Progress photos - felting my wave

I usually get so caught up in my projects that I forget to take progress pics.. I am trying to remember though.  And I did take a few as I was laying out the wave panel in my recent cushion cover..

4 merino base layers

You cant tell from this photo (on my moniter you cant anyway!) but the base layers were all a deep Atlantic blue that I had dyed myself.  I used Landscape dye for this, now I have always found Landscapes to be very colour-fast - I like them.  But I wanted a very deep, dark blue so I used the full amount of dye for the dry-weight of fibre I was using.. to get the deepest colour possible from it.  Dont know quite what I did wrong (maybe should of cooked it a little longer?) even though I thought I'd rinsed the fibre well.. when I started felting with HOT water the blue ran! 

I liked it just like this..without doing anything else to it at all.

On the surface I used LOADS of white silk for the surf & spindrift; mawata silk hankies & caps, throwsters waste, and some bleeched linen fibres too. 

I added a some white merino to the mix too

So, with all this white detail, I started to panic a little when the blue started to run..  Nothing much to do really though at that point but keep going and see how it turns out.

Close up of what had been white surf. 
This photo catches the sheen of the silk quite well..

The colour run did lend a blue-hue to the white areas, but it was a happy accident - I really like it.  To me it looks like waves do in bright sunshine.. you know when they are sparkling so brightly that it almost hurts to look at them? 

I DID forget to take a photo of the finished panel BEFORE trimming and sewing

I trimmed the edges nice and square with my rotary cutter, and added a nice backing fabric with a double row of stitching around the edge.

So, now I really must try to remember to take more pics..  I do have one more recent (& as yet untold) project with lots of pics to share with you later in the week :)

TTFN xx 

Going Coastal!

You an certainly tell that we have been to the seaside!  Look at whats happened to my work...

Only had 2 cushion pads when I took this :(

I had been planning to make some seaside inspired cushion covers, a trip to my local fabric shop presented me with the perfect backing fabric for them :)

If I had my dream cottage by the sea I would have things like this there...

I made a mess cutting the back of the first one - my brain was totally out of gear and I forgot to add the seam allowance!  Didnt want to waste the fabric though, so I have just finished making them into lavender sachets for my mother-in-law (she mentioned wanting some a few weeks ago).  She was born & raised in Cornwall and loves everything that reminds her of the sea, so I think she will be happy with these.

Different picture each side

Fishy keyrings were next on my list.  I find it hard thinking of anything 'blokey' to make from felt - I think these fit the bill quite nicely.  Pity I didnt get them done in time to go in my shop for Fathers Day!  Never mind theres always next year..

These are cut from super chunky Swaledale (spun by Clare) crocheted, I wove blue & green mohair through in places and then fulled in the washing machine.  Just right for these, its about 1cm thick and very sturdy.

And finally the yarn that I was spinning from the batts with banana fibre in..

I'm thinking of making myself a beaney hat from this.

Tuesday being the summer solstice we had planned to get up early and climb Clent hill to watch the sunrise.. didnt bother in the end though as it was pouring with rain on the night and promising to be a cloudy sunrise.  We got a little bit of sunlight through the day, then the cloud cover came back to hide the sunset.  Always feels like we should have a blazing bonfire, with music and dancing (and maybe jacket spuds!) to properly celebrate midsummer like our ancestors did.  Something else to do when we get a place with a little land!

Blogger is behaving EXTREMELY strangely lately, dont know if anyone else is experienceing this..  I'm having real trouble commenting on some blogs (which makes me wonde if people have trouble commenting on mine - I know it wouldnt even let me comment here a few weeks ago!).  Yesterday it wouldnt let me add any photos to this post, today it has...  And now the spacing has gone mental, I hit delete on one line and it deletes from the previous paragraph?!  Seriously weird.  Hope it resolves soon.

Hope you have a good rest of week & weekend :)

xx

Inspiration musings.. and outcome

Sometimes I find that I have the beginnings of a design... that flutter elusively through my mind.  I find myself moving on and doing lots of other things with that one little flutterby still dancing in my subconscious.  Until something happens; I go somewhere or see something that strikes like lightening and I KNOW what I am going to do next. 

For quite sometime (probably about a year!) I have been thinking about cave paintings, petroglyphs & ancient stone carvings...  there is something so real, and familiar, and tangible about them.   How to bring them into my felt though....?  Which images...?  I wanted them to mean something to me, to be personally significant - as the cave-painting & petroglyph depictions were to their artists.

