White , at the start but not at the finish

In September 2011 I nervously wrote my first blog , about a piece of white felt I made at the start of my Artybird courses. Very basic !! I was quite happy about the felt but I was nervous about becoming a blogger. Since then I have written another 139 blog posts and I am no longer nervous at all.

This week strangely I return to all white again for my final pieces of course work - two wall hangings.

These have been made from Blue faced Leicester , as was the first piece . But that is were the similarity ends. The first was just BFL , flat felt , these last two have many many additions. First silk fibres and alpaca yarn , followed by scrim , silk chiffon and mulberry bark . Cords made of BFL wrapped in silk fibres were added next and on one piece fibre balls. The final additions were mixed fabric pleated pieces .

Here are all the elements prepared and ready for adding to the fibres before feltIng.

 

The two pieces felted.

All ready for this glorious madder dye bath.

I can't wait to see how they will turn out.

 

 

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Knitting and stitching Show

It used to be an annual event for me to visit this show when it came to Harrogate. That was back in the days when I lived in Yorkshire and I was a knitter, now I live in the Netherlands and I am a felter and a knitter. So I was pleased to be able to combine a visit to the show , now looking also from a felters perspective , with a visit to the UK to help look after my new grandson.

Compared to the equivalent shows I have been to in the Netherlands in the intervening years it was HUGE and incredibly busy - and I went on Thursday. It was great to meet up with Yulia Badian and see her mermaid project. Also to talk to Dionne Swift , and to Alysn Midgelow-Marsden and see their fantastic textiles. I enjoyed seeing the felted work, from the Black Sheep exhibition that I had only see as pictures before.

A piece by Maria Friese.

Amazing fine felted bowls by Gladys Paulus

I was amused by these quirky knitted items , so retro.

And I think this knitted dress is truly fantastic.

I did manged to persuade myself that although cheap, 10 balls of orange wool was not going to help my stash busting targets and was probably not a good colour. But I did buy a few things.

 

Overall it was great to return .

 

 

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Nearly Finished!

Well after nearly three years and an awfull lot of fun and felt I am working on the design of my final City and Guilds project. It will be a natural dyed textured wall hanging. Well actually I am going to make two , so I can made good use of my dye pot !

The inspiration comes from this photograph .

Which has been manipulate many times via collages and photoshop.

Actually I have so many images it really hard to decided which to use but eventually I have chosen these two.

 

I have started sketching parts of these images to be the base for my hangings and so far I think these are my real starting points.

My fabrics are all prepared and mordanted and I am ready to go .

 

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A Felt Artist needs a felted handbag !

A number of months ago I set off to make myself a handbag, having felted it I decided I did not like it as it was lopsided. I threw it in a drawer. This week I got it out with the intention of making it again, or something similar anyway, as I thought as a recently self confessed Felt Artist I needed to publicly display my work. Looking at it I decided perhaps I could rescue it. All it needed was some differential shrinking and a bit of love and care, some TLC and maybe it could be revived. With this terrible photograph it makes it look worse than it was!

You can just about see the pins marking about 2 cm that needs to be shrunk away

So I set to work and manged to get the front and the back to be the same size. Stitched it as orginaly intended over the imbedded fabrics and then sewed in all the loose ends . I also made a piping following through from the handles for strength and stability.

I have a phobia about losing my important documents., having once lost my passport , so I added a hand stitched zipped inside pocket. This was not in the orginal plan, but seemed like a good addition to me now.

And here it revived and ready to tested out on my trip to the UK this week.

 

 

 

 

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