A secret commission - revealed

Many years ago , well at least 10, I bought my mother a bolt of pink silk from Thailand. Just her colours. 

Well it's taken her a while to make anything from it as she was waiting for a really special occasion. That occasion will occur later this year , when my youngest daughter will be the first of her grandchildren , to get married. So long before any of the rest of us, even the bride, had even though about what we might wear she started to design and make an outfit from the pink silk, and she asked me to make her a bag to go with it.

She sent me some of the silk I had given her and some of the deeper coloured silk she had bought for lining. What was she looking for I asked. "I leave that up to the designer" she said. OK there's a challenge. So I played around with samples of back merino and silk fibres and I ordered some Fushsia fibres. I eventually developed a kind of styled flower incorporating the lining silk and the fuschia fibres- see top left below.

What about the handles , always tricky for me when I make a bag . 

Then I had a kind of revelation. What about the bamboo handles that my mother  gave me . Vintage I decided, recycled from a 1950s bag,  although I could not ask as it would give away the plan.  They where not I now know. They were some kind of left over from a store room unwanted and unloved in 1979.  Any way a  starting point for a design.  And in this year of the jubilee,   a queenly, HRH Elizabeth II style. WAS it possible?  

So I made a mock up with fabric and a paper pattern, and I measured and I calculated the shrinkage with my calculator.  So much  planning I can't believe it.

Yes it could work. With great trepidation I started.  The whole extended planning process had made me nervous.  Crazy.   It is not even as though there Is any hurry as the wedding is not until October .
I think it worked. Here is the finished bag. Fit for a queen? 

The reaction of my mother , who is you must realize is the number 1 secret fan of this blog , is  ".... ."

Dying again

Well here I go dying again , and this time I can't be banished to the garden as I need to heat everything up to boiling point. I have a brand new, to me, pan to use bought for euro 2.50 from the local charity shop. 

So collect my BFL fleece, Shetland white snd grey fibre and merino fibre , merino half felt, silks, an alpaca yarn , some yarn of unknown origin or fibre , but wool I think and extra special lace weight Jamiesons shetland yarn .



Trial weight 80 g. Near enough to 100g for an engineer to be perfectly satisfied.

What colours to dye. Well I was very uncertain , especially when I thought how the planed second and maybe third dying would turn out. But in the end I I decided on scarlet ,yellow and green, 

Wet out fibre.

Place it in the pan. 

Bring to the boil, slowly , how slow is slow. 

I have no idea, but I think on my lowest setting it would never boil. 

So I turned it up to middling. 

After boiling turn off and sprinkle the dyes. 

Quite simple really!

All without dying the kitchen .

The first batch

LOVELY

The second batch is more muted

but still interesting.


The third is is all too muted for me and its  time to stop , before I dye any more of my precious fibres mouldy looking pinky grey.

Lot of felting opportunities ahead!.

In pursuit of the perfect straight edge

My felt does not naturally made itself into straight edges. Free flowing might be a better description of my edges.  I need to take control.

It is actually very easy to make straight edges, just cut the felt when dry with a rotary cutter. I think that is so easy it can only be described as cheating and when you have done it there is whole feeling to a piece.  So how can i get a straight edge with our cheating.

I think a lot probably goes back to the original layout of the fibres past the point of the place were the edge is meant to be. These extra fibres should be fine and even and then edges must be turned to give any chance of a straight edge.

It's a really delicate balance.

Too much to turn , gives a thick edge which then tends to pleat up and the corners curl up like wings. Too little gives a nice wobbly lace effect. Care and attention, not my strong point, is needed I think right from the start. Why this not my strong point , is because i get too excited over my design in the middle of the piece and let the edges take care of themselves. 

Another problem I have found is use of prefelts distorting the edges. This is an example of what not to do.

The lower rock , did you recognize it , needs to be moved away from the edge , so the main body of the felt has enough strength to overcome the effect of differential shrinkage. I never thought of this until it happened. Complicated. 

Of course after drying pliers and steam ironing are useful to flatten straighten and disguise the manufacturing defects. As I type this I wonder if this might also be a new use for my redundant hair straighteners now I have let my hair return to its natural up kept state. 

Having thought this all through , I decided I would make a special edge piece. 

To try out calmly to make the best edges I could. 

My plan a piece of bunting , based on a scene from a Cambodian temple. Nothing to complicated you understand just the pattern not the dancing girls. Of course this was a ridiculous plan as I had to make three edges and a point, all needing mathematical accuracy ,and a pattern which had to reach just to the edges but not slip over.  I think a should have planned a single colour square.

Here it is.  A partial success I think. Edges 7/10 , point of triangle 3/10, pattern about 5/10.  

A Grand Day out

This weekend I have paid a visit to Floriade.  A once in 10 years horticultural exhibition. 
No felt in sight apart from a multi-coloured hat on a New Zealand lady. I complimented her on her head-ware , but personally I thought it was a bit too hot a day for a felt hat, but then I am used to the Dutch weather

Situated in the south of holland, Floriade appeared to have got its own new motorway junction, unknown to the navigator, and an extensive efficient park and ride system. 


Inside -  well it was truly huge and in many ways a tribute to the Dutch horticultural legacy, and there was masses to see, flower displays, gardens , willow weaving, a fire breathing dragon, and some amazing video installations.


 I really enjoyed the Huis van de smaak. Cooking for children, aimed at getting them to eat fruit and veg and mushrooms. With lots of free samples to snack or smaak ( taste) on. 


I particularly liked.
The stilt insect girls- how did they stay vertical

This Japanese flower display, using the bamboo roots in such an interesting way




And the urban knitting

Wherever I go I can always find the knitting.





All in all a grand day out.

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.

Transformations

In 1882 John Constable painted some cirrus clouds using oils. The original is in the V&A, Heres a link. 

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82649/oil-painting-study-of-cirrus-clouds

In 2012, only 130 years later,  I attempted to copy this painting using pastels. Not quite my first time using pastels , but I am a real novice.

Then I made a felt picture using merino batts. I have used merino tops many times, but never batts before. They are very fine short fibres randomly mixed,like fluff, rather than lined up neatly as they are in a top. Interesting different, one I need more practice with !!

I then photographed this felt picture and printed this using my ordinary printed onto silk. I never even knew this was possible. 

It is not as clear as it would be as a photograph but recognizably,upside down, I think.

Finally, I felted the silk using some merino tops , yellow , white and blue fibres. I mixed some white and blue fibres together with my carders for the background. The shrinkage of the silk gives a wonderful crimped effect - unfortunately some of the colours have been lost.  

Transformed from oil on canvas,via the V&A website, to pastels on paper, to felt, then via the computer and an inkjet printer to silk and then shrunk into a small silk and felt picture, 130 years after the original was made.  

Bizarrely this small size felted silk is almost the same size as Constables orginal oil!

Found Items

Make a nature chaos collage from found items. What a challenge! 

First I had to determine something that means nature chaos to me. Well there are lots of things, but I decided to use something that I saw whilst walking on a beautifully sunny April 1st. Should it be the rocks, or the ragging streams or the bogs.  No I decided it should be the gnarled and twisted moss covered roots and branches if a very old tree.

Could this be a mistake as there is a lot of chaos !! 

I searched for found texture.
First binder twine picked up in a field, and twigs in various sizes from some spring cleaning in the garden. 

Old, but clean , pan scrubs, and extracted from the recycling some disposable contact lenses packing -  always good to recycle a bit of plastic in my line of business! 

In the midst of my searching I was given a present,  with some squishy packing material,  just the thing I was looking for to make some bark. 

Tooth picks, I thought  would make little twigs as they are quite strong and not likely to disintegrate.

A few ribbons and short cords, cut off some labels. 

So far so good, enough to start gluing?

Here is the work in nearly finished, perhaps I should have waited until I had it all collected, but I quite like the evolutionary aspects of finding something and sticking it on and as currently it looks nothing like the picture,  I have a long way to go!