Felting & Bees...

What do bees have to do with felting... ......you can eat the honey to give you energy to roll all that felt or you could felt in the light of a beeswax candle.....but otherwise, not a lot!  This is my newest hobby that I do with my husband and I wanted to share it with my Mom here on the blog, and others who may be curious too.  This is our first bee hive, the picture above is how the bees get delivered, in a big box with screen around it.  Have to admit I was a bit hesitant to put this in an enclosed car and drive it home but they are very secure in there.  It's about three pounds of bees, that's equal to about 10,000 bees!  You can't see her but the queen is in a smaller box in the center of the cluster of bees. 

You have to carefully & quickly open the box and remove the queen.  Here she is in her small box, left, rubber-banded to a frame in the hive.   She has to stay here for three days while the workers get used to her scent-she is establishing her "kingdom".  If you let her out immediately they would all cluster around her and kind of love her to death, literally.  While she is in the box the bees will feed her a substance they make called royal jelly that gives her the energy and nutrition to lay all those eggs.  The whole hive is built around your queen, she lays eggs that make more worker and nurse bees to attend her and keep the hive working.  The whole bee society is really fascinating once you get into it!  And it's pretty much an all female society!  All the worker, gatherer and nurse bees are female, there are maybe only 10-20 male bees, called drones, and their only job is to have sex with a queen bee from any hive-once they mate though - they're history :(

Now you have to get the bees from the box into the hive....there is a 6" inch round hole in the top and you have to just shake the bees from the box into the hive.  Here I am in my oh so attractive bee jacket shaking the bees into the hive.  The first few dumps the majority of the bees go down into the hive....the rest take some gentle coaxing.  What a sight it was to see thousands of bees flowing into the hive!  A few hundred remained in the box which we placed in front of the hive opening (below) and all of them made it into the hive.  They follow the scent of the queen and go inside.
They are now all in the hive and busy making, we hope, honey comb for the queen to lay her eggs in and for the worker bees to start making honey.  At first you need to feed them a sugar syrup and pollen patties until they get established.  It takes 7 pounds of nectar for them to make one pound of wax comb!  When you think of how little pollen one bee can carry back to the hive and they need 7 pounds of it just to start making the comb.....pretty amazing little creatures, they could use a little help at first.  In the picture with the queen attached to the frame; it's a wooden frame where we have inserted panes of beeswax foundation that have the shape of the comb imprinted on them, this helps the bees get started and allows for an organized hive that we humans can inspect for brood (baby bees) and honey production. 
Below are just some pics of the bees once they got put in the hive, our hive with the box in front and bees coming and going.  We were so jazzed with this whole process and just having a hive that we ended up getting a second hive going only this second hive has bees that were caught from a swarm which we got from a great lady, Kim, with the Santa Cruz Bee Guild. So now there are two hives atop of our wood shed and on day two they are all doing great, returning to the hive loaded with pollen.  You go girls!!

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!

A New Form of Felt for Me

For the past few weeks I've been working on making felt cuffs, or bracelets; cuff is the "in" word for them now.  Over the past couple of years I have taken numerous classes from a master felter, Lisa Klakulak of Strongfelt.  She is an amazing artist and an equally amazing teacher.  She teaches technique mostly, you don't come away from a class with a purse or some object but you do have a wealth of information on how felt works and different ways to manipulate it to reach a certain

outcome.  If you want to see some of the most awesome felt ever made you owe it to yourself to check out her gallery at: http://www.strongfelt.com/

These cuffs have been the perfect project for me to practice combining some of the techniques I have learned.  Trying to get straight edges, free motion embroidery, felted rings, the use of partial felts, and using plastic resists; I've used all of these techniques in these cuffs.
The purple cuff at the top was so much fun to do the free motion embroidery on.  I love

the pattern that developed over the whole thing.  I made a ring out of felt then attached it to the end of the cuff before felting it.  The white cuff on the upper right also has free motion embroidery on it.  I found a cool old vintage belt buckle made out of bone and ended up sewing it on the front, I was going to put it on the Etsy site to sell it but I just loved it so much I decided to keep it!



