Betweens, bodkins and .....

The sewing I have been doing recently has been seriously challenging me. Not so much in terms of the sewing but more in terms in what needle I should be using to do it. I used betweens for years without really even thinking about it . Now as I start to sew with embroidery threads of different thickness onto felt and want to sew beads on, my old trusted friends really don't work.

Firstly the eyes are too small for the embroidery threads and then the eyes and thread are too big for the hole in the beads. So I started randomly choosing from the other needles in my eclectic and very disorganized needle collection. In the end I realized had to get a grip as fighting with the threads and needles was taking just too much time.

So first a stock take., throwing anything rusted away first !, Some of them are more like daggers than needles.

Now perhaps I can understand to the problem. I had loads of bodkins , from all the knitting , and I had my betweens. I had two beading needles , that were incredibly fine and pretty useless. I hardly had anything that might be described as a sharp , or embroidery needle. These needles I have also discovered come , not really surprisingly in a large variety of sizes !. So armed with this knowledge I can go and buy some targeted new needles. If anyone has any advice on this subject I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime here a bit of the sewing that lead me to this needle clear out.

Hopefully it will be better sewing and more enjoyable with the right needles

 

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Stitching and beading

Experiment it said in my course instructions. Take a piece of dyed fabric , add threads and stitching and anything else you like ! So I experimented with a piece of shibori dyed pongee and a piece of orange organza (well I think it's organza).

First I beaded

Then I scrunched the pongee and added threads and fibres in orange , browns and greens.

I felted with a fine grey followed by fine orange layer of merino fibres.

I stitched by hand and added a few more beads.

I went crazy stitching on my beautiful new sewing machine. I still have a lot learn about its capabilities but I am very happy with it so far.

And finally I decided to stop.

I am not sure what it is but in my mind it is a very good experiment.

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Felting Fridays

Well 2013 is here, and this has meant a new job for me. One of the really good things about my new job is that I will not work on Fridays. What a luxury to be able to do this. All this week , whilst trying to concentrate on my new job I have been dreaming about Friday 11th January 2013. My first felting Friday.

So what shall I do. Well I am going to start the day with a walk , it is particularly grey and miserable here in the Netherlands at the moment , and working I never see the light of day. So first a walk down to the polder, to get some air and get my creative thoughts flowing.

Then I am going to make a felted bag. Last year a made a prototype. I wanted , two good strong handles , so I incorporated cords. I wanted a spacey bag with some pockets and I wanted it zipped. I also wanted it to have a flat bottom so it would stand up.

 

Here it is hanging up, it does stand but the handles droop.

Mostly I am happy with my prototype, but I want to find an alternative way of attaching the cords securely.

 

 

This is a view inside the bag of how it is done now , which works , but is a bit clumsy. I am not sure how to improve this , maybe take the cords right to the base of the bag and secure under the removal base.

The base works well, using the principle of the large supermarket shopping bags you can buy here and even recycling part of oneq

I am not so happy with the zip. I think I should sew it in by hand to make it more invisibly attached and I also think during the felting process I need to make a more definitive top of the side of the bag by forcing the felt together with some stitches.

Finally I will make two pockets in the new bag.

I have some recycled sari silk that it going to from part of the decoration of the and I think I will make a black bag with purple insides and handles.

What I good day making this is going to be.

 

 

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Framed

Well today I have finished the framing of my felted pictures for the dying of the sun exhibition.

The framing has take me far longer than making the pictures!

First I had to work out how to stretch the felt pictures. That was quite easy really , just sew them to some black cotton fabric and stretch them over a piece of hard board that fits in the frame. The pictures have beads incorporated into them, so they needed to be set back from the glass. This was harder to work out , but after various options I decided to use some black foam board to space them back from the mount board. I liked this as it added a kind of black hole dimension.

Making sure I could hang them securely was he biggest problem. Eventally I decided on clips on the hardboard and then the hardboard screwed to the frame. The hardboard was then covered in cardboard and taped to he frame to stop harvest flys making their homes inside. Then just a wire across the back and it was finished. 

 All in all elapsed time of days!

Here they are The Pelican and Cygnus The Veil, with thanks to Mr Sharpless for the inspiration and Dave for his patience .

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Sharpless

Stewart Sharpless was a surveyor of nebulae. He first published his work in 1953 .

A nebulae is a interstellar cloud of dust , hydrogen , helium and other ionized gases. The starting point and the ending point of stars and planets in the solar system. Really he was an astronomer. His images and those of others which have followed him are truly amazing. They capture the tattered remnants of stars , supernova explosions , solar dust clouds etc. Most of these events have taken place 1000s of years ago , but are so far away , they have taken light years to get here. The images are taken by telescopes such as Hubble.  Here is just one example



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/ESO-The_Omega_Nebula-phot-25a-09-fullres.jpg


The imagines depict the colours of the elements that are emitted during the explosions. Blue oxygen , and green is hydrogen. Red is nitrogen and helium is violet. Perhaps these chemicals names and their associated colours is what attracts me so much to these pictures, or perhaps its because it all happened so long ago.  I also love the names, Omega, Pelican, Trifid, Barnard's Loop, Cygnus and Deneb are just a few.

I discovered all these wonderful images as I researched the theme of the dying of the sun,

I hope to turn some of them into felted pictures.

My plans are in place , and I have enough fibres and beads I hope and the pictures will be made shortly.   The deadline is the 3rd August.

 In the meantime here's a few pictures of test pieces.

And some carded fibre and silks ready for laying out into a picture.

Beading

I have tried a number of ways of incorporating beads into my felting. 

My earliest experiments just using beads on wool and placing them in the felt were pretty unsuccessful as the threads and beads were not firmly enough attached.

I have stitched beads on top of the felt and that works fine , but requires sewing, which isn't my favorite occupation, and also looks like an add on.  

I have tried placing beads under some scrim , this again had the problem of just too much movement , unless they were attached to a piece of half felt first.

My next attempt was to incorporate some beads into a knitted square out of wool that I knew would felt. This worked well, but involved quite a lot of wool and time knitting for the final effect. There was also a large area of knitted texture incorporated into the felt. 

I think I might have finally solved it. Crochet. 

Thread the beads on to some thin wool that will felt. Use a really big crochet hook and just make a chain. This is actually the limit of my crochet skills. I have tried random spacing and also adding a bead to every stitch. 

The chains can then be laid into top of the fibres and with a few fibres laid on top, are easily secured into the piece. The beads , sit sometimes in the felt , invisible , sometimes half buried and sometimes on the surface. 

I really like the effect , it's as though the beads are a integral part of the felt.