The Toys Have Arrived

Do you remember me saying I'd sent for a piece of equipment for feltmaking that I thought would be useful for mark making and printing too?  Well, it's arrived.  I'm really excited by both the sprayer and the rolling pin as I think I will be able to get some interesting effects from them.  The sprayer comes to pieces so I should be able to wash it out well enough if I use it for dyes, which is what I have in mind..  If it works I shall buy 2 or 3 more so that I have one for reds, one for blues etc.  The olive oil soap will be grated and dissolved in warm water to soap the wool fibres for felting.  It leaves your hands feeling lovely and soft as well as giving a lovely lather with the felt.

Unfortunately, I haven't had chance to have a play with anything  yet as I've now got a strain at the base of my spine and I can't do much of anything.  What am I like?!  I've been struggling since Monday evening and I finally gave in today and went to an Osteopath who has suggested some treatment and helped me by easing the troublesome muscles.  The pain has subsided this evening but I'm not supposed to do much except potter about for the next few days and not do anything repetitive, so felt making is definitely out and I suppose printing is too :o(  Maybe I could just manage a little dyeing? lol

You've probably noticed that I've not been blogging since last week.  The main reason is I've got involved in tracing my family history on the internet.  How addictive is that?  I've spent way too long on the laptop but it's been very interesting so far.  Too early to say if there's any skeletons in the cupboard ;o) (Probably hasn't helped my back though).

Hopefully my back will continue to improve over the weekend and I can get back to my projects.  I'm getting behind on the Journal Quilts already and as for Festival of Quilts.......yikes!

The winners! and Felt

Thank you everyone for joining in with my blogversary draw and for all your lovely comments over the last week. Like everyone, I do like to get comments and feedback on my posts and you are all very generous and supportive. What else should we expect from such creative people? :o) Thank you!

Right, onto the draw! I have used this Random Number Generator to pick the numbers but, unfortunately I don’t know how to capture the screen so I hope you will trust me with the result. The winners are: (drumroll please!) :

1 Elizabeth

2 Kayla Coo

3 Linda

Elizabeth will receive the Journal Quilt, Kayla Coo will receive the cards and Linda will receive the heart so ladies, please email me with your snail mail addresses and I will get the giveaways in the post after the weekend. I’m just sorry that everyone couldn’t have won. Thank you all for taking the time to leave a comment and join in.

Yesterday I did manage to go to the felt workshop and had a really lovely day, although it was very hard work. The workshop was led by Alison Taylor who was a most generous teacher both with her knowledge and the materials she supplied us with. Unfortunately Alison doesn’t have a website yet although I believe she is thinking about starting one. There were 9 ladies taking part altogether and I have to thank them all for being such a welcoming group as I had not met any of them previously.

We were so busy that I didn’t have time for any photographs while we worked. The felt-making was energetic and at one point several of us lost the will to live (!) but eventually with some help from Alison we were all delighted with our results.

First of all we made a piece of flat felt. I know, I know! I’ve gone for my traditional favourite colours! Alison said we could make these pieces into an evening purse so I chose colours that I hoped would match a dress I have. I didn’t really intend it to be quite as solid in terms of colour but when you are working quickly some thoughts are not easy to hold onto and the design changes.

This green side will be the inside of the purse and, once it’s dry I will square up the sides and make a 3-fold and stitch it together. I’m thinking of using any wavy edges I cut from the sides to decorate the flap closure and then I’ll add some stitch and beads in a similar way to the bag Alison showed us. It doesn’t show too well in the photo but I am pleased that some of the green has migrated through in glimpses to what will be the outside of the bag.

After a lovely lunch supplied by the ladies who organised the day (weren’t we spoilt?), Alison showed us how to make a bag,

The bag was made over/around a plastic template and involved more elbow grease but it did seem to felt quicker than the flat felt in the morning. Of course, the thicker the wool layers to start with, the longer it takes to felt. The bag is still drying and needs a handle but it may yet end up as a decorative pot, I can’t decide. The bag is about 10” x 9” and the flat felt is 15” x 10”.

