming through the merino.

Next post.. new bag design & a great new book!

xx

Lambing season...

is here.  I have no sheep... but this week I have found myself determinedly making myself a flock!  It all started out with this little chappy - whom I fell head over heals in love with while making him :)

My new teacosy
I used merino & Norwegian wool, with lots of locks; BFL, Leicester & black Lincoln

He makes me smile every time I look at him - he needs a name I think :)

He's just GOT to stay at home with me!  So I decided to make him a brother to go in the shop... And then while working on these, with their natural colours & the textures of the locks, my bronze moongazing hare caught my eye. mmmmm  my brain started figuring out just how to recreate it in felt.  The fingers started itching.. and a felted moongazing hare was born that afternoon :) She is mostly white - bathed in moonlight, I`ve felted in BFL locks so the white is textured.. and a couple of black Lincoln locks too. She isnt finished yet.. but will (I think) become a doorstop.  I really like her.. think the hares may multiply too :) as they are supposed too in March!

As you can see, brother sheep still needs his eyes & ears

I have also made 5 Feelin'Sheepish brooches / lapel-pins. 

I used 3.5" hat pins for these.  The little black sheep was made from the black lambs fleece from last Septembers charity event.. I washed half of it this week ready to use, and it is sooooo soft.  The black pin is mine, as I felt quite fondly toward that little lamb - would love to of brought her home with me!

More about what Ive done with some of the others soon

xx

An invitation to all felt & fibre friends

I am putting the wheels in motion to start a tea/coffee morning for any fibre loving folks - spinners/felters/weavers and those who are interested in fibre arts & crafts. 

I dont have a group name or permenant venue as yet.  I propose either every other Friday, or 1 Friday a month to meet up for an hour or 2, the idea is to bring along something to work on while we chat over tea & biscuits.

This will be in Halesowen, West Midlands, UK.  Possibly the first meet up could be as soon as Friday 4th March (am)   If you are interested please leave me a comment, or email me through one of my shops or flickr (links to the right).

Ultimately, if there are enough people interested we could use a room at Haden Hill House.. but as I would need to hire the room we would need at least 7 people for this (with approx £1 sub)

This is a chance to get out and meet people who share a love of fibre, no concentrating on learning a new skill as you do at a workshop - just relax and make friends. 

Dont be shy

x

Meet my new ...

Drum Carder ...

I wanted a carder that was going to give me BIG BATTS. But here in the UK I could not find anything suitable... everything over here yeilded the same sized batt 8"x22"to23"... now for spinning this would be fine but for felting it just wasnt what I wanted. SO, what followed was an awful lot of research on the internet finding BIG drum carders that are available in the US (they have some beauties!). Then figuring out what they would cost with import tax & delivery etc. Result... as you can guess, waaay too expensive for me!

I dont really know what made me do it, but instead of just plumping for a standard sized carder I phoned one of our UK makers; Classic Carders run by Paul & Mandy Brittan - a husband & wife team in Shropshire, UK. I wanted to ask them whether they would be able to make a bigger carder. AMAZINGLY, Paul had just the day before finished his prototype Jumbo Carder. I ordered one on the spot & Paul made me a beautiful carder from solid Ash. I was able to collect it in person as Mandy & Paul are just a 50 minute drive away.

This is the 1st Jumbo Carder that they have sold & Im putting it through its paces :) Its a learning curve for me... as you know Ive never had a drum carder before. I reeeally enjoy using it! Ive read & watched loads of tutorials on the internet which has helped loads.

So far I am only blending merino & other fine fibres. Though the drum is the standard 8" width, when the batts come off the are about 10" wide, by 33" long. With the fine fibres Im getting batts of approx 50g to 60g. I dont think that I can squash them on anymore... but Im going to have a try. Mandy says the batts should be 100g+... Im not sure if thats because she was using heavier wool, think it was an English fleece.

SO, time for some eyecandy :)

Im playing with lots of pretty colours...

Silk fibres & firestar...

And things like mohair curls... I havent had chance to do LOADS of batts yet; but I have made 3 shawls, a big wrap/scarf & 4 smaller scarves with them. Plus a shawl sized piece which didnt quite work out, but will be re-purposed another day. As usual Ive been adding in 'bits n pieces' for surface decoration; sari silk fibres & ribbons, linen fibres, 100% silk velvet as in this scarf...

e finito...

Showing the 2 ends together (just realised you cant tell theres 2 pieces, I dont want you thinking its so hefty as it would be if was that wide lol :)

Tomorow I shall post some photos of the others scarves, shawls & pins
TTFN
xx

Photos from last weeks workshop

Hiya, just a quick post to share the photos of Dawns gorgeous slippers and vessel from our workshop last week.

I love this colour combo! I shall be making some in these colours soon. Dawn wrapped green throwsters waste silk around the outside, it shines out beautifully echoing the green inners.

