Needle Felted Faces

A couple of weeks ago we had a fun little mini-workshop taught by one of the members of the Tavern Spinners and Weavers Guild. Most of the participants were from the felting study group but not all. It only took about three hours including the instruction and it was great fun making these bizarre little caricatures.



Most of that time was spent working on the eyes since the eyes really make the face. Each eye component was needle felted separately, then felted together and then held in place by felted upper and lower lids.









































































I was the only one in the group who worked with commercially prepared roving because I liked the blended colors and I discovered that it gives the face a very different look. I think the next one I try will be with my home carded fleece.

Aren’t they great?? Scary but great. END OF POST

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Remember Paper Dolls?

I‘ve been so hung up on fiber, I’ve almost forgotten to talk about the quilting. Among my many guild memberships now that I’m in Virginia, I am a member of the Cutting Edge Quilt Guild. The guild focuses on art quilts and the members are an amazingly talented group of women. Each year the group does a group quilt and the quilt for 2009 - 2010 was a paper doll challenge. The product of that challenge is the huge work of art you see before you - Madeleine.



Madeleine is a “paper” doll in the true sense. The clothes you see are attached to the background quilt with velcro dots. They can be removed from the quilt and attached to Madeleine with the same dots. How did this unbelievable quilt come about? Let’s take a look at the work in progress . . .

All of the guild members interested in working on the quilt were divided into four groups of 4-5 quilters. Each group was responsible for the design and construction of a different outfit - leisure outfit, sportswear, casual outfit, formal wear. There was also a group responsible for the construction of the background quilt and Madeleine. In our group we met, decided on the pieces of the outfit and each member chose they element on which they wished to work. The following pictures were taken during a “fitting” before the quilt was completed.

Leisure wear:



Madeleine relaxes in luxurious, silky, oriental lounge pajamas while reading a book. She clutches the mask she’ll use to cover her eyes for her afternoon nap. This group also chose to created new hair and created a hand to allow it to show in front of the pajamas with the book.










Casual wear:


This was my group. For a casual afternoon shopping, Madeleine wears a denim skirt, turtleneck sweater, needle punch vest and boots. The sweater and vest can be switched out for the leather jacket and shirt you see attached to the side. My part was knitting the sweater. Since Madeleine is posed and not symmetric, it was really free-form knitting I’d knit a few rows then fit it to the form to see where I needed to increase or decrease stitches to get the shape right. I won’t bore you with the details of getting the arm right where her elbow is bent but it took a bit of thought.


Sports wear:


Here Madeleine is ready for a trip to a dude ranch complete with fringed western jacket and cowboy boots. She’s even taken time to visit with a calf which was made using needle felting.













Formal wear:


Madeleine is dressed for a Masqued Ball in an elegant strapless dress with matching mask. On the completed quilt you will see that a scarf and red feathers for her hair were added.












Tabs on the clothes are actually part of the background quilt so they remain when the clothes are moved to dress the doll. The quilt was submitted for the Houston quilt show but, alas, was not accepted. It was, however, exhibited at the MidAtlantic Quilt Festival and will be traveling for exhibition to a show in Vermont. The unfortunate part of seeing the quilt exhibited is that the viewer does get the full benefit of interacting with it. Don’t ask us where it will ultimately end up. We don’t know yet but I’m extremely proud of the work the guild did.

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Felting Study Group

This year I was responsible for setting up the programs for the Fiver River Guild. As part of that I decide to try setting up study groups that met outside of the guild meetings and studied a particular subject in as much detail as they chose. This year we have four groups meeting - basketry, knitting with color, felting, and lace-making. So far, it seems to be working out really well. Although there’s been no word yet from the knitting group, the basketry group is like the energizer bunny and has gone crazy since they started in September and the felting and lace groups (scheduled to start in January) have begun their meetings.

I’m part of the felting group. We’re meeting once a month for at least five months and dealing with a different form of felting at each meeting. At our first meeting in February, we decided to start with recycling wool sweaters by felting them in the washing machine. I have a bunch of felted sweaters and a few projects completed and underway to be made from those sweaters.

Project #1:


The first product from this adventure is this cover for my appointment book. This started as a small vest and by the time it felted it was miniscule. I barely had enough to do this book. It's not quite as clean and crisp as I would like but even though the sweaters are felted, they are still quite stretchy. The next time I want crisp edges I'll probably use some fusible interfacing to stabilize the fabric before cutting and sewing.

I had cut off the ribbing and added it to the flap inside so the cover can be removed and a new book can be inserted each year. Remember the book covers we used to make from brown paper bags? It’s something like that. The leather binding has a leather strip attached to act as a bookmark since I always seem to be rifling through the pages looking for the current week. Next . .

Project #2:


The second project is a work in progress made from this striped sweater. I was looking at it one day and saw the stripes in a basketweave pattern in my head. So I cut the stripes apart and in half and created a woven pattern with the strips for the front of a bag. More pictures to come when it’s completed.


I have learned a few things from this experience:

1. If you don’t want to wreck your washing machine, enclose your sweater in a totally sealed package. I started with two sweaters - each in a zippered lingerie bag. Unfortunately, sweater fibers escaped quite easily through the holes in the bag. Next I tried two sweaters - each in an old pillow case folded over and pinned close. Unfortunately, the machine agitation was able to work the cases open and release the sweater fibers into the machine. I have now bitten the bullet and bought zippered pillow covers. Hopefully, now I won’t have to scoop up floating wool fibers before emptying the machine.

2. All wool sweaters are not created equal. Different sweaters felt differently and at different rates. If you have more than one sweater in the machine, check them each periodically. While one may felt in 10 minutes, another may take 15 or 20. I even had one sweater - labeled 100% virgin wool - which didn’t felt at all after 30 minutes in the washer and an equal amount of time in the dryer. I’m assuming it was washable wool although it didn’t say so.

3. Don’t fall in love with the knitting pattern (e.g., cables). They may be lost when the sweater felts. Patterns in color (fair isle, intarsia) look great.

There are more sweaters felted with projects in mind so I’ll keep you updated. The technique for the second meeting was needle felting which takes a lot more patience than throwing a sweater in the washing machine. I already have a first design in mind. And don't bother to remind me that felting was NOT listed among my goals for 2011.

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As some of you may remember, I set goals for myself in 2009 - fiber projects I wanted to complete during the year. Well, my timing probably wasn’t the best since I was packing up a house I’d lived in for almost 25 years for a move out of state. So, when I didn’t meet those goals I decided to shift them to 2010 - also not the best timing since I was unpacking and decorating the house to which I’d moved. Here we are at 2011 and I think I’ll give it another try. I’m still decorating but it has lost some of it’s urgency. So, here are my new goals for this year. Some of them may look familiar.

• Complete a minimum of five (5) UFOs. A UFO is any project that was begun prior to January 1 and was not completed. My previous number was eight but I guess I’m going for a more realistic goal this time. Of course there is no reason that I need to stop at five when I get there (not “if”, but “when”).

• Make at least 2 garments. There was a time when I made almost everything I wore. That was many years ago before my many interests and my income grew. There was a time when I would look at an item in the department store and tell myself that I could make that. As I had more money and less time the question changed from whether I could make it to whether I would. Then came catalogs making the shopping even easier. Well, I'm going back to creating my own garments and this is the start.

• Begin work on historic costume. One of my fellow members in the Tavern Spinners and Weavers Guild and I have discussed spinning, weaving, and making a historic costume for when we do demonstrations at the historic tavern in Heathsville. Time to stop talking and start doing.

• Design and complete a Barack Obama quilt. I spent the first five years of my life in St. Louis, MO. On my fourth birthday we had a party and the second part was to take everyone to the movies. At some point during the party, my mother and our next-door neighbor (who was white) realized that the party would have to split up for the movies since the white kids and the black kids couldn't go to the same theater. Although I grew up in New York City (Queens) and have spent my adult years in New Jersey, the northeast didn't eliminate incidents of discrimination from my life. I say all this to let you know that if anyone had asked me if I would see an African-American president in my lifetime I would have said "no" without hesitation. I feel I must commemorate this election and, of course, my thoughts turn to fabric. So I'm working on a design and my goal is to complete this quilt during the first year of his term. I did get as far as completing two designs during 2009 but never actually began work on the quilts. this year I’ll choose a design and get to work.

• Knit a pair of socks. I've wanted to do this for a long time and I've recently been reading about the magic loop method of knitting 2 socks at the same time on circular needles. I did get as far as buying yarn and a good sock book. So, again, I’m ready to start.

Well, that’s it. Wish me luck. END OF POST

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The Gathering

Well, folks, I’m back and I now live in Virginia. The packing, moving, unpacking, painting, plumbing repairs, closet remodeling, curtain buying and hanging, and (blessedly) fiber and quilting guild meetings, have been all consuming leaving very little time for contributing to this blog. Additionally, unless you have a strong interest in home improvement, I really have had little to share.

This week one of my fiber guilds held a natural dyeing workshop at a local farm and it seems appropriate forthis to mark my return to blogging. It was like an old country gathering - women arriving (in cars instead of wagons) carrying their folding chairs, dyepots, gas burners, yarn and fiber for dyeing, and the products of nature with which they wished to dye. We set up outside on a beautiful sunny day and everyone worked to get the dyepots going.

The gathering

Dyestuff for the pots

Cate watches the pots
















Until this experience, I have been a chemical dye girl - obtaining predictable, reproducible colors. Natural dyeing is anything but predictable and reproducible. I contributed a black walnut dye made from the walnut trees in my yard. We ended up with a great variety of dyes with which to experiment:

• black walnut

• onion skins

• cochenille

• hops

• tumeric

• indigo

• safflower

• pokeberry

• pecan

I made little sample skeins of my handspun Finn and mordanted two sets - one set with alum and one with copper sulfate. I also cut 4 inch squares of cotton fiber which were treated with the same to mordants. I was interested to see how well the dyes would work on cotton. So, into each pot I put and alum skein and square and a copper sulfate skein and square. I have some interesting results to show you.

Black walnut

I love the two colors produced by the two mordants. I have a sweater pattern which I think will look great with these colors. Although the mordants produced two very different colors when dyeing wool, the cotton samples are almost identical. That proved to be the case with all of the cotton samples.


Onion skins


Even though I was aware of onion skins as a natural dye, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of color obtained by the use of something I’ve been throwing in the garbage - a beautiful light gold with the alum and a darker gold with copper sulfate. As with the walnut, the mordants made no difference with the cotton squares.


Cochenille

We were told that the cochenille bath had been used before and I suspect it was nearly exhausted. Where I should have gotten crimson with alum and burgundy with copper, I only got paler versions of those colors. I’ll have to buy some cochenille and try it. Again, no difference on the cotton.


Tumeric

suspect most of us have a bottle of tumeric in our spice cