More on the Process & Tools of Botanical Dyeing

  This is mostly for a friend, Paula, who's art work I greatly admire and thus enjoy collecting (check out her ETSY shops PaulaArt & Industrial Habitat) and other friends and family who have expressed interest and curiosity regarding the botanical dyeing process I have become fascinated with.  Hopefully those who have been keeping up with my little blog will also enjoy it! 
   In the photos below I will try to convey the process I go through in order to get the images, color and texture of leaves, berries, bark, rusty metal and whatever else I think may give an interesting look to either wool or silk.  So far I have worked with silk and wool; separately or combined in the nuno-felting process.  These are called protein fibers, fibers that came from an animal like sheep and silk worms as apposed to plant fibers like cotton and linen.  Plant fibers require a complex pre-treatment before the fibers will accept the color of the dye material.......but I plan on experimenting with that very soon!

 For the color and image of the plant material to permanently transfer or print on the wool or silk it requires something called a mordant.  A mordant causes a type of chemical reaction that allows this to happen.  A mordant can be alum, iron, copper-to name just a few-and each will give a different effect and color.  For botanical printing my preference has been iron and I use iron based metal pipes, stove handles, splitters & rail spikes, pictured above.  The other rusty bits make awesome marks and designs on the fabrics, and my foot.......... that's just there to give a perspective as to the size of the iron tools I use!  I will go into how I use them in just a bit.

The next important element is the plant matter!  The most striking image has been an old favorite of mine, the eucalyptus leaf.  I have always loved the long, arching shape of the leaf and the unusual berries......never realizing that under the right conditions they produce a brilliant orange to rich brown image.  It's the smaller leaves shown here that have given me a bright orange to rust while the larger ones usually a shade of brown to rusty brown.  My second favorite is the extremely common and abundant yellow onion skins!  I also use and experiment with cloves, safflower petals, turmeric, black walnut hulls, calendula, wild geranium, japanese maple & madrone bark to name a few.  

   After soaking the wool, silk or nuno-felt for an hour or more I then gently squeeze most of the water out and lay the piece out flat on a table and spray it with vinegar.  We've found the vinegar works with the eucalyptus to give that orange/rust color.  ("we" being my good friend and very talented dyer/felter, Carin Engen)  Then I lay out my plant matter.  If I'm using wool or felt I try to lay out the plant matter that will hopefully compliment the finished piece I'm going for.  The wool and felt will produce a definite leaf image where the silk is more, well, air-y?  I will then fold the wool or felt in a manner so it is just wide enough to fit around my iron pipe.  I will then place the pipe at the end of the fabric and very tightly wrap the fabric around the pipe and tie it as tight as possible with string.  The string will leave an image that creates texture on the fabric.  If I am dyeing silk, I randomly scatter the plant material over half of the silk, fold the other half over the plant matter then either fold or scrunch the silk up, occasionally twist it up and then wrap it around the pipe.  Where it touches the pipe it will create a black/rust marking.  I also tightly wrap string around it.  The photo above is silk after it is done steaming...........After the fabric is bundled up the get steamed in an old roasting pan for two hours.  Sometimes I allow the piece to cool and sit overnight before unwrapping.......usually I am so excited to see the results I can only wait until the piece has cooled completely.  Remember that feeling as a kid, waiting for everyone else to wake up before you can run out and open presents?!?  That is exactly the feeling I get every single time when un-bundling one my projects!!!  Below are some of my results............

 This is silk with a bit of safflower, the black is black walnut hulls lightly scattered and the dark pink are whole cochineal pieces. (Cochineal is a dried bug that thrives on a cactus in South America! How someone discovered it would give a dark to bright fuchsia pink...?!?!)  I then accordion folded it and wrapped it around a rail road spike.  I love this piece! 

 

Here on the right is a nuno-felted cowl, wool side out, the top is folded down a bit showing the silk.  I only used eucalyptus leaves and the small berries that were on the branches.  The black outline on the leaves & berries and the grey marks were all caused by the iron stove handle I wrapped it around.  If I had used a copper pipe the rusty leaves would be peach, berries light orange and no black and greys-much more pastel.  I'm not a pastel gal at all..... another reason I love the effect of the iron!  

