Botanical Printing & Dyeing

Lately I have not been making as much with felt as I would like.  There are so many ideas for projects I want to create with felt!  Most have made it into a notebook but it's great to be able to begin work while the idea is fresh and the creative energy is flowing!  What can I say, life puts up road blocks occasionally.  All is good now so I hope you will be seeing more innovative & unique ideas appearing here very soon.
It's impossible to not create for some, I'm fortunate enough to be one.  My friend, Carin Engen, and I began experimenting with botanical printing and dyeing a few years ago and WHOA! is this ever fun!!  It really would take me pages to describe the processes, yes-there are many variables, so I'm going to briefly describe what I have done in the photos to follow so you get a taste of what's happening.  One thing that is a "definite" about this process.....there is never a definite!  The variables are so vast.  For example: I collect two dry eucalyptus leaves from the same tree in the spring and print one of them on wool at my house.  I get a black outline of the leaf and the color is a rich, nutty brown.  I print the other leaf the next week at Carin's on wool and I get a bright orange leaf with no outline.  Could be the ph of the water, the pipe used to wrap it around.......You get the idea.  However, I have yet to get a bad result! 

Some call it eco-printing or eco-dyeing, the phrases where coined by India Flint.  Carin and I prefer to use "botanical" as we don't follow any one technique, we experiment and enjoy our results. If you want to read up on the technique there is a wealth of information on the web as well as classes beginning to be offered now.  

 Images created on silk or wool using one or more of eucalyptus, onion skins, black walnut, cochineal, rusty washers to name a few.

Pieces of silk & wool wrapped around iron pipe with plant material folded with in the fabrics then tightly tied with string.  They are steamed for close to 2 hours, turning at regular intervals.    


Here on the right is a nuno felted shrug that I made then botanically printed with eucalyptus leaves and berries.

 I love this piece of silk, to me it looks like a cut slab of exotic marble!  I used this to make a piece that is between a cowl and wrap, it looked great.  Above.

 This is one of my favorite pieces that I've made.  It's nuno felted with a large piece of silk I dyed using primarily onion skins & black walnut hulls.  Right after this picture was taken I received the buttons a friend & talented artist, Victoria Cochran, made for the vest and they look amazing-I wish I had a good photo with the buttons on!  Whenever I wear this I get so many compliments!  One woman even offered to buy it for, well hundreds.  That made my day......but there is no way I could sell it.

I have been doing a decent amount of experimenting with this new art form and hope to show more results soon!  Since I can combine it with my felting it is the perfect compliment with nuno felt, I don't feel like I'm taking time away from my preferred creative medium.

   

I'm Teaching At This Year's Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival!

This is exciting news for me........I have been accepted to teach at The Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival 2015.  It takes place September 25, 26 & 27 in Canby Oregon.  I will be teaching my class all day on Saturday the 26th.  The official class title is "A Felted Tablet Case".... the students will learn how to make a wet felted case to hold an i-pad, NOOK or Kindle tablet.  They will learn how to wrap wool around a template and felt it to form a holding area for the tablet with an inner, seamless pocket and a fold-over flap the student will design.  The picture below is an example of what we will be doing.

  The smaller surface detail was stitched using free-motion embroidery.  We will not have the time or the equipment (sewing machines with free-motion capabilities) to do this in the class but I will give a demonstration at the end of the class to show students the basic idea.  
  I have taught felting to others before but never in a fair or festival setting.  I'm really excited at the opportunity and I have to thank my good friend Carin Engen for encouraging me to put in a proposal to teach the class in the first place! Carin has been nudging me to get out and teach at larger venues, shoring up my confidence.....and as always, she is spot on.  Thanks Carin! 
  Here is another example of a case I made in the next photo.  I love how the ginkgo inspired leaf turned out!

 Lately I have been using my i-pad to help me in making decisions about design layout, if the colors work, is it balanced...  I find seeing an image of whatever I'm designing is very helpful but I don't know the reasoning as to why it works.......it just does.  I hold the i-pad above the piece, click and then view it.  The two shots below I used in the designing of the ginkgo leaf.

  The top picture is a layout of the leaf.  I took a photo because I was wondering if some kind of veining would make it look more leaf like. I laid down some thin black yarn where the veins on a ginkgo leaf would be and took another shot.  Looking at the photo my answer was a quick and definite NO.  Honestly, I wasn't sure just looking at it on the table.  
  Time to get to work on gathering supplies.  Hopefully it won't take too long for me to post the results of my adventure!  If any readers live near the Portland area I know there are still spots available for my class, sign up is possible up to the day of class, Saturday the 26th......be sure to bring your tablet!!

Be happy!  Be well! 
  

A Foot Stool Cover.....maybe

On and off, for the past 6 months, I've been working on this project. 

 I have finally finished all the 

free motion stitching

and it done!

Sometimes I would sit staring at thread colors, pondering which one

to use where, do I want contrast or no...

But what fun!  

It was usually an ache in my back that let me know I was stitching for an hour or 

more with out taking the much

needed time to stretch or correct my posture.  

This is the completed piece on the left.

The whole thing is a 17" inch square that I intend to cover an antique foot stool with.

Maybe.

This photo on the right 

is part of the design

before any stitching was done.

 

Here on the left is that same

part of the design

now stitched with the free motion stitching.

It's such a transformation once

the stitching goes on!

I didn't have a specific pattern I wanted to stitch here, that's part of the fun, it's always kind of a treat to see what develops as 

I stitch.

I just love the pattern that developed on

this lower shot!  It's definitely

my favorite in the whole piece.  I used an all cotton thread on 

this lower part, in the picture above I used a 

polyester thread.  I find myself preferring the all

cotton thread but I haven't been able to

to put into words why...

To make this piece I used black superfine merino for the backing and the designs

were created using partial felts that I made with various 

types of hand dyed wool and wool/silk blends from my stash.

And then the vines and such are Malabrigo yarns,

I always love the way they just melt into the wool and create

great swirly texture!!

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.

Time For Carin's Felting Retreat

  I know, it's been way too long between posts!  It's been a busy year so far........
I just returned from my good friend Carin Engen's retreat at her workshop and home in Garberville, CA.  Carin is an amazing felter and felt instructor who teaches all over the country as well as has her own line of hand dyed wool for spinning and felting.  For three years now she's had numerous three day retreats in
Garberville where nine felters can go and have the run of her workshop, Carin
is there as a "technical adviser" AND you get three yummy meals a day....yes, it is
a felters nirvana.  It was great to see                                                

friends I made at last years retreat and
make new friends.

  Here are the things I worked on:
The first day was this bag ,the three pictures here on the right and below is a bag I did, I've had this idea in my head for months now... it is fun to see it finally materialize.  I wanted a simple image on both sides of the bag and for
some reason spoons kept popping into my head....and a bowl goes with spoons.
First I made partial felts in the colors I wanted then drew & cut out the images.
After wrapping my bag template with four layers of white merino I added the cut out spoons, bowl & trim.  Next was, yes, much rolling in bubble wrap.  I use the larger, heavier blue bubble wrap when I'm doing something large and rather heavy, it handles the bulk better.  It's actually pool cover insulation, fyi.
Fulling was done by rolling it on itself
while keeping it wet and soapy, working the desired shape all the time.
In the next few days I'll find the right thread and do machine free motion embroidery around the spoons, bowl and maybe the edge. 

I'm especially excited with how the bowl turned out...

I'm very happy with the way it turned out, now I need to decide what I want to do for
straps.....I'm thinking purple leather, but can I find the right shade of purple!  I would
do one thing different though.....instead of four layers of white merino for the base of

 the bag I would do six.  I lay out quite thin and just feel the sides could be denser. 
 Next time.  Always something to learn with this craft.

 This I did on the second day, it's a red triangle scarf.  The three pictures below are it.

This one on the left is the first layer of my lay out.  The variation of the colors was so beautiful I just had to take a photo!  You can barely see the shiny plastic resist running along the edge, this made a type of overlapped edge, the bottom layer is plain burgundy and the top is the multi-colored reds and golds.
What you can't see is a triangle of cotton cheese cloth under the whole thing, it makes a great texture on the fabric, it can be seen on the turned over top edge.
The "design" along the edge and in the middle of the scarf was made with silk hankies that were dyed by Carin, the wool also was dyed by Carin, one of my favorite colorways, Drama.  You can buy her hand dyed wool on Etsy at Carin Engen Fiber Arts.  If she doesn't have it stocked, write/convo her and she'll tell you when it will be available.  

Finished Scarf

And finally day three.....this is a shawl I made from a beautiful light green vintage silk sari.  This shawl actually took me the longest to make, from 9am to 8pm, a real "all dayer".  The photo on the left was taken after the second go around at rolling; usually I do 150 rolls each time, switching ends after 150...I do this four times, usually.  This silk was a bit more stubborn and needed lots of extra rolls, how many?  I lost count.
Anyway, the main body of the shawl has a long piece of silk on either side, wool on the outside edges that was felted to make a slight ruffle and then two layers of silk on the ends.  As much as I dislike having my picture taken I ended up doing so, you can really see the length and, I feel, beauty of the shawl.  I really happy with how this came out.....I can promise you it won't end up on my Etsy site!  This will stay with my stash :)

great crinkle effect!

What a productive three days I had, such a blast.  Thanks again Carin!

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!

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