Time was running away from us so Dawn took this one home to finish - its turned out beautifully! WAAAAAY better than my first vessel I can tell you!.. And it was a slightly awkward first one really; we started off by putting down a hand dyed silk cap & some eyelash yarn, then the merino. So we felted it inside out. The nice thing with this is the anticipation & suprise when you finally cut it open and see what you have got.

Dawn did another vessel a couple of days later (which is beautiful!) go take a peek over on her blog... Dawn Liu-Smyth.

I have collected my carder :D which I am very much enjoying playing with... when I get chance - I honestly need a good 6 extra hours per day at the moment. I have felted 2 shawls from my own batts though folks ... havent taken any photos yet though. Yesterday I did my last living history session until February, so that shall free up a little bit more time.

Anyway, thats it for now... be back soon

xoxox

Photos

Just a quick post today... Im playing catchups after a busy few days. But I wanted to share a couple of photos & let you know how I got on.

Yesterday was the charity fundraiser at the farm - the sun shone beautifully all day. Clare & I spent a glorious late September afternoon spinning & felting in the farm yard, we met lots of lovely people. Many of the children (and not a few mums) went home with wetfelted Icelandic beads that they had made, threaded onto a ribbon & worn as a bracelet. Unfortunately I didnt take many photos, once I started felting that was it... I didnt get chance. But I DID manage to get one of these lovely Jacobs sheep.

Arent they adorable?!

They got a late haircut, and I came home with a little black lamb fleece (Im obviously too soft cos I feel really guilty about the poor little lambie being cold now, cos Ive got his coat). I think I might spin a bit of it raw this afternoon, not something I tend to do but it is so clean... The mom is a black shetland & the dad is a jacob, so it should be a lovely fleece to work with. I`d of been very tempted to start spinning & felting the wool straight as it came off the sheep, but my dear friend Clare is expecting her 1st baby at the moment, so we kept her well away from them & the fleeces.

There were a nice lot of people there, it was busy - but not too busy; just right. I raised £50 for Help for Heros with my rug raffle, and the lady who won it sounded like she was over the moon when I phoned to let her know :)

The primary school workshop on Thursday went really well. The creatures are dry now & waiting for me to sew the childrens names to them & assemble the mobile. I`ll post more pics when its done, but for now...

There were children who had felted beads with Rachael at the end of last term (she took fibre in for toy day!) and it was lovely to hear them say "oh, this is what Rachael taught us", Rachael didnt stop at making beads she made a coaster actually in school as a present for her little boyfriend :) bless.

Anyway, the suns shining & Ive got masses to do. Think Id best get out of my PJ`s & get on with it... think I`ll start with another cuppa tea :)
xx

Jacobs Fleece Felted Rug

OK, here goes...

I planned to felt one of the lovely fleeces from the farm into a sheepskin type felted rug... Now Ive never felted anything this big before... or felted with raw fleece (straight off the sheep, no cleaning). I was very lucky to have excellent advice from Nicola Brown - Clasheen, and Katherine Huggett from Working with Fibre group on Flickr, thanks ladies :o) it was very much appreciated.

My first job was to get some strong bubblewrap that was big enough for the job. The local electrical store came up trumps with 2 HUGE sheets of big bubble-super strong stuff, they were about 10ft long x 5 ft wide.

I chose a beautifully marked Jacobs fleece, with lots of dark bitter chocolate brown & creamy white patches. After picking as much veggie matter & muck out as I could I laid it out tips down (so the bit that had been closest to the sheep was uppermost. Just look at how dark that brown is...

Nicola felted a rug from a Jacobs last year, and I love the way the background felt (in contrasting colour) extended past the fleece and framed it. I decided to do this with red Icelandic wool batts from Alafoss - 750grams worth! I seperated the batts into thin layers and layed out 3 perpendicular layers over the whole fleece & extending past the edges.

Next I layed some purple cotton nuno gauze from Wingham on-top and covered the edges with the last of my batts.

It measured just under 9ft long x 5ft wide at this point and was very thick!

I watered it with very hot water with lots of washing up liquid in, using a watering can with a sprinkler rose on it. It took about 3 gallons to wet it, so good job I was working in the garden! Once rolled it was like a roll of carpet, it was so fat!

Unfortunately it was at this point that I deviated from the good advice... I didnt really have a suitable table to roll it on. The best I could manage was our old picnic bench, which was ok... but being as it was as long as the table I couldnt roll from the short end... which meant the benches were in my way. I couldnt stand close enough to roll easily, so one knee went on the bench and basically I spent 4 hours of rolling - every roll was like an aerobic lunge - hence the stiff muscles! Half way through the rolling I rubbed the fabric side, with my hands in plastic bags, with extra soap just to make sure the fibres had penetrated through the fabric properly.