An added bonus yesterday was discovering some toys to play with! Alison had 2 pieces of equipment that I could see a use for in other areas of textile work. One was a feltmakers bulb spray which gives a wonderful spray of liquid and I could see this giving some interesting effects with dye and the other is a knobbly/slatted rolling pin which I think would produce interesting marks in printing. Very naughtily I have ordered these 2 toys from Wingham Wools and I can’t wait to play some more! If the Spray Bulb works with dye I shall order more and keep one for each colour or group of colours. I don’t know whether the bulb can be taken apart to clean thoroughly. Watch this space! Again! Lol.

I was surprised and pleased at how I coped yesterday, partially due to stubbornness I think, but today I am feeling the strain. Don’t feel sorry for me though, all self inflicted and I thoroughly enjoyed the day!

Felt making

I told you this was a busy few days didn't I? I've had a really lovely day today and it's cheered me up no end. A friend of mine invited me along to a felt making day which had been arranged locally. The tutor was Jane Marrows who is based in Sneinton Nottingham and is a member of Sneinton Artists .
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The workshop was held at the Scout Hall in Bottesford village and we had a leisurely start with a cuppa. Jane then took us through a short demonstration of how to make a fairly soft felt. I had been worried that the procedure might involve hours of rolling and pummelling but far from it.
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We laid out 3 layers of our base wool (white to begin with), each layer at right angles to the previous one and the fibres overlapping each other by roughly a third so that there are no gaps.

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The fibres were then covered with a layer of net (nylon fabric), wet with hot soapy water and rubbed over with the back of the hand (in my case). It didn't take very long at all for the fibres to start felting and after about 10 minutes of rubbing and manipulating we were able to rinse the felt and set it on a windowsill to dry.

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As you can see we set up the base layers and then made a bit of a design with coloured wools and other fibres including angelina.

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For my second piece I layered coloured wool fibres and then used snippets of silk, yarn, angelina and silk mawatta cap.

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This piece felted up even quicker than the first piece! You can manipulate it further to firm the felt up but I quite like this soft finish.

Felting 2

As you can see we had a lovely bright, large hall to work in and there were just enough ladies to make it a friendly sociable morning. I think there were about 16 of us altogether. This was not a club but a group of ladies, friends of friends, who got together to put on their own workshop with an invited tutor.

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My friend, who had invited me, used beautiful Autumnal colours for her piece. It is amazing that this mound of fibres compacted down so far.

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The net was pulled back to check on the progress of the felting.

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After the felt had been rubbed under the net we rolled the felt up and squeezed it and rolled it to encourage the felting to complete.

Felting 3

The workshop lasted for two hours and it was the quickest two hours I have known. At the end of the two hours we cleared up and then enjoyed an excellent lunch provided by the organiser and her friends. Very civilised and a lovely change from rushing off at the end of a session without time to chat!

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As you can see there were some beautiful and colourful pieces of felt produced You should be able to see my friend's lovely Autumnal felt. I love the heart shape too. Jane was an excellent tutor and went round encouraging and advising everyone. She had brought examples of her work with her and a very tempting array of wool fibres, silk fibres, buttons, sequins, inspiration packs and mini felts. Yes, I was tempted. No, I'm not posting my sins this time lol

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Above and below are my pieces, not quite dry and photographed in very bright sunlight this afternoon. I was trying to think of the sea when I laid out the left hand side of the piece above. The right hand side was just a play.

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I will have to photograph the piece above again as it is drying out with the background looking much darker and the red silk showing up more.

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I treated myself to one of Jane's mini-felts as it reminded me of a stone wall, even though the colours are not "wall-like". It's about 4 inches square and I'm sure will inspire me to work some more at this magical felting.

Beautiful Blue!

Blogging brings you some lovely friends, not the least of which is Gina . After I blogged about felt making the other week Gina said she would search out some instructions for an easy method of felt making. Not only did she send me the instructions but she also sent me some beautifully soft wool and a piece of felt which she had made herself. The blue felt has woollen yarns trapped in the layers and is the most gorgeous colour. Thank you, Gina! It may take me a week or three but I will be having a play with these beautiful fibres - you must know that I have a weakness for blue.

Play day

I don't know what I had in my head to do today but I don't think I did it! Instead I have been catching up with the TAST stitches from StitchinFingers (3 weeks behind as we speak) and playing with some of the fibres in Helen's stash bag. Gina is going to sendme some instructions for making the very fine cobweb felt but in the meantime I have been having a go with the J-cloth method that I learned at Westgate Crafts.

