Experimenting with 3D felting and dying.

As you all know I make quite a bit of felt but I tend to only make flat pieces of felt and then cut them up and stitch them into the shapes I want, in essence you could say I make felted wool fabric. Recently a lovely friend of mine had a go at felting a bowl. She was a little disappointed as the technique she was using wasn't quite giving her the result she craved. After a bit of discussion and sharing of thoughts I decided the best thing to do was have a little experiment myself as I've only tried 3D felting twice before and both times the results were...shall we say...disappointing. So here are the results of my little play time. 

 This was my first attempt, a little pod. I made it around a flat plastic resist and although I found the process rather tedious, the results are actually very good. The pod is quite sturdy and the felt is very firm, in all it holds its shape perfectly. Bish-bosh-done! I'd completed the task, solved the problems, all done as far as I was concerned. I could report back to my friend with my findings and I didn't need to make another bowl again. But then...

 I had an email request from one of my regular customers asking if I made spectacle cases. I replied saying sorry no I didn't, but then the old cogs started to clunk into gear. If I could make a pod why couldn't I make a specs case. Well as you can see above I managed to make a little case with an opening so that the end would flip closed keeping the contents safe inside. Only...

The felt shrunk a little more than I had anticipated! But as you can see it fitted my phone perfectly, lol.

So I altered my template and tried again. The results were much better this time, as you can see

the specs fit inside perfectly and the end of the case will close over them. Yay! 

I must say, 3D felting hasn't grabbed me as yet, I probably will have another go at some time but it's really not doing it for me at the moment.
...

Something else I've been experimenting with is dyeing wool. This also is not really through choice but necessity. 

 So I took the plunge and purchased a small kit containing 6 bottles of dye powder a pair of latex gloves and some instructions. Look out kitchen here I come!

It looks a little complicated here but really it was quite straight forward if a little time consuming. 

Ta-daa!

 I also dyed some wool nepps (bobbles). I had to find a way of putting them outside to dry without them blowing away...so out came the netty bags that you used to get with your laundry tablets years ago! I knew they'd come in handy for something one day, teehee!

 Next I dyed some Mulberry silk, only I managed to burn it a little in a couple of places as the fibres weren't wet enough.

 So as you can see the wool nepps and the dyed wool have turned out okay. It just means my work load has increased a little bit, how can that be? Aren't things supposed to get easier the more experienced you become! 

I'll show you what I made with my felt next time.

till then

love Fi x

'Swaledale Wall', Textile Wall Hanging.

Hello from a very blustery Yorkshire Dales. I'm in the attic trying to keep warm and hoping that it won't snow any more today. We've got to venture out later this evening to a meeting at my daughters school. I really don't want to go, and I certainly won't want to go if it snows again. In the dark it's a very bleak and winding 16 miles when the weather is bad. On the other hand though, when the sun is shining, it must be one of the most breathtaking school runs in the country!

I've been pondering what to show you today. I appear to be in between projects at the moment, so I thought you might like to see a pre blog project.

What do you think? Fancy a trip back in time? Have you got a cuppa and a bickie?

Good. Here we go then.

Today I will show you my 'Swaledale Wall', wall hanging.

This was a project from my one year, one afternoon a week, textile course that I did in 2005.

Our brief was to make a wall hanging. Yes, as simple as that, anything we liked.

Back in 2005 we still lived over in East Yorkshire and only holidayed in North Yorkshire. I don't think we'd even thought of moving here then.

But we came here for little breaks when ever we could.

My inspiration came from all the lovely mossy, lichen covered dry stone walls.

I especially remember taking lots of photos of fairy glade mossyness in a beautiful little place called Keld over in Swaledale. There are more pics of Keld on a previous post here

We stayed in Thwait. This was the view from our cottage window.

Look at all this lovely purpley Aubritia hanging down this wall in Muker. How could I resist!

Here are the pages from my sketch book.

I was seduced by the gardens and rockeries in Muker,

but my final working sketch took me back to the moss and lichen covered stone walls.

This piece for me was very different to what I usually do. It's much larger than I usually work (19" x 35") and much freer, not so precise. And certainly not as 'girly'!

Everything is hand stitched to a hessian backing fabric. I loosely felted merino wool to look like moss and lichen.

I hand painted calico to get stone colours and embellished them with lots of little straight stitches and crocheted bullion circles.

Each ivy leaf is made individually and some of them are attached to wire coils to make them spring off the hanging like real ivy would.

My 'Aubritia' is hairy green crocheted spirals with lots of little individually attached hand dyed fabric circles.

Not a very good photo, but it's the best I could manage with the lack of light today. Not to mention having to almost perch ontop of my book shelves to get the whole thing in shot.

I hope you enjoyed our little pre blog trip, maybe we can do it again some time.

How about it?

Wedding Castle

It's 8:43am. I'm trying to write this before I go to work, because when I write my blog in an evening I'm sooo darn tired; and that means, quite frankly, you're not getting the best of me. When I go back and read some of my old posts, it makes me realise how concise, short and to the point they are. Not that I want to waffle you understand, but I want you to get to know me, my personality. This is a double edge sword of course, you may not like me deep down, but I feel I'm not being true to myself. Gosh, that's all starting to sound very deep. (and deep I'm not) I'm tempted to go back and delete this whole paragraph now. Nope, I'm gonna be brave.