Firstly I was thinking of handprints.. Actually I have been thinking of doing a piece of family art with all of our handprints on for several years now (so I guess the flutterby was there longer than I realised :)  a touchable memory - more physical and 'real' than a photo.   This project is still tumbling back and forth in my mind - it will get out soon though I think :)

New and prized additions to my book shelf

I was absolutely delighted when I received my newest felt book Nomadic Felts - Artistic Traditions in World Cultures by Stephanie Bunn.  WOW what a book!  It really is a visual feast; the photography is excellent, the felts shown incredible.  The book looks at nomadic cultures and their feltmaking pasts and present, with really interesting photos and insights to nomadic feltmaking.  It has a section on pattern meaning and belief (which I havent fully read yet!)  I am about a third of the way through the book  at the moment and I'm sure I will be posting about it again when I have read through.  As soon as I unwrapped it, before starting to read I flicked through pretty much drooling over the photos.  When I got to the 'Meaning and Belief' section I was jumping with joy..



There is a photo of a petroglyph in Kyrgystan of sheep!  It is dated second millenium BC/early AD  - my heart leapt, this was it!  Being a felter -  sheep are fundamentally important to me (and as you know I simply adore the funny beasties :)  I like the simplicity of the image.. and thought it would translate well into felt.  And so..  I made some nice big tote bags, with a useful pocket felted inside

This is the 1st I made.  Icelandic wool, with merino for the sheep & a nice slubby woolen yarn squiggled on and felted in.

This is my bag and I want to keep it nice and long, as I can fit lots in there.. but I shall need to strengthen the handle area.  It is strong but it folds a little when the contents are (?too) weighty. 

2nd bag.. I put more sheep on this one and made it a little longer so I could cut the top section off, and use that to double up the handle area - its really sturdy now

3 sheep on the other side.

Hope they show up ok..I used highly saturated colours and they are a bit tricky (to say the least) to photograph.

I am working on an orange and gold bag now..  I felted it yesterday, its dry now and ready for me to cut and sew the handles when I get an hour or so.

The other book in the photograph is the Orchard Book of Shakespears Stories.. a childrens book that I spotted in Waterstones a couple of months ago.  The illustrations are beautiful!  Rachael has been studying Shakespear (A Midsummer Nights Dream) and I thought this would be a nice introduction to more of his work - its easier going for a 12 year old to read, and hopefully discover Shakespears magic.  I was absolutely stunned to find this book on Amazon 'nearly new' for 24p plus a low postage cost!  I had almost brought it at the RRP... so I snapped this one up.  When it arrived it was in pristine condition, you can even smell the new ink!  Dont you just love getting a bargain :) 

OK, time to go get some work done.  Have a wonderful weekend xx

New shawls, pins & scarves

As promised (Im on a real roll here!) pictures of the scarves & shawls made from my own batts... and the pins I made to go with the shawls. So not much talking today... just pictures :)

The lampwork beads used for the pins are handmade by BlueBoxStudio

I LOVE this one!!! Its a sari silk extravaganza - lots fibres & ribbons. This is now on its way to a lady in the USA. :( sad to see it go, it was really pretty. I shall definately be making something similar for myself in the new year!

This green one is a Christmas pressy for someone who doesnt (to my knowledge!) read my blog...



And of course theres the purple one that I showed you yesterday...

I dont know whats the matter with me lately but I want to keep EVERYthing! Its really bad. I sat there at the fayre looking around at all the pretty colours and textures and I just wanted to take `em all home and put them on the walls or something... maybe Im entering a new stage of this fibre addiction... hoarding my goodies. Ah well, I suppose the answer is make 2 of everything, one to go & one to stay. Unfrtunately Id get bored with that! I find it impossible, to make any 2 things identical - there are just so many possibilities - why do the exact same thing twice?!

x

Twilight shawl

Hiya, just a quicky.. I wanted to show you the shawl I felted this week. I brought some batts from CorgiHillFarm on etsy... They arrived on Thursday this week & OMG they are so gorgeous! Look at all of this loveliness...
Within 20 minutes of them arriving I was felting them :) I really love the shawl that Ive made with the top batts (the reds are for next week).

This morning I made a hammered a copper wire pin to go with it...

Have a great weekend 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

So easily distracted...

My purple bag is totally unmade... I got distracted, again. My dear friend Clare gave me a much needed kick up the backside the other day (not literally of course :o)! Ive been planning to make some household items for some time... but kept getting distracted (no suprise there). I had the pleasure of working with Clare at Oak House on Tuesday...and after a gentle nudge Wednesday I started making coasters! Id brought a little more Norwegian wool & some Gotland grey to try; seemed like the perfect project for giving them both a whirl.

6 layers of Norwegian...pile of fluff was about 4 or 5" thick

I have to say I really enjoyed working with both fibres & am planning to do loads more projects with them (shall have to buy more first though). Ive made 4 sets of 4 so far - 2 Gotland Grey with my Polwarth handspun blanket stiched around the edges & 2 Norwegian sets; 1set of 4 grey & white with light grey shetland stitching, 1 set of 2 grey & white & 2 grey with white merino stitching.

And Friday was spent making my first ever oven glove - oh the excitement :o) I wasnt sure that I had the shape of the resist right or the size so my first one is just plain white...7 layers, lovely & thick. Its drying out still at the moment.