On the left here is the detail on the sleeve of a cashmere sweater I got at a second hand store for $20!!  Takes the fear factor out of dyeing cashmere for sure!  Notice how on the upper area of the sleeve the eucalyptus leaves are orange and further down the are dark rust with a heavy black out line... this is because it was closer to the pipe.  The bottom of the sleeve is very dark and the rust on the pipe transferred to the sweater...I LOVE this effect!!  In fact, if you look closely you can see the letters from the pipe, actually a cast iron stove handle, have transferred to the wool!  It's important when laying out your leaves and folding the sweater or fabric where you want the vivid black and rust that comes from being next to the pipe.  When dyeing fabric pieces this is easier but when doing a piece of clothing it can be tricky!  We have been learning by experimenting & doing, that is so important when learning anything!  Below is a picture of the whole sweater front, below that is the image on the upper center back of the sweater where I got a great imprint using the larger eucalyptus leaves-you can also really see the string marks.  The last shot is a close up of the very bottom of the front of the sweater, I just love these small little eucalyptus leaves.  Look closely and you can see the horizontal image of an old iron tool of some sort that I put in the center of the sweater while rolling it up.  I used a total of three iron pieces to roll up this sweater.

 This is the first big piece I botanically dyed.  It's a shrug type of jacket, first I nuno-felted a large rectangle then I sewed up the two ends part of the way to form the sleeves and then dyed it.  It fit perfectly.  I had the iron pipes on the end of each sleeve to darken them and I really liked how it looks.  But for me..... the rest of the jacket was too light. 

I made a tea from old eucalyptus leaves and bark.....for the tea I will soak plant matter in a large bucket of  rain water - when it rains in Northern California - for a few days in a location that gets sun most of the day.....allowing it to brew.  Then I will boil it down on the stove to concentrate it, then submerge what ever you want to dye.  Usually I get a lovely brown with a bit of rust.  My plan was to soak the jacket in the tea and darken it up some.  Not much happened submerging it in the room temperature tea so, not wanting to shrink the jacket, I warmed it up then soaked the jacket.  After 20 minutes I had some color but wanted more.  Wait another 20-30 minutes, perfect color and the orange/rust of the leaves still looked great.  I was worried it would dull them.  I couldn't wait for it to dry and see how it looked on, color changes when it's dry.  Well, the color was great.......but, sigh, it had shrunk up to where it is not loose and flowing but tight and constrained looking!!  *#@!#^%  I was so devastated I to take it off and put it out of sight so I wouldn't have that sickening feeling every time I walked in my room.  Of course I cried to Carin right away.  She assured me we could stretch it out by re-wetting it and tugging......nuno felt is really very durable.  I didn't have the guts to do it alone and brought it with me the next time I went to her place in Garberville.  We were so busy with the felting retreat she was having we forgot all about it.  It is still folded up and too small.  Fingers crossed and will stay crossed until the next time I go up.  Anyway, lets move on....  

 These little squares I LOVE SO MUCH!!!  They are about 4" inches square.  I layered the squares of wool fabric with eucalyptus leaves & berries with pieces of old rusty washers and such and sandwiched them between old rusty can lids.  Held the bundles together with clamps and string and steamed them for a couple of hours.  This was a blast to open up to discover these cool images!!

Left and below is a nuno felted top I made a couple of months ago at Carin's felting retreat.  The left is the detail of the back with the string marks.  Below is the front of the dress which looks much blacker toward the bottom than it is, lighting!  I nuno felted the top, the wool side is out and left the bottom just silk.  I used a great textured silk we call seer- sucker, it looks great botanically dyed!  It fits and I'm so happy with it.  I will NOT be darkening it in a tea! 

The pipe was at the bottom.  The top had a dark grey/brown because I actually did put it in a tea after steaming it.  Since the piece was already very hot from steaming and put into a hot tea it didn't shock the wool and shrink it further.  The fact that it was also very tightly would and bound around a pipe prevented shrinkage as well.
I have found for myself at least, it is best to make your garment a bit larger than desired before botanically dyeing it because the steaming and teas will shrink up the wool some, it's a logical effect. 

