Fibre and Thread Sketching - week 8

GREEN

So many possibilities with green; first I thought of doing a green man, but knowing me I would of spent way longer than I wanted to on him :).  So I decided to go off on a literal tangent and do a golf green..  I will confess I pretty much copied the design from clip art.  
Just a quick note here.. I don't agree with copying and don't do it (not counting ancient rock art / historic designs which I am irresistibly drawn to incorporating into my work.. and when I asked an artist friend if I could do a felt version of one of her beautiful paintings). So even though it's from clip art, freely available for anyone's use.. I'm still not entirely comfortable about this piece.  But I don't plan to sell it, it was made just as an exercise in play.

First I copied it in pencil..

Cutting out the elements to use as templates.. 

for cutting felt to shape

Using pins and a felting needle to temporarily fix the trees in place ..

Trees are then free machine stitched to the background.

All the pieces are attached in the same way.

Final touch is a FM embroidered flag and hole,

and I've 'healed' the wavy edges on the white felt

measures 6" x 6"

Dyed Fin Wool Boots

This is a long planned pair of boots for me.. I brought outdoor soles about 3 years but I've only just gotten around to felting them.  Originally I had no idea WHAT I wanted my outdoor boots to look like, but after making the dyed Fin wool Top Hat a while back I could picture quite clearly what I wanted :)

Resist cut from foam floor underlay - as you can see
I changed my mind about the width of the leg and
had to tape an extra bit on :)  

Using all natural coloured Fin wool.. dark brown, mid brown and white.
Graduating from dark at the bottom to white at the top.

After felting I added cuffs, crocheted from a chunky Shetland yarn
I spun a couple of years back.

Good thing I added extra width around the legs.. these are just right :)

Then came the scary moment..  I LIKED the way they looked in the natural colours, but I'd been dreaming of rich cranberry coloured boots, so forced myself to be bold and surrender them to the dyepot.

I had a hell of a game dyeing them in my big cauldron over the small camp stove..  made worse because it was a windy day and the flame kept getting blown out!  It took 5 hours messing about lighting and relighting before they were cooked.

But I do love the colour :)

Now I have to confess to a really STUPID mistake..  I felted the boots till they fit my feet nicely, WITHout getting the soles out to look at and check the fit. Turns out the soles are actually quite a lot bigger than my feet, even though they are the correct shoe size!  And the boots are that well felted that no matter how hard we try they just can't be stretched..

You can see the gap at the front.. there's the same gape at the back too, they're about 1cm too big!

SO, I have just ordered the same style sole but a size smaller..
I hope they fit.. (link to seller at end of post)

Guess I shall have to felt another pair and make them roomy so I can wear them with very thick socks in the coldest weather :)

I'll update when the new soles arrive..


In case you are looking for this sort of sole, I brought mine along with the cellulose board and waxed thread for stitching them from Etsy seller Rasae in Lithuania, international postage to the UK was pretty quick.

Felting to dye

Time is getting away from me!  

A couple months ago I made a rather special hat (which I fell in love with) from natural Finn wool which I dyed after felting.  I decided at the time to make more in this way..  and it's been an ongoing quest since then :)

A few weeks back I managed to felt..

A pair of new boots for ME :), and a hat

Next step before taking the plunge into the dye pot.. samples!

A rather sad, lonely dyepot.. abandoned in the rain

I've decided all my dyeing is going to be done outdoors now.. I hate having the fumes in the house!  All the worry over what fumes we are inhaling and what residues may get left behind (even though I turn into a cleaning demon after dyeing, I still worry that I may miss something).

So, I dug out the old, spare camp stove and cooked it on the deck.  All went well until the heavens opened.. at which point I gave up for the day :)

These are the 5 I've sampled so far..
there are 2 of each colour because I used 2 different natural colour combinations
for bases, so I could see which worked best for each dye colour.

I also have the lovely green I used before, and a rich raspberry which I can't find at the moment..

Next time.. progress to date with the boots.

Fibre and Thread Sketching - week 6

Theme - Weather

My inspiration..
this photo of Central Park that my cousin shared on
Facebook a few weeks ago

Starting to build a simple picture..

using merino fibre, and mawata silk hankies for snow shine

Covered with tulle ready to start felting..

I also wanted to make some plain white felt so decided to make a bigger sheet than needed and use one corner for the picture.

cutting the picture section out -
I decided to keep the bottom edge natural

Fully felted, rinsed and dried

Starting Free Machine Embroidery..
This one turned out NOT to be a bite sized project..  it took HOURS and hours

I really wanted it to be finished at this point..
but my husband convinced me that it really did need some people in :)

I'm glad I listened.. Gary was right!