Looks like a boxing glove :o)

Im actually really pleased with it... but oh my goodness, I hadnt realised what a fiddle it would be felting a thumb in seamlessly. Hopefully the next one will be easier now I know what Im doing :o) (or am I totally deluding myself & thumbs are always tricky?) More planned for next week so I shall soon know... & I MUST make a teacosy - mine is a disgrace at the moment & really needs replacing with a nice felted one.

Oh the banana experiment was very interesting... shall post more about that soon. Im planning to add a new section in my shops... Fancy Felters Embelishments, and this shall be in it... more soon.

The next fibre on my `really must try` list is Icelandic... I cant wait to try it.

xoxo

Monday Felt Fun!

Ooo Monday was a play day! The kids were back at school & the day stretched out before me... so after a brisk walk round the fields with the dogs (in gorgeous sunshine) I started rooting through my stash! 2 weeks without felting had left me feeling twitchy & I had newish goodies as yet untried. I decided to do a sampler like piece of flat felt... using lots of lovely colours & embellishment.

Do you remember the lovely naturally dyed silk cap & handspun mulberry silk thread that I brought a few weeks ago? From Debbie at Mulberry Dyer (who shall be at Wonderwool Wales at the weekend for anybody who is going)

Well this is the first time that Ive used either of them... the cap is the light green - I love the texture of it, I only used about 2/3 of 1 layer from the silk cap and got a lovely thick lushious effect. The gold thread stands out really well too. I dropped a few bright gold nepps near to the silk thread too, but I dont think Ive got them on the photo.

I used a couple of sari silk ribbons too

This side is my favourite its all hot pinky purple, blue violet & more purple - yum. The other side is dark purple & peacock blue with torn chiffon ribbons & thinly sliced felt beads... I love the richness of the colours & it was interesting trying out the sliced beads, and of course chiffon felts in well :o)

I think this piece is probably going to become a bag (suprised?)

Tried to post this yesterday but the internet connection was DREADFULL - I gave up in the end. This morning has been a run around chasing my tail type morning... tracking down parcels that the posty tried to deliver yesterday wehile I was at work... delivering Rachaels water bottle to school cos she had forgotten it (memory like her mothers Im afraid :o) and back to the Hairdresser - my hair is now in a nice neat long bob :o) and Im a happy bunny again.

This afternoon Im playing with banana silk :o) let you know how I get on

xx

My first sunset

OK time to share the fruits of another playday ;o)

Friday last week I finally got around to felting a sunset! Our garden backs on to fields & woods, right behind our back fence there is a HUGE beautiful old beech tree. In the winter the sun sets right behind the woods & some nights the sky is just so breathtaking that all you want to do is stand and watch the colours changing. Unfortunately I havent had much joy taking photographs of this... the sun is just too bright even as its going down, and I don't have filters etc. I have managed to take a couple of nice ones though... I decided quite a while ago that I really needed to felt a wallhanging with our sunset beech tree...

Needs to be mounted now

I didnt want to clutter up the bottom of the picture too much with undergrowth etc, so I felted in strips of silk fabric & curly locks to add texture...its enough to hint there theres stuff there without being too busy.

My inspiration photo

I shall probably mount it onto linen stretched over a board, thats how I mounted the seascape I made for my nan a year or so back. I did a fair bit of surface embroidery onto the seascape though and dont want to embroider this sunset, so I shall have to see how that works out. Ive also got a dilema about what colour to mount it on...creamy white? or dark?

Yesterday I worked on a big piece of felt that Im planning to make a tunic or maybe a jacket from. Today I am dyeing the felt; I mordanted it this morning with alum & creme of tartar - got to say it smelled much more than when doing a smaller amount...which makes perfect sense I supose ;o) Now Im dyeing it with Tinctoria Red Lac, which smells nicer than the mordant - hope it takes well and that I like the colour... In the cauldron it looks like mulled wine!

Hopefully pics tomorow...

Sheepish fun

Hi guys, can you believe another week has gone? Well I`ve been making jewellery all day ready for a Christmas fayre in a few weeks time. I just wanted to share a few pics of my latest jewellery with you.

It all started with my dear friend Keiara requesting an embroidered felted bangle set, in green & black, for halloween. A few weeks before I had been playing and felted 4 little black cat beads - but hadnt used them yet. This is what I came up with...

The funny light bit on the black bangle is the light catching an embroidered star, Id used a sparkling shiny black thread.

Im REALLY pleased with how it turned out & Keiara was thrilled to bits :o) I LOVE doing work for Keiara, she tells me what she wants & lets me go for it....fortunately we must be on the same wavelength cos she has loved all of her bits `n pieces so far.

I decided that I really should make some sheepish sets - you KNOW how much I love those little sheep :o)

Im waiting for things to arrive in the post now; fibre, beads, business cards (I cant wait to see them - Ive ordered MOO mini cards) my fingers are itching to get felting, but I cant do the projects I want to do cos Im waiting for the posty... never mind means I finish some UFOs.

Have a great weekend folks
:o)