 A close up of sleeves from a different second hand cashmere sweater I dyed, they turned out so cool!  I especially am thrilled with the bottom of the right sleeve.....the grid mark that was made with the iron handle I used.  It is the handle on the far left in the very first picture of this post.
Some people don't like the vivid marks the iron pipes/pieces make.  Hmmmm?!
To avoid them they will wrap a scrap piece of wool fabric, felt or silk around the pipe before wrapping the garment and steaming it.  And honestly, I think the scrap pieces they use look amazing and I use them in patchwork.

Below are pictures of silk I have botanically dyed.  First is a test piece.  I put different varieties of eucalyptus leave I had collected around town that were unknown to me.  I put the leaves on the wool, right, then put a piece of silk on top of that.  This way I will know how each leaf reacts on both wool and silk.  In a notebook I noted which leaf was where on the wool & silk, where it was collected, the time of year (it definitely makes a difference), how long it was steamed and left to cool. You can see the numbers I wrote later next to each leaf.  I personally feel making test pieces is invaluable and marking and sorting the leaves I dry and save for future use is also.  After taking all the time and hard work to make, say, a nuno-felted top......I certainly want to know if my plant matter will create the desired effect I'm going for!  A big part of the appeal - for me anyway - with botanical dyeing is really never knowing exactly what it will look like when you unwrap it!  But knowing how a particular piece of plant will print is a huge plus.  To unwrap a top and find out everything was a dull beige, boring.

 Below.  A close up of a piece botanically dyed silk using some onion skins, eucalyptus berries, dried safflower petals and dried black walnut hulls twisted and wrapped around an iron pipe and tightly tied. 

 Below.  A close up of another piece of botanically dyed silk.  I used only onion skin and ground black walnut hulls, twisted then tightly wrapped around an iron pipe and tied with string.

Below.  A test piece of white nuno felt, wool side out, of a eucalyptus branch with leaves and berries-the small black specks are the seeds from the berries that came out onto the wool while laying down the branch.  I folded the piece in half to see if I liked what a mirrored image would be.

  The last part of the process after unwrapping your fabric....... Remove the plant matter, noting what created what image.  Shake off all the little bits and hang or lay flat to dry.  It's important to let a botanically dyed or printed piece to cure in the air for at least 4 days and up to a week.  It is exciting to see what was a beige leaf become a dark olive leaf after being exposed to oxygen for a day or so, light orange becomes a dark rust.  Personally I like to heat set each piece with an iron after it's been cured, just to be on the safe side.  After curing-go two weeks at most, it's important to soak the dyed fabric in a tub of room temp. water and two teaspoons of baking soda for at least an hour.  This neutralizes the effects of the iron and rust.  If you skip this process you risk the fabric deteriorating.  After the soda fix, rinse the piece in water until no more color comes out, then I like to wash it using a wool wash (NOT woolite!!) , Eucalan is my favorite because it doesn't need rinsing and smells great! There is a certain smell that comes from this whole process, not all that pleasant, thus another good reason to wash it.  Roll it in a towel, blot, and block the piece flat or hang to dry.  

  It is a lengthy process but so worth it!!  I love it because you get a unique, one of a kind look using materials found in nature.......so very many possibilities are out there.  I touched on a small fraction of what's possible.  And there are also many different ways to get a botanical image!!!  I'm just learning.  I learned a lot by reading; lots of different natural dyeing books, books that tell you what plants produce what color, and there is an abundant number of blogs on the subject , but mostly I learned by experimenting!  And having a friend to experiment and share results with has been invaluable.  Carin also has a blog that talks about botanical dyeing, it's called Artfully Felt and is on Blogger too.  She teaches botanical dyeing occasionally and we both teach together during retreats, check her blog for dates & locations.  I am also available to teach in the Northern California area, just contact me through the blog here.