My fence is leaning the wrong way..
but I'm putting it down to artistic interpretation lol

And the back..
BEFORE adding people and footprints in the snow

Botany SLiDER Hat #2

This one is felted with the Bonfire Batts carded from my bag of Botany Waste..

1st layer 

2nd layer - black Finn wool 

3rd layer.
Loving the flashes of colour..
and wondering how much of it will survive felting?

Part way through.. having just removed the resist

And several hours later - it's dark again!
Thank goodness for my daylight bulb craft lamp..

A meandering stitch line this time..

And I went a bit crazy with the daisies :)

While I was felting I turned the hat inside out to work on the inside for a while.. but while this was wet you really couldn't tell a difference, the coloured bits were dark and the silk and firestar weren't showing at all.  I forgot to turn it the 'right' way..

When it was dry I started thinking.. 'wow, all that silk just disappeared'..
until I turned it over and looked inside :)  It's like a firework display going off in there lol 

I'm actually quite glad I didn't turn it.. I rather like having the quieter side out and knowing what's going on inside :)

Think I'm going to keep this one!  

Finished Botany SLiDER Hat #1

I decided to go with a navy leather hat band on this one (thanks to the help of my Facebook followers :) .. with antiqued brass rivet studs rather than spikes.

I AM feeling camera shy lately.. but to be honest I just LOVE seeing them from behind :)

Closer..

Side view ..

I love how well the white mawata silk shows up on this.. I just used the cut-off edges.  Reminds me of breaking waves on my Atlantic hat :)

Fibre and Thread Sketching - week 5

Fantasy

So much to choose from..  But I didn't want to do anything too involved..  my aim is try and keep these projects bite sized.  

After a couple days thinking I settled on doing a Cornish Pixie from Harry Potter..  The one I sketched as my design was a mixture of images on the internet.. some Cornish Pixies, some fairies, and with a slightly frog like element to his hands and feet :)

I wasn't confident to free hand copy it on the machine..
 so I traced him onto tracing paper and pinned in place

I love this blue silk!  Not sure what sort it is (it's a bugger to felt mind)
it's soooo shiny and luxurious!

Forgot the camera for a while now :)  but I snipped around the edges to reveal a little naked, wingless, blue pixie.  Pinned a piece of iridescent organza over then free handed his wings and snipped round the edges of them too.  

Close-up finished Pixie

With a few FME metallic stars to finish :)
I think he looks naughty enough!

Botany Batts to Hats

Last week I brought 500g of Botany Waste from World of Wool; it's a lucky dip bag full of odds 'n ends - each bag is different.  The reason I brought it was simply to try and replicate the random batts I get when I card everything in my fibre compost bin.  When I try and 'do it myself' just picking what I think are odd colours from my stash.. they just end up looking muddy.. or plain wrong.

Freshly tumbled out of the bag :)
There was even some baby camel fibre in there (that's what I think it was anyway)
.. gorgeously soft!

Carding :)  so relaxing..

4 batts.. I love the blue/brown combo.. really remind me of the Atlantic coast

I couldnt help sorting just a little.. there was such a nice potential combination with the blues, greys, white and browns.  So I have the 'Atlantic' batts, and the others are manly brown with shots of brightly coloured wool top and tussah silk with multicoloured firestar for sparkly.. Bonfire Night batts :)

I was just itching to get started on my next SLIDER hat.. so, even though it was past lunch time, I started..

First layer

Second layer - white Finn wool for more body

Third layer

Nearly there :)  It was sever hours past sunset at this point!

After rinsing, spinning and blocking.. this is what I got up to next morning
Big smiles from me :)

Yesterday I added the decorative stitching..
tomorrow the band will go on

I spent today felting another Slider using the Bonfire batts - to follow soon :)

Fibre and Thread Stitching - Week 4

Theme - Pattern

Mmmmm the possibilities :)  I wanted straight away to do 'something Celtic' .. but I do love zen doodles too..

Sunday morning I had a couple hours free.. so I doodled :)

But I still had a Celtic Beastie in mind begging to be made..

I totally cheated by tracing the beastie out of a Celtic
design source book :)
I sandwiched iridescent organza between the paper and
white felt and pinned.

Free machine embroidering over the lines in the drawing..

All main lines are 'drawn'  just pattern detailing to go..
I carefully pulled the paper away now - the stitches perforate
the paper so it tears away easily.. just need to go round with tweezers
getting tiny bits out afterwards

The back side

Front.  All stitched, organza still intact

Carefully snipping away the excess organza close to the stitch line

Finished

Closer-up

Now I'm picturing bags with beasties on the flaps.. or running up and over the straps..  Not just yet though, maybe later in the year.