Spring Felt

I haven’t made any felt for nearly a year; I don’t quite know why, just too many other distractions I guess. If you would like to look at some amazing felt garments, wonderful colours, shapes and textures I would recommend ‘ Felting Fashion’ by Lizzie Houghton; once again try your local library as I did.

 I wouldn’t dream of trying any of the exotic garments shown, or even the hats, but it is a book which makes one itch to have a go at some basic felt. In the bits and pieces section the author shows some examples of how to make spiky brooches, I sketched some notes about how to add  spikes at a Knitting and Stitching Show once.

 They are quite easy and provide a quick fix if like me you are not up for trying one of the daunting jackets.

 I combined the author’s method with that of Lisa Klakulak's (see links) free machining ideas.


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By the way I am finding using Picassa Albums first and then downloading to Blogger to be a much faster and painless option,rather than downloading from my computer to my blog. Probably 'dear reader' you knew this already!

Felt

I made another piece of felt last week using pieces of sari ribbon and banana fibre for texture and colour. I enjoyed watching the texture develope as I machined.

It was a really busy week as I had a stall at two craft fairs. I always think I will stop doing these but usually say ‘yes’ when asked; I do have a different outlook now which is just to enjoy the day and hopefully chat to a few people who are interested in the techniques I have used, of course, I hope at least to cover the cost of being there. Its also funny how something you have decided must be awful as it has been around for so long, suddenly finds the right person, who likes it enough to want to give it a home.

I also went up to London on Friday evening to a five week course run by Louise Baldwin on ‘Structure with Paper and Fabric’. I think it will be good, but tiring as I’m not good after 10pm and got back about 11.30pm, partly due to a tree down on the line.
We machined different textures of paper and made samples in neutral colours. I’ll post some of them later on.

Impulse Buys

I enjoyed my visit to the Knit and Stitch on Sunday. Its three years since I was there, which I think is a good thing as everything seemed a bit fresher. In The Art of the Stitch Exhibition I saw work by two of the artists I had written about for my Diploma essay, Rosie James and Shizuko Kimura, but whose work I had only previously seen in pictures. As soon as I walked in I started seeing examples of embroidery using maps which is nice as my day service group are right on trend.
The work that I found most inspiring was the experimental work of Dionne Swift, who is currently printing onto felt and experimenting with fabric manipulation in terms of repetition. You can see some of her work on her website and blog.

These are my impulse buys banana fibre and sari ribbon. I watched a good demonstration of felting using the smooth side of bubble wrap to start off the felting process in a gentle way when including fabric pieces. I had to have a go using my new supplies.
I asked a dumb question about why we are advised to use Olive Oil Soap but at least I found out why, having always wondered. You get fewer suds, of course!!

Felt

I have been working on some felt using Lisa Klakulak’s method of free machining to build up texture; obviously this is only in a very amateur way. I have a video of her teaching her method which shows how she has perfected her technique over many years.

It is fun to try but as any work with felt very time consuming.

I first made some prefelt, and then cut out shapes to lay on my base piece of felt.
I then machined round the shapes to raise them from the surface, before working into some of the shapes to produce more pattern and texture.

I made a couple of beaded brooches with some of the prefelt. It was thicker than the previous piece I made so I ended up compacting more of the surface rather than pulling the felt together to give shape. This reminded me of some work on felt I did a long time ago where I added metallic powder mixed with Ormoline Fabric Medium to the shapes, so that’s what I did. A scarf like this would be really nice and tactile; I'll put that on my list. I'm off to the Knit and Stitch Show tomorrow, so no doubt I'll come back with lots of new ideas for my list.

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