  Paula, Laura, Lauren & Sara, Mum, Katie and all my other curious friends.....I hope you now have a better understanding of what goes into botanical dyeing and/or printing!   Let me know if you want to give it a try.........  I think this is coming in a close second to felting......luckily they compliment each other perfectly!  And I truly appreciate the encouragement and interest you all have shared with me, thank you.

  Love to all!   
    Terry
      

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This is one fuzzy bag !

 I suppose I could only write posts where I show my best work and have lovely photos of it, then you might believe I am such an amazing craftswoman.  Well, lets be honest, not every piece I or anyone else makes turns out perfect all the time.  There is a reason some sayings have been around a long time, like "we learn from our mistakes", "practice makes perfect"..... Both apply here so lets go with it.  Here is what happened and what you can do to make it better.

I wanted to try out a new shape for a purse that's been dancing around my head for a bit.  I will use Corriedale wool for the bag, it is a more durable choice for purses and boots or clogs - it felts up strong and sturdy and it doesn't tend to pill up on the surface like Merino can. I am in love with a new color way my dear friend has created: PANSY by Carin Engen Fiber Arts.  Well, I only had one ounce of it.  I had loads in a natural grey. But I really wanted it Pansy......once my mind is set on something.  So I decided I would use the grey on all the inner layers and for the last outer layer I would use the Pansy........I knew that some of the grey would work their way to the surface during the felting and fulling process, thus lightening the colors of the Pansy outer layer.  Ok, it was a test bag.......it would be cool if it turned out to be something I could use or sell in the end...not.  The giant top photo is the back side of the finished bag taken in the sunlight to show ALL the grey fuzzies

that came through the top layer.  The next one down was taken out of the sun, still fuzzy but not as dramatic in the photo but it still looked horrible in real life.

What to do, what to do?!?  I am going to point out here just one of the many benefits of taking felting classes......you learn great little techniques to make your felt look more polished-well finished.  If you can, take a felting class!!

 Well, when we get kind of fuzzy and unruly in the areas we don't want excess hair, what do we do........get out the razor!  Think about it, felt is wool which is essentially hair.  Now this is important!  Go buy a cheep-o single edge razor with NO moisture strip on it.  Double/triple edged razors just increase your risk of gouging your felt, and the moisture strip........that's for your skin.......it just gunks up the felt.  The picture above here on the left shows the flap of the bag, the right side and the center have been shaved, the left has not.  Before shaving you honestly could not distinguish the center horizontal yarns or the yarns creating the center band! 

A small chunk of wool taken off by pressing to hard

         HOW TO SHAVE YOUR FELT

- your felt should have been rinsed clean then rolled in a towel and most of the moisture blotted out.
- put one hand under the area you are going to shave for support or you can lay it on a hard surface, I prefer my hand because I can tell the amount of pressure I'm using.
- use a short, repetitive motion, don't press down hard, a bit lighter than you would press down on your own skin.  start out in an area that's a bit more out of the way, better yet practice on the inside or back of the piece.  Once you're confident and have a feel of the needed pressure begin on the main area.
- go either horizontal or vertical and stick with that direction and do your shaving in blocks.  It is alright to gently go over yarns or silk fibers-fibers, not silk fabric,  as long as they have felted into the wool correctly.  If they aren't fused to the wool well shaving may just pull them off.
- pull the fuzzies off as you go.  You should only need to go over an area once.
-  here on the right is most of the fuzz I got off this bag and the razor I used, just a cheep bic razor with just one blade, no more!
- take your time, don't try to rush it.  The picture above on the right shows an area where I over shaved, spent too much time in an area.  If there had been multiple layers of the Pansy it wouldn't have been so noticeable.  If it's really obvious you could go in and with a thin felting needle and some wool of the same color, fill the hole by gently needle felting it in.  I would then wet around it and with a dab of soap gently wet felt that area so you can't tell it was needle felted.

