Productive week

I feel I have achieved loads this week.

Firstly I got round to trying some of the techniques I learnt in December with Lisa Klakulak at the wonderful Atelier Fiberfusing. I was pleased I have not forgotten all the fascinating felting tips Lisa taught me and I am delighted with the purple pod I made.

I finished the presentation of some new jewellery and was surprised and pleased to unexpectedly sell some more earrings . I also started adding the beads to another set . My plan for all these to go into my Etsy shop, hopefully next week.

 

Artybirdcarnforth has planned an exhibition for April and I need to get my piece finished and with then by the 10th March. This is not so far in the future so I did a few pastel drawing that will form part of the inspiration for the piece .

As I want to naturally dye this piece I did a few more dyeing experiments. Onion onto BFL and with alkanent on some Gotland. Typically I prefer the felt design of the gotland piece but I am not so keen on the range of grey and brown I have produced. I like the golden colours from the onions a lot better.

When I look back it feels like a very productive week !

 

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Just too many sheep breeds!

The more I felt , the more breeds of sheep and their fibres I discover and the more confused over their different properties I become. The final straw arose over short fibre merino. Is this a new breed of merino sheep? Fibre from part of the sheep. Or just the ordinary merino cut up? This is a question I would really like answering !!!!

All these different fibres make slightly different qualities of felt. So in an attempt to resolve my confusion I decided it was time to start to build my own felt sample library. Starting with what I have in my stash.

Each sample to start at 11cm square and weigh 3 g. I am having worries now I have started this that this is too small and has too many inaccuracies. But too late for those technical concerns now.

Made so far left to right :

Bergshcaap, C1 merino, CM norwegien , Nepal, LLewyn , Cap from woll knol.

To make , left to right;

Gotland , merino top, merino silk mix, alpaca, Herdwick, merino silk blend 2, Blue faced Leicester , Jacob, Norwegien.

I am going to label them all and thread them on a ring. With lots of space for more.

Here I have a technical problem . I have the eyelets I have the special plastic tool and I have a hammer , but so far in my test I have failed to make an acceptable eyelet. Weird , must be a mismatch somewhere in my equipment.

 

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Finished....... Almost

Well amazingly I have actually finished my panel. Well almost. I haven't framed it , yet but part from that it is finished. I haven't framed it because my tutor , Kate, wants to see it. It is 84 cm x 34 cm so once framed it s a bit tricky to post . It will therefore be posted for assessement unframed then returned to be framed.

I have gone on quite a lot about the preparation process , so here is the details of the felting process.

 

What a mess! All my materials aid out ready.

I first made some Shetland fibre prefelt. The tree had green dyed throwers waste incorporated to be like the moss on the bark . I then stitched bark using green silk on my sewing machine. Trying the follow the lines of the branches and be both regular but random like bark. The reflection was the same prefelt but without the stitching or the moss , as neither of them appeared in the reflection.

The background was different colours of BFL covered in lovely springy Norwegian fibre.

I laid my prefelt on top and then used more wool fibres and lots of silks to give the textures of the grasses , the reflections of the sky in the water and the leaves on the ground.

 

Just the reflection. This piece was so long it was almost I possible to photograph the whole thing on the table and I had to pull my table out from the wall , so I could actually felt it.

This is the best I could manage

Here it is finished.. Almost. Hanging precariously from a door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Loose ends

The course I am doing in arranged in three parallel modules design, sampling and making felt . A good blend with a coherent theme. In the process of doing this it is quite easy to forget one element. I thought as I was nearing the end of month two and finishing my final month two piece, I should check if I had forgotten to do anything. I have in fact a have a number of loose ends,

I had forgotten to paint anything using tints and tones. After all my trials without using tint and tones , you would have thought I would enjoy using them and not just forget them. Luckily that is quite easily resolved.

More difficult is that I have forgotten to keep any records of how long it has taken me to do the design work for my final felt piece, If I do not know how long I took me , I have no way of costing this activity. I will have to imagine is again and then assign a realistic time. It is always very debatable I think how much time is allocated to design activities, as in the end you might make more the one final pice from the design work.

I have not competed my research into Pat Sparks method of felting, This was because I could not work it out from anything in the public domain. So I decided she was keeping it secret and bought her book. Now I know and I am not going to reveal the secret but I can now finish the work. I am trying to use elements of her techniques in finishing my final piece.

And finally I have not written anything about the challenge from making a background batt. !!! I think this is extremly tricky to write about. The challenges of a background batt out if the natural shades if BFL were small. The white was too white for my piece , I should not have used it. I should have used the two browns shades. I think this was the only challenge . I am not sure this is quite enough so I will have to think of something else to say

I can during use the holiday period complete these few loose ends and finish month two. This blog is unusually about all about things I haven't done I am sorry there can be no photographs.

 

 

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My North England Mule

When I went to Woolfest at the end of June , I bought a fleece. I had decided I would buy one before I got there . I was quite determined to buy one. My sister thought I had now gone completley mad.

The idea came from Kate of Arty Bird, take some raw fleece said the assignment. What , where am I supposed to get that from, so she sent me some and ever since then I thought well maybe I should make soem of my own.

So here I am at Woolfest determined to buy, truthfully I was bit overwhelmed by the choice. How to choose? In the end I bought a smallish fleece from a north england mule. A cross between a blue face Leicester ram and a swale dale ewe. Bred I believe to mix the hardiness of the upland mother , with the more prolific genes of its lowland father. My decision process was simple. I recognized the originating sheep , I like blue faced Leicester fibre, the fleece wasn't too expensive at GBP 7:00, and it looked fleece shape as far as I could tell.

 

It came from a sheep who lives at High Stanger near Cockermouth.

Here is a picture of a mule , taken at at Hawkshead show. It is a far nicer looking sheep , in my opinion than a straight Blue faced Leicester. For those of you who are interested.

It's taken me a while to start to clean it, in fact it's taken me until I returned to the North of England as there was no way I could take it on a plane in its raw state.

Here I am lying it out and trying to decided what to do with it

Having thrown away the really horrible bits , I washed it big by bit. It had to be bit by bit as a did not have a big enough pan for more than a small amount at a time. I think it taken me 6 pan loads! and has resulted in me filling the house with a sheepy smell, and in me getting lots of lectures on hygiene in the kitchen.

Drying, I would like to say in the sunshine, but as its pouring with rain I can't so it's in the house.

 

And here is a small amount after hand carding.

I am really pleased to have managed to produce something out of my crazy buy at woolfest. I love the way its turned from greyish to lovely creamy white and I am interested to see how much of the orginal 2.3 kg is now usefull fibre .

 

I am now thinking about what I am going to do with it. I will dye some and felt some . Pretty predictable really,

 

 

 

 

 

 

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