Id planned to getpast the messy stage and get the kids involved as a family project... it didnt happen - this was really messy. Rachael played mom for the day, she made lunch & drinks bless her :o)

After every 100 rolls I unwrapped it, straightened it out, sprinkled more hot soapy water and rolled in a different direction. Once everything was holiding together well I worked it with the fleece side up for a couple hundred rolls. Then I did something I rarely do... I surrendered it to the washing machine. I drained it, then it went through 2 rinses & 3 wool washes (no extra soap). After every cycle I took it out and checked it carefully. When I was happy it had felted enough and was clean & soap free I put it through a short spin cycle and draped it over a clothes horse to dry.

After a day and 2 nights it was dry. I spent a couple of hours today crawling around on it finding and removing burrs and twigs that had escaped my notice. Now it is finished... an Im very happy with it :o) Its worth the aching joint & stiff muscles... and Im sure I will felt more of these. Im actually planning to do a couple of half sized ones with purple accents.

Just finished picking it over... thought I should test it out for comfort :o)

I used white throwsters waste silk fibre around the edge of the fleece (placed before the batts went down) and in some of the gaps, you can see it here around the outside.

The rug now measures approx 7 1/2ft x 4ft, approximate because of the wavy edges.

What else has been going on this week...? Well the kids attended their golf summer school... at Garys Golf Club. Rachael won a little trophy for the biggest hit from a girl that the pro has taught so far this year - she is very pleased with herself & big bro is chuffed with her too :o) Unfortunately she managed to jar her hand with all the hard hits - its in a sling on doctors orders today. They dont go again for another 2 weeks now so it should be better by then.

We are going camping on Saturday... I really should start thinking about what to take. I probably wont blog again before we go, so until then be well folks and have a good couple of weeks :o)

xxx

A feltmaking convert?

Had a wonderfull day yesterday with my friend Nicola, who is a very talented artist, she mostly does painting and illustrates. A couple of weeks ago we decided to have some `swapsie days`- she felts with me & I paint with her... Yesterday was our first swapsie day :o) and Nicci had her first ever experience of felting. We made felted corsages from Liz Houghtons Felting Fashion book (have you noticed that I like that book? :o) It was a lovely girly day with lots of chat & laughter, veggie sausage sandwiches & buckets of tea & lots of fibrey fun! Perfect.

Nicci did a fantastic job! I sent her home with some fibres & bubblewrap so she can play some more... wonder if she will get hooked?

Camera shy!

Close-up of Nics roselike corsage - isnt it lovely

And this ones mine

Im really looking forward to our next swapsie - painting day! I havent painted since I sat my GCSE Art exam 20 years ago! Unless you can count painting the house, or faces onto art dolls - but painting a picture?! I wont know where to begin. I have wanted to paint for a while... so this is good, it`ll make me get on and do it :o) I am NOT promising to share the results though hehe it`ll probably be awfull!

Apologies for the crazy spacing on this post... blogger is behaving rather oddly at the moment - wont let me get it right!

x

Fun felting

In between days at work and other mundane essentials (like shopping & housework) plus making the most of the sunshine with the dogs over in the fields :o) Ive done some really fun felting projects!

A few days ago I read a post on Daily Felt, Inger was asking if any feltmakers wanted to make & send starfish to a group supporting children with cancer. The group are having their 5th annual funday & want to give each child a starfish. Its a really touching post, and immediately I wanted to make a starfish & send it to help bring a little happiness.

More organised than usual :o) I took photos step-by-step...

I started out by covering the star shaped resist with lovely lime green Icelandic wool; I wrapped around fine strips of batt until it was completely enclosed... I did 2 layers of Icelandic (the 2 layers perpendicular was interesting! :o)

Then I covered it with 3 layers of my favourite cobalt blue merino top.

For decoration one side was liberally sprinkled with sari silk fibre, and on the other side I layed out a design using a homespun boucle plied with a metalic thread. I crocheted a `wagon wheel` on a big hook to go in the centre.

Turns out the handle on our new French doors are perfect for drying this sort of thing on!

It made a really strong, sturdy felt... the sari silk twinkles & shimmers and on the other side theres just an occasional glint of metalic thread sparkling. I`ve stuffed it with clean / soft fleece from a local flock of free range organic sheep... Its very cuddly & tactile & measures just over 10".

I also made another hat! This is from Lizzie Houghtons Felting Fashion book (great book!) A little pillbox hat, as a sneak preview heres the top before felting...

Well, thats it for now... Have a good weekend x

The week so far...

has been pleasantly productive :o) in a gentle, plodding sort of way. I played with the silk saris on Monday...

This is the chiffon, with added banana silk (this is the chiffon I overdyed with gold)

Green peacock silk sari in cobalt merino, with loads of sari silk fibre & yarn

.

Im wearing this scarf today :o) its all long `n skinny and feels really elegant to wear (you know when you feel like you look nice in something?!)

Plus Ive felted and sewn together another cushion cover... so now I have a pair; sun & moon...

More Icelandic wool

And yesterday I dyed a load of silk ... which is still drying. I`ll post tomorow with photos of todays work, and hopefully yesterdays silk too.

x