A few side notes about shaving your felt:
*any piece of felt can be shaved to give it a neater, cleaner look
*all types of pure wool felt will handle a shave, this doesn't include locks
*NOT so with blends of wool and silk or bamboo or tencell or hemp.  If you feel it truly
   needs it, experiment on a practice piece or where it won't be seen or matter it if
   makes a gouge or even a hole.
*silk fabric that has been nuno felted into your work should never be shaved! ! !
   a razor and silk should not come in contact, it's never good-yep-I made that mistake

Below are the before (on top) and after (on bottom) photos.  Honestly, the camera didn't do justice to the dramatic difference.  I made the photos as large as I could so you can see the change, hopefully.  After shaving the richness of the colors came through and the bag had, well-a much smoother surface, much more appealing.
I will end up just using this bag as a practice surface to do free motion embroidery on but it was a good lesson in patience or lack there of!  Next time I hope I will have more patience before I go through all the time and effort it takes to make a good piece of felt.  It ended up being a well felted & fulled bag, I like the shape, inner pocket placement, on my next bag of the same shape I will change the flap design.....so I did learn a few things and hopefully my flop taught you a thing or two.  It is rare that I don't learn something new with each piece I felt, good or bad......and sometimes ugly. 

 __________________________________________________________________________________

I mentioned that I used a hand dyed wool called Pansy in Corriedale created by Carin Engen.  I want to give her a bit of a plug here........her hand dyed wool really is beautiful and very well crafted.  I have been using it for years in my work and always love the results.......unless I mess it up with grey wool that is!
She has a shop site on Etsy called CarinEngenFiberArts where you can purchase her hand dyed wool.  She sells nuno scarf kits and also, she found an artisan to make the most amazing felting tool, it's called a felting stone and it works wonderfully!  I use mine constantly, I even wrote a post about it earlier on.  Carin teaches throughout the country, mostly in California though, and you can check her blog site, listed on her Etsy shop to find out where she is teaching next.

Felt Knitting Project Vessels

 I've made these for myself for awhile now to hold my knitting projects in.  I always have a few projects going at once and it's a great way to keep my projects separate and neat.  No balls of yarn on the floor or mixed up in a bigger basket.  When I want to take a project with me I just put it in my purse and everything stays in it's place, and it's made of my favorite textile, felt!  I brought a project that was stored in one of these to a yarn shop because I was stuck, one of the gals in the shop asked me if I sell them on my Etsy site.....I said no, but what a great idea!  There are tons of project bags for knitting on Etsy but none are made of felt, so I thought I would add these to my shop.  The two bags above are the ones I just made for my shop.  We'll see if the Etsy knitters approve!

The photo here on the left and below is the larger black bag in the making.  I used Malabrigo's Rasta yarn for the stripes on the outside.  I LOVE that stuff, it just melts so easily into the felt.   I've used it on merino, merino, silk 50/50 blends and on corriedale.  I buy it online from a great yarn shop in San Francisco called Imagiknit, they always seem to have it in stock. 

First I laid down four layers of the dark pink part of the way down the template, wrapped it in plastic and then did four layers of the black.  The template was 14" tall and 13" wide, the finished piece was 8 1/2" tall and 7" across; that's a good amount of shrinkage.  

I use this size for larger knitting projects, in the top picture there are two skeins of yarn and the back of a sweater inside.                               

This photo on the left is the small bag that I usually use for sock projects.  It's hard to tell here because it's wet but the outside layer is dark purple merino, the top layer is chartreuse merino and around it is some beautiful homespun art yarn.  I used an old washing soap bottle to help form the bottom of this one.  It was made the same as the big one. To stabilize these while they are drying I put the bottle in the small one and stuffed the big one with bubble wrap.  This helps the vessel keep it's shape during drying and once dry it will keep that form.  The small vessel in the top picture has a 440 yard ball of yarn inside and a partially completed sock.

  

Both of these have inner pockets to hold your knitting needles and there is another pocket in the larger one to hold a measuring tape, scissors, or whatever you need.  They were so fun to make I think I'll do a few more!  I love coming up with new ways to mix colors & decorate them.  I want to do some machine free motion stitching on them too but those will probably be for me, it's so time consuming I don't think I could get a reasonable price for them.  You can find them on my Etsy shop called ifeltlikeitbyterry.

