Goldfish felt wall art

I have been taking on online surface design felting class with Fiona Duthie. It has been great and well worth the cost.  I did have a few weeks when I was having issues with vertigo and did not complete all the technique samples, but I look forward to finishing them all.

For our last week of class, we are to work on a project of our choice using some of the techniques we learned, so I included techniques from the weeks' lessons that I was able to finish. 

When I first started felting wall art, I learned my technique from Moy Mackey's book, Art in Felt & Stitch. I still used a white base layer per Moy's technique, as I want my wall art piece to hold it's shape over time, and using many layers will accomplish this.

 After the white layers (2), I added corriedale wool in black, white, and blue, to add shading to next layer. But then I got carried away and added so many layers, this probably had no affect.

  More wool (this was a variegated merino I had purchased)

And more wool. I originally put this layer down before the "all over" variegated layer (which is what is pictured here), then I removed this layer, put the all-over layer down, then put these back down on top. I also included some glass gems and small round mirrors in the layers.

I wet these down, then added my goldfish and silk fabric "water".

Here is the felted piece. I need to iron it to help remove some of the wrinkles.

 Detail

Felting experiments, balls, craters, and pebbles

Some more fun felting from Fiona Duthie's surface design class!

Balls and craters:

Pebbles and mirrors:

Tiles:

The balls in the first piece took forever and I don't think I will use them very often just because I am not patient enough for that. I need to iron all these samples as I think they will look even better with a little ironing.

Experiments in wet felting

I am taking a 6 week online felting course with Fiona Duthie.  I am almost caught up for the week 1 samples.

Each time I finished a sample, I thought of a similar, but different, one that I wanted to try.  But I am getting very behind already and we are only in week 2.

Here are my week one experiments.

Silk on merino.

The yellow and blue are silk (noil?) on green merino.  I hate the green and the silk looks pretty sad, so plan on over-dyeing this.

Alpaca on merino. My alpaca has a bit of vegetation in it, which drives me crazy.

The alpaca has an interesting feel to it and a soft halo.

Merino on Jacob.

 Merino on Corriedale

Nuno felting silk fabrics

Pleated silks on merino.

Detail.

I better get working on week 2!

On my work table

Between renovating a bathroom and increasing my hours at work, I haven't blogged in quite a while. I have not finished any art in the last two weeks, but I have quite a few in process so I thought I'd show what I am working on. I will do bigger posts on each when I am done.

This is an fabric piece made from polyester fabrics, lutradur, and gelli printed interfacing.  I plan to do quite a bit of free motion stitching (with cotton thread) and then will zap it with a heat gun. I think it's looking pretty good. I may add some paint after zapping it as I think it needs more contrast.

I am working on collaging gelli prints on this storage box. I just  need to find my Dorland's wax so the edges don't get stuck together when it is closed, otherwise this one is done.

Then I decided to pull out my felting supplies.  I thought they were all in one large plastic storage box. But once I pulled out all the supplies, this is the pile.  And there are still a few things I haven't found (must be stored in the garage somewhere), like my favorite roller and my sprinkle bottle for soapy water.

Here are my felting experiments.  I am working on making some felted cuffs/wrist warmers, but also did some experimenting with nuno felting and resists.  The ones with the balls tied in them are not fulled enough to remove the balls. I plan to cut them open so you can see the interior.

These are the projects I have in progress. I expect things will be busy until Thanksgiving. By then, I hope to have the clawfoot tub moved back in the bathroom, instead of being in the middle of the living room (where it was moved to allow the bathroom floor to be tiled). And hopefully, we will have the new vanity installed by then as well.  December will be another wave of craziness as we have the basement remodeled.  I may have a studio of my own by spring (at this rate).

Wet felting waterlilies

I've been making some ocean/water themed art pieces lately, and decided to do a felted piece with waterlilies.  I think it turned out great. I still need to dry felt some details and do some machine stitching, but I really like how it has a Monet-like feel to it.

Here I have laid out all of the roving and put a piece of tulle over it.  I was worried about the purple and green roving felting correctly. I had bought it as a hand-dyed blend, and noticed it was actually wool superwash and I was concerned it would not felt. (Superwash is a wool than can be machine washed with less concern about felting or shrinkage).   There is white wool roving as a base, and I did add some thin wool over the top as well. It felted just fine.

Here it is after felting but while it was still wet. You can see the white silk pieces aren't very visible here.

Here it is after it dried. I think its lovely. I will add a bit of dry felting and I want to machine stitch to make the lily pads pop.

Close-up. The white dots are the flowers.

Wet felting is a lot of work and takes some patience but the results make me smile.

Aspens felted landscape

I am working on a felted piece of Aspen trees. I did three layers of white wool as my base, then did one layer of blue for the sky, skipping places I knew would be completely covered by yellow. I roughly laid in my yellow leaves with two colors of yellow wool. I then added some orange accents, as well as some nylon fibers, some sequins on gold thread, and some other shiny bits.

I then cut leaves out of my yellow wools, as well as some bamboo and tencel fibers. The tencel takes a while to felt into the wool, but it will eventually.

I then added some brown as shadows on the tree trunks and started adding branches in black.

At this stage I like to take a picture and print it in black and white. This lets me see if the image feels balanced without the color distracting me. 

I then will take a black pencil and draw in additional branches and any changes I want to make and go back to my felt and finalize the design.

Here is it is prior to felting.

After felting:  (It was overcast today and the color looks washed out). It is about 24" x 36".

 Detail:

 Detail. I did machine stitching around the branches and on the shaded side of the trees.

Detail. You can see some of the glittery ribbon and tulle I used as well as the wool.

I am undecided about adding any additional yellow highlights to the leaves or whether I will free-motion stitch some leaf shapes in the yellow part.  Right now I like it as it is.

Wet felting a mountain landscape

I decided to do a wet felted landscape from this picture at Rocky Mountain National Park. I really liked all the yellow aspens and thought it would look great in felt.

First I set up my table. I have clear plastic on top of the wood table to protect it, then a towel to absorb the water during felting. I am using a bamboo matchstick blind as my rolling mat. I then put clear plastic on top to hold some of the water in during felting.

I put two layers of white wool roving, the first one horizontal and the second layer running vertical.  I probably should have put another layer or two, since it is a fairly large piece, but didn't have enough in my stash. Since my landscape is horizontal and I plan on laying my colored roving horizontally, I made sure the last layer of white was vertical to help the layers felt together. Here are my two white layers and I am just starting the sky in the upper left.

I finished the sky and then did the foreground of aspens and evergreens. The dark green texture is from some loopy wool yarn.

I started on the mountains and the middle ground between the mountains and the trees.

I added black details around the mountains to make the scene more graphic. From previous felting, I know it is important to have a lot of contrast or the whole picture tends to look the same value.

It's good to photograph the work and see if it feels balanced.  I felt like the yellow section and green section were too divided so I added some more yellow in the green area, and some green in the yellow area. I also had my husband look at it and he thought my mountains were too small so I made some of them taller.

I put tulle netting over the wool and wet it with hot water and soap that I sprinkled on. I gently started rubbing the wool with my fingers, and after the whole thing was flattened, I rubbed harder and used a plastic roller that I have for this stage.

After probably 15 minutes, I took the tulle off to see if any of the wool had shifted or if I needed to add anything. I thought the sky was a bit too uniform so I added some additional silk and bamboo fibers. I then put the tulle back on and rubbed with my hands a bit more.

Once the fibers were holding together, I took the tulle off and put a piece of clear plastic to cover the top, I rolled the assembly (bamboo mat, clear plastic, wool felt, clear plastic) over a pool noodle and rolled it for 5-10 minutes. I unrolled it, turned the felt/plastic sandwich 90 degrees, re-rolled it, and rolled for another 5-10 minutes. I did this multiple times until the piece had felted and had shrunk quite a bit. I then rinsed all my equipment to get the soap off. I rinsed the felt piece separately in the sink with cool water to remove the soap. Then I filled the sink with hot water, enough to cover the piece, and let the piece sit in the hot water for 10 minutes. (It was folded up to get it to fit in the sink, at this stage it's okay to manhandle it a bit). I then squeeze as much water out of it that I can and go to my work table to roll it some more while it's still hot.  I put a new towel down on my table, then the rinsed (soap-free) bamboo mat and the felt. I don't use any plastic at this stage. I rolled the felt in the mat again, unrolling, turning, and re-rolling until I feel the work was completely felted. I did at one point feel like it needed to be given another hot bath, as this helps with the felting, so I did rinse it in cool water and then in hot, and rolled some more.

The bamboo mat made the felt a bit rippled looking so I pinned it flat to some foam board to dry. I'll post another picture once it is dry as the silk pieces usually lightens up.

Here is a photo of the piece after it dried. The silks really lighten up when they are dry. I will do a little needle felting to add some details and may do some free motion stitching as well.

Fiber Art Exhibit, Poudre River Gallery, Ft. Collins

The Poudre River Gallery in Ft. Collins is having a Fiber Art show April 4th through April 27th.  I have two pieces in the show, shown below. If you are in the area and can make it to the opening reception, it is this Friday the 6th, from 6-9pm and I hope you can stop by! I will be there from 6 to 7.  They were hanging the show when I dropped off my pieces, and it looked amazing.

Mother Earth

Red Trees