The sun was a bit fickle today so my picture doesn't do it justice as the white piece is quite sparkly. The white is some wool that I had already but I used some of Helen's threads in it and the brown is some gorgeous wool from the stash bag. I think I will have to practise a lot more to get Helen's beautiful results.

Goodies!

Helen has been de-stashing via Etsy and look how I have benefitted!

My photo doesn't do these beautiful felts justice. If you check out Helen's blog you will see just how wispy and delicate these cobweb felts are.

And just look at all these beautiful beads, buttons and embellishments. I am really going to enjoy working with all these fibres and beads. Thank you Helen, I'm delighted!

Of presents and dwagons

I had to nip on here quickly (I'm supposed to be practising FME today) to show you what the postman brought me this afternoon.

My friend Dilly St George sent me a parcel and as she is a princessy croco-dwagon she decorated it with princessy stickers! I knew Dilly was sending me a present because she blogged about it here but I didn't go and look because I wanted a surprise.

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When I opened the envelope this is what I found,

A lovely sparkly box and a very pretty, sparkly pink card - well it has to be pink from a princess, doesn't it? The box is decorated with skeleton leaves and glitter but it was hard to get a good picture in the bright sunshine today.

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Inside the box, wrapped in a tissue which I think maybe Bob T Bear had isshooed was this lovely soft, pink, pwincessy brooch,

It is absolutely lovely, Dilly, thank you very much and thank you too to Mummy for helping you make it. If you'd like to see how Dilly made the brooch please do have a look here. Dilly's mummy had a great idea to get the shape!

Inside the card Dilly had written me a special note. I'm glad to be your friend, Dilly, you are a very special 'wagon :o). Oh, and, I love your self portrait Dilly, it's great!!

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On the subject of dwagons, we did see one or two on our travels thro Austria.

These chaps were waiting to be adopted and taken to their new homes (some of them were only babies and were having a little nap!).

If you look very carefully at this photo of a beautiful Austrian house you can see one of Dilly's friends peeking in at the bottom.

I think this beautiful rusty sculpture is just pretending to be a dwagon. (Oh, It's got a bit stretched, oops!)

And, unfortunately, these dwagons are being a bit rude as they are spitting water everywhere in a fountain in Innsbruck!

Oops! This is a better pic, the previous one was blurred. Well I was in a moving carriage at the time!

Well, I had better get back to my sewing. See you all later and thank you again, Dilly for my lovely present. I am going to wear it when I go to the Festival of Quilts next month.

Tuesday Workshop

I have never made felt other than the needle-felted variety and have always felt (no pun intended)that the traditional method of felt making involved a tremendous amount of effort. Today at my weekly workshop I was introduced to a new way of making felt. Unfortunately I didn't take photos at every step but I do have some to show you.

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The first step is to take small amounts of wool tops and comb them/card them on metal brushes. Instead of using actual carders we used metal pet grooming brushes, the ones with softish tines.

Photo from here

The teacher had bought her brushes from Wilkinsons. You lay a small amount of fibres across one brush and then brush it, one brush against the other, until the fibres are smooth. We laid them down on one half of a piece of J cloth, facing the same way and then laid more fibres at right angles and laid a third layer against the run of the first layer and at right angles to the middle layer. Clear as mud? When I have a go at home I'll take photos at each step to clarify the process. If you wish you can include snippets of threads or other fibres between the layers.

I think you can sort of see the arrangement above.

The next step is to make a parcel by folding over the other half of the J cloth, turning in the edges and stitching down and stitching a grid of squares to hold the fibres in place. Ideally the next step is to place the parcel into a pan of boiling water and boil for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we didn't have access to a stove but we did put the parcels into a bowl of boiling water and agitated and turned with tongs. After about 6 or 7 minutes the water was tipped away and cold water poured over.

Once the cloth had been cut away, voila! A piece of felt! I was absolutley amazed that this had worked even without proper boiling.

This is the reverse side of my piece of felt. The finished size is about 4" square. Obviously this method limits the size of the piece of felt produced but it would be possible to sew pieces together or to make pieces to use in a small project. I am really keen to make some more felt and also to make some in cream coloured wool tops which I can paint myself.