Thanks for stopping by!    Terry

Summer Felting Class

  This summer I treated myself to a week long class taught by Lisa Klakulak at the Mendocino Art Center: Compositions In the Felt Medium.  This was my fifth class with her, and as in years past, it was amazing, I always learn so much from her!  Lisa is the artist behind Strongfelt, a body of art work that is truly original and of the highest quality, honestly the best felt I have yet to see.   If you aren't familiar with her work google Strongfelt to see what I'm going on about-it's so fun!  Lisa teaches classes around the world, mostly in the US, if you really want to educate yourself on how to make quality felt check out her teaching schedule.  I am not going to elaborate on how we developed the images or her technique, that's part of her livelihood!  I just want to share what I did......I was so jazzed by the results!
  She taught us how to create a very distinct image with defined lines.  Our first exercise was to draw a California poppy then to re-draw it in a way that we could recreate using felt.  Above right was my interpretation of the poppy I had and how I translated that to felt.  Below left is what it looked like after felting it. 



On the lower right is the poppy after I felted it to a background with some netting fused on it.

   One thing you will notice about Lisa's work is the intricate detail she gets using free motion embroidery with a machine.  We learned how to embellish our work and really make it pop using the machine.  Below is my poppy, felted, then the detail is the stitching using free motion embroidery.  I had so much fun doing this, it's mesmerizing once you get going!

After doing the poppy we were able to choose anything we wanted and try to translate it into felt.  I had a blue glass mason jar with me that was holding my granola, you can kind of see it on the left in the upper corner....out with the granola and I began sketching.  I wanted to try to capture the light reflecting off of it and some of the more subtle shaded details.  The photo on the left is my lay out before felting. 








 Here on the right I'm starting to stitch.  You can kind of see the different shades I was going for. 
Below is my finished blue glass mason jar.  I am so happy with it!  I just can't get over how much the stitching adds to the finished piece.....I feel a new obsession coming on......

New Leather & Felt Boots

 What else would a felter be doing at 1am....listening to Jackson Browne in front of the fire while sitting on the floor with cold, wet felt wrapped around their feet making another pair of boots.  While it definitely isn't warm and cozy now it will be once these babies are dry and ready to wear.  A few blogs back I did a bit about a pair of boots I made and then dyed.  I didn't think I would need another pair of felt boots for some time....then I saw these soles on Etsy!  Had to have them and had to make a pair of boots to go in them.  (yes, I have a slight shoe issue-the funkier the better!) They come from an Etsy shop called "linhood" and are made by Eric Gonzalez.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/linhood?ref=top_trail

Usually he sells them with the felted boots but he was kind enough to sell me the soles separately.  I was so jazzed the day the arrived!

I decided to make the boots for my new soles out of a wool I just discovered called CVM, it says it's from a breed called Romeldale which is a cross between Romney and Rambouillet and it is the natural brown; it was so soft when it felted up!  I got this wool from another great Etsy site, Woolgatherings.  They carry an incredible selection of natural and hand dyed wools, this is where I get my white superfine & natural merinos from as well as other goodies.  Check them out.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/woolgatherings

 I made a bag out of the CVM to test it out and it felted and fulled up great......but not these boots!  It's taken me almost 2 hours of just rolling in the bubble wrap to get them mostly felted and then I did some hand rubbing.  Another few hours to full them, then onto the floor to get them fitted to my foot.  It's possible that I laid the wool out thicker since they were for boots...?  I have this great tool, we just call it a felting & fulling tool, that I used to get the boots to fit my feet and it made such easy work of it.  It has these ridges up and down it and since they have the glaze on them it won't rip up your felt like a washboard can.  I did a blog piece on this tool a few posts back, you can get one from my friend Carin Engen, you guessed it-another cool Etsy shop- CarinEngenFiberArts, she carries the felting tools as well as some of my favorite hand dyed wools and silk;

http://www.etsy.com/listing/86147074/felting-and-fulling-tool

The foot of the template measures 16" across and the finished boot is 9", that's a lot of shrinkage!   Now the boots are drying, I can't wait to see how they look in their new leather soles......