So here's to the new me or the real me anyway ( I'll try my best)

Now I must tell you all, of my fantastic weekend. On Saturday morning wonderful man and I said goodbye to our children (my lovely parents had travelled up 120 miles to look after them for us) and set off for Scotland.

Neither of us have ever been to Scotland before and to be honest I wasn't sure we were going to get there this time as either, as the destination wonderful man had typed into the computer was only the nearest large town, not the remote castle we were headed for! But hey ho, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the scenery was fabulous. WM was in a good mood, which was surprising really as we were late setting off and I hadn't zipped up the suitcase in the hall way. Yep you guessed it, he picked it up and every thing fell out! Whoops! (yes he really is a wonderful man)

Two hours and several text messages requesting directions later and we arrived here

This is Comlongon Castle near Dumfries. The venue for the wedding of my best friends sister.

Isn't it beautiful? This is the view from the grounds at the back. The weather behaved itself beautifully. Just as well really, as the wedding ceremony took place in the garden under a lovely old tree.

Yep. That's me. In THE dress. You know the one, the dress that was impossible to find matching accessories for!!!

The bride was radiant, the groom very handsome in his kilt, the vicar was funny

and the bridesmaids look gorgeous in their purple gowns. Here I am with my best friend. We've been best friends since the age of 13 and practically lived in each others pocket through our teenage years. Consequently I feel like one of the family and have always been treated that way. I feel truly privileged to have been part of their special celebration, and I love them all deeply.

Here's the bride flashing the garter I made for her. Saucy minx!

And here are the shoes I had to dye and the bag I made. By the early hours of the morning my stockings had a lovely greeny blue tinge to them, but by then nobody cared, least of all me.

No, I had a smashing time.

So wonderful man and I would just like to wish the bride and groom a future full love and happiness. Oh! and we also wish they would book the castle for their first wedding anniversary, and invite all their guests back again to celebrate it with them... I'll be the first there!

I must just tell you all, that its now 8:15pm; So much for my early morning blogging, needless to say, I was late for work!

I'll finish with some pics of the castle.

Fi x

WM's choice of subject matter, 3 mummified cats found walled up, when they were doing renovation work to the castle.

Wedding Accessorise Finished at Last!

Hi all! Gosh it's been a busy few days, but I'm not going to whinge about work etc on my lovely blog. No, blog land is somewhere to escape to, where everything is bright and colourful, shimmery and shiny. Bloggers are kind and caring, funny and inspiring, creative and crafty. And I love it here!

To bring you up to date on my preparations for the wedding we've been invited to at the weekend... I have a floaty dress, I have a wrap, I have shoes, and now... TA,DAA!!!

I have a bag too.

I spent Sunday making myself a bag to match my wedding outfit. It was a bit of a suck it and see creation. I had a rough idea of what shape and style I wanted the bag to be, but no pattern. So it was pretty much stick a pin in there and stitch that bit to there and see what happens.

I made a few simple sketches in my sketch book. I find it really useful to have a sketch book, we were encouraged to keep one at college, somewhere to empty your head! Although right from being a teenager I've always had a book where I would doodle and roughly plan the items that I made. It's quite nice to look back through it and remember all the things that I've made over the years, as quite often items are made for someone else or given away. It's also good to look back with a critical eye, and think, well actually that was quite good, or actually I should have made that this way instead. All in all, sketchbooks can only be a good thing, there's never a wrong doodle, or an incorrect sketch, after all it's a private place for me to empty my creative thoughts and ideas!

The bag is made from silk dupion that I dyed myself (as you've seen in the last few posts!) I machine embroidered the silk onto a stiff iron on interfacing, to create a rigid top that the rest of the bag would hopefully drape down from, in scrunchy crinkles. I also needed to attach a magnetic fastener. (unfortunately I didn't take a photo of that, cos I was too busy swearing at it!)

This is the lining, made from an old curtain sample I picked up in a charity shop years ago. I needed something quite firm and strong on the inside as the silk is quite soft and floppy, and I need it to hold my camera and mobile phone. I didn't want it to look like a wet sock with a brick in it!

Here's the lining with the silk outer fabric stitched on to it. I got the silk to crinkle by wetting it and then twisting it up and leaving it to dry. The silk hangs down about an inch longer than the lining at the bottom. (to avoid the brick in a wet sock effect!)

The hardest part was trying to fit the crinkly gathered up part into the embroidered top piece. (There were a few choice words, I can tell you.) At the same time trying to insert both ends of a little secret wrist strap (for those moments when you need to carry your bag, a wine glass and shake hands with someone)

The finishing touch is a large green fabric flower that I cut off a hair band and stitched onto a brooch back, and then pinned to the front of the bag.

All in all, I'm rather pleased with the finished ensemble, and I would just like to say thank you for all the encouragement you've given me with the fabric dyeing over the last few posts. It makes all the difference having a little bit of feed back from some crafty friends. Especially when you're short of time and you don't really know what you're doing!!!

Wedding Shoes, Another Part!

I know I said I wasn't going to put any more dye on my shoes, but I just couldn't resist having one more go.

And I'm so glad I did! They're now much darker (more like the dress) although the photo further down doesn't really show this, but I'm sure you'll take my word for it!

While I had the dye mixed I thought I'd better dye some fabric to make a matching handbag. The photos are courtesy of child number 2.

I used a piece of cream silk I had left over from making the wedding garter. I got this far painting the dye on, when it suddenly occurred to me that, maybe I should have washed it first to get the 'dressing'out of the fabric and make it accept the dye better. Oh well, too late now!