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

Dyeing wool with food coloring

 I have some wool. Okay I have 16 ounces of wool, and it is white.  Time for some dyeing! I think I sometimes like dyeing things as much as I like creating things.

I am using McCormick food colorings as my dye.  I soaked my wool in water, then in a water/vinegar mixture. I am dyeing eight pieces of roving that are about 1 ounce each.

I used the microwave method, 2 minutes in the microwave, 5 minutes rest. I did this rotation quite a few times. The color is supposed to get completely absorbed by the wool and that did not happen. I rinsed them a few times and they were still not colorfast.  I ended up putting them in a vinegar water solution and that solved the problem and the water remained clear. I do not think I let the roving soak long enough in the vinegar water during the first soak.

After dyeing these, I was reading online that some of the food colors may not be light fast.  So I plan to do a light fast test on these before putting them in a final project. But they will be fun to play with in my felting class samples. 

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).

Addicted to roving

Before moving to Kearney, NE from Louisville, CO, I had to stock up on wool roving for my felting projects.   Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder, CO has a fantastic selection of roving (corriedale and merino) at very reasonable prices, as well as quite a few white options (My white shown here was $1.05 an ounce).

This was my last stop before hitting the road for Nebraska. I splurged on a hand colored braid, but thought it would make a nice felted Nebraska cornfield. I can order from them and they will ship it to me, which is a great option.  I haven't found a place nearby for roving. You would think there are sheep somewhere in Nebraska, right?

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.

Patchwork tree fabric collage

I have been working on some blue patchwork backgrounds recently.  I have specific ideas for each.  I finished one of them, which is pictured below.

A couple months ago, I was at Sabyl and Susan's studio, and Sabyl was working on a wood cut of some tree trunks and the stark simplicity of it was beautiful to me.

For days afterwards I was looking at the bare winter branches everywhere I went. I was a bit obsessed. When I started working on my patchwork backgrounds, I knew one of them would be of bare branches.  I love the stark contrast of the trunk and branches against the bright blue sky. 

Field trip to Champaign-Urbana, Chicago, and Kearney

Allen and I went to visit Allen's son Arthur and his girlfriend Haley in Champaign-Urbana.  We had a lot of great food while visiting. Haley's dad made some awesome smoked ribs, and we also went to some great restaurants.

One day we went to Chicago.  The sun was shining but it was awfully cold. We swung by the "bean", then headed to The Art Institute of Chicago.

 

They have a great impressionist area.  I am working on a project with waterlilies, so I checked out Monet's.

We also went to the Museum of Science and Industry.

I liked their model of Chicago.

Then we went for pizza at Gino's East, which was super delicious.

A road trip isn't complete without some shopping.  We went to The IDEA Store in Champaign, which is kind of like a thrift store for teachers and artists.  A lot of things are sold by the pound.  I got all this stuff (some kind of orange fabric that has sewn seams, embroidery books, four old sewing patterns, an old zinc Hotel stamp, a small bag of metal bits, some slides)  for $3.70.  I really felt the need to buy more because it was so cheap, but I was good and did not.

I bought these fibers for felting projects. The blend on the left was not cheap, but it will look so great in a project.

 On our way into Kearney, NE, the sun was shining rays through the clouds.

Kearney is the Sandhill crane capital, and we were there during their migration period.  Tons of cranes in the skies and in the fields nearby.   They sleep by the river at night, but we did not go at dusk so see them flock there. There is always next year...

Dyeing a wool felt blanket

I have been reading the blog over at and then we set it on fire and in December they were talking about dyeing wool blankets. Of course, "dye" and "wool" grabbed my attention and I happened to find a cream wool blanket at the thrift store this week for $6. (In truth, I was pretty sure it was wool, but it had no tag so I did a burn test when I got home to make sure.)

I wanted to try to "confetti dye" some pieces, similar to Carol R Eaton's confetti dyed cotton fabric. Of course she was using Procion dyes on cotton, and I am using acid dyes on wool, but I didn't think it would be much different. Acid dyes are a bit more potent than the Procion dyes, so I expected fairly strong colors.

I cut a bunch of 16" x 16" pieces for some projects and also had some long strips. I soaked these in a mix of vinegar and water then wrung them out and put them in a bucket.

I plan on steaming the fabrics in plastic wrap bundles, and since I have nice new ivory counter tops in my kitchen, I set up a burner plate on a table in the backyard. (Yay for mid-50 degree weather in December!)  I needed to color and wrap my fabrics outside anyway, since I was using loose dye powder.

Here are my dyes, gloves, mask, mesh strainer, and plastic wrap.

Here is my burner, steam pot (for crafting use only) and a wool piece on two joined pieces of plastic wrap.

I sprinkled dye powders on the damp wool using the strainer. I found the strainer holes too big and got a lot of blotchy spots. Next time I might add a layer of cheesecloth (or similar) to slow down the dye sifting.

With dye sprinkles.

I put a piece of plastic wrap on top and then rolled it up in the plastic wrap that was underneath the wool. Here it is after steaming. It's pretty dark and I don't love the color combination.

On some of the confetti pieces, the backside was nice, but I find this one a bit boring.

I don't have any more "before" pictures of the other confetti sprinkled pieces. For this one, I did not put plastic wrap on top before rolling, I folded it in thirds, then rolled it, and then wrapped it in plastic wrap.

 

It looks pretty cool but I think it would be better if I used less dye.

 Back side:

This one looks like a 70's shag carpet to me. This one was folded in half, then rolled, then wrapped in plastic wrap.

 Back side:

I planned to steam all my packets at the same time and I was concerned that the confetti dyed pieces might be a disaster so I switched to liquid dyes. (1/2 tsp dye to 4 oz water and about 1 tbsp vinegar, which was probably not needed since the fabric was soaked in water/vinegar mix).

 Squirt, squirt.

Then I folded it and squeezed it to distribute the dye. I opened it to make sure there were no blank spots, then rolled it up with the plastic wrap trapped in the rolled fabric (like making stromboli). 

The results.

 
 This one was red and yellow squirts, which became orange during steaming. When I squeezed it, a bunch of extra dye came out and I mopped it up with the small rectangular piece below.

Leftover orangy-yellow dye from the piece above, plus some added Chartreuse.

These long strips were folded in half longways, then rolled or folded to become a small packet. Each side got squirted with a different color dye.

Here are all my wrapped fabrics ready for steaming. I steamed them about 45 minutes (with the lid on), and let the pot and fabrics cool for an hour afterwards.

I wasn't worried about them felting, so I rinsed them while they were still fairly warm. All of the liquid dye fabrics did not have any excess dye in them (their rinse water was clear). The confetti dyed fabrics had a lot of excess dye and I rinsed them in the sink for a bit.  I threw them all in the wash machine on delicate cycle with some Synthrapol detergent, then dried them in the dryer on low heat.

After steaming

After steam dyeing the packets, I made a pot of black dye and dyed a long narrow piece black.

I am looking forward to playing with these, but it will probably be a month before I have the time. (And I still have about 1/3 of the blanket left for some future project).