Here are my finished felted boots with their leather soles.  I've been wearing them around here for a couple of days now and they are incredibly comfy!  The wool is soft but hasn't begun to stretch at all, I think they'll be pretty durable. I realize they aren't to everyone's liking (my sister's not a huge fan....) but I love 'em!

Not A Bad Mornings Work

I have been putting off doing the finishing work on more that a few items.  This morning I wouldn't let myself felt until I got most of this done.  My finished projects are whats pictured here. 


I had made this felt collar three months ago, all it needed was a button and a button hole.  I decided to use this black vintage button, and it only took ten minutes!  I am such the procrastinator!

I made a few of these white merino cuffs with Wensleydale locks on the edges, I think they look so pretty, like natures lace.  This one on the right has some pearl buttons and is for my lovely daughter-in-law, Alex.  I made two more that I may put on the Etsy site or I may give them to my Aunt to wear to the Renaissance Fair.
















This is a purple cuff that I had nuno felted some silk onto then put it in a dye bath of Brazilwood.  I left it in a little to long and the silk totally disappeared and turned purple.  So, I've tried to salvage it and did some free motion embroidery on it.  Still not sure if it's up to selling standard.  I do like the design though. 

Below is just a pic of some of my favorite embellishment treasures.  I am an avid collector of buttons and tend to like shell and bone ones the best.  If any one knows what the name or the use is for the white pearl circles on the bottom with the two tiny holes at the very top, I would love to find out!

Felted Glass? Absolutely

  This is my latest fascination with felt...there are so many varied ways to use this amazing wool fiber!  I've been playing around with encasing glass with merino wool and felting it so it's nice and tight around the glass.  Then I cut out shapes on both sides of the glass so that the light can shine through.  A friend of mine said it's kind of like stained glass only you use felt instead of lead....that got my head going!  I have ideas now for designs that are similar to stained glass... soon.  It is a bit tricky, I'll have to say.  There were some failures in the beginning, but that's how you learn, right!  If I cut too much felt away, I ended up with edges that are saggy and want to pull away from the glass allowing the glass to pop right out. I also have to factor in the weight of the glass, like the red one on the right.  It is rather thick glass, about 1/4" inch, so the design is also helping the glass stay put.  I had to also pay a lot of attention to

cutting out the design, it had to be the same on both sides.  I finally figured out that holding it up to the light enabled me to cut more precisely on both sides.
   I love the purple one at the top!  They are large pieces of beach glass so the color is muted, it looks wonderful when the light comes shining through it.  I used a short fiber merino batt and some silk for this one.  The purple and yellow one here on the left is the bottom of a bottle that a friend in Florida found on the beach, she sent me some round ones too, they're next!  She has an Etsy shop called "made for fun" and sells beach glass and loads of other goodies in her shop.  The edges are all bumpy and soft from being ground down by the surf, I really wanted to see those so I cut away the felt to expose them.  Actually, all the glass I use is beach glass mostly found here in Northern California, except for the red one, that came from an old piece of stained glass that had an accident.  Below is a picture of where I hang all my little creations, it's the door to my cabin where I do all of my felting.  Around two o'clock the sun comes shining through and lights them all up,

beautiful.  I really am so lucky to have such a magical place among the redwoods to do this work that I love so much!  I got a card last week that sums it up perfectly:

Do what you
LOVE
what you do          

And i do!        
This is the perfect time to mention that all of this is possible because of my husband, Jack, who supports me completely in my fascination with felting.  He is my most honest critic, he too is constantly amazed at what can be made with felt.  It is so important to have the support of your family and friends in any endeavor one takes on in life, and I have such a great network of both, thank you all.  Sometimes I marvel at my good fortune!
  When I finish my big "stained glass"  piece, it still needs more mulling over in the brain, I'll post it up here.  If there are any wet felters out there that want to experiment with this and want more info on how to do it and what materials to use just drop me a note and I'll be glad to lay out the steps for you.  You don't need to use beach glass, any glass will do.  If you want to use beach glass though, Etsy is a good source, I've seen some good collections on there.  All of these are wet felted by the way, that's mostly what I do.
  Thanks for stopping by!     Terry