I'm really happy with this black cuff  pictured above.  Here I
made a sheet of partial felt in gold and cut them into circles and felted them onto a base of black.  Through the felting process they fuse together.  By stitching around the circles it caused them to raise slightly, I used a variegated thread.  Then I stitched red coral hishi beads in the center

Now this white one here on the left....I'm still not sure if I really like this one.  It kind of reminds me of how oldfashioned sleeves used to have lace hanging down.  It was an experiment with kid mohair locks.  I ended putting it up on the Etsy site, like my sister says, you'd be surprised what people like!

(a note a few weeks after this post.....this white cuff has gotten the most "favorites" on Etsy !!! People really seem to like it )

The black and bright multicolored cuff here on the left I'm really happy with too.  Here I used a plastic resist and made a felt loop for a closure in the back. I did some hand stitching along the folded back sides.  To be picky the edges could have been smoother......


Not all the cuffs I made have turned out!  These are just the better ones.  Like anything, there are going to be a few failures but I have learned from each one of those.  I'm keeping good notes so I don't repeat the same mistakes.

All of these, except the white one, are for sale on my Etsy site, ifeltlikeitbyterry.  It will be interesting to see what sells and what doesn't.  When I make things I usually make something that I would like to wear, I don't really want to start guessing what others may want, that would put a damper on the creative process, for me anyway.

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!

The Making of a Pillow

   I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks for a pillow cover and finally got a chunk of time to make it.  The photo on the right is what it looked like dry, before I wetted it out.  I laid down silk on the dark brown base then put these swirls of merino, bamboo, and wool yarn on top.  Part of what I love so much about felting is how different the finished product ends up looking like.  You have to be able to imagine the final outcome.  I almost always learn something new with every project I do.

I laid down four layers of dark brown wool in a cross hatch for the base .  The more layers you put the less it will shrink.  I wanted this to shrink up quite a bit because I love how the silk crinkles up when you get a lot of shrinkage.  The photo here on the right is what it looked out after I wet it out and rolled it once in the bubble wrap.  

 This is just a close up of one of the circles after wetting it out.  The colors compress and take on such a different look.  The picture below are the colors of roving I used to make the swirls.  I blended some of them using hand carders to get my own colors. 
The finished product is the large pic at the bottom.  The colors are actually richer than the picture, I just love the outcome.  It started out being 28 " inches square when dry.  After fulling it, shrinking it,the

 finishes size is 16" square.  I probably could have gotten it smaller but I wanted it to fit on the back of my leather chair and it's the perfect size now. 
My mission today is to find some fabric to back it with, if I don't find anything I may just make a large piece of brown felt for the back. 

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

Beginning My Third Year

I just realized that I've been felting for two years now, I started in January of 2010.  It feels like I've been doing it much longer!  Maybe that's because I can't imagine myself not felting, it's such a huge part of my life now.  Yet there is a part of me that say's, yeah-just two years, because I have so much still to learn before I feel I'm really on top of it.  I look at the felters out there who's work I admire and they have quite a few years experience working with fiber and you can tell by the quality of their work.  I have to keep reminding myself of that,  often when I see some great work in felt I can  feel myself getting frustrated because I'm not able to produce that caliber of work, both design wise and technique wise. So, I'll keep taking classes and try to

perfect what I've learned and continue experimenting with new ideas. 

Lately I've been playing around with making jewelry with felt. I took a course this summer on felted adornment from Lisa Klakulak up in Mendocino and learned the techniques I'm using here to make these necklaces and the bracelet.  The necklaces are wet felted cords and closures that I make with these beautiful beads my cousin creates.  I love the simplicity of them and how well they show off her beads.  I'm probably going to put some on the Etsy site since I love making them and a gal can only use so many.

   The bracelet is made from a natural merino that I love working with and I used some dark grey partial felt circles that I wet felted onto the bracelet.  I did some machine stitching on it also, another technique I learned from Lisa last summer, and then sewed on these great vintage buttons that have huge holes in them.  I was told from the lady I got them from they originally were used to hold ones bloomers up-before the invention of elastic!  There is a loop and post closure in the back that were also wet felted onto the bracelet.  These bracelets are so fun to make, I'm working on two more now and trying to incorporate more of the things I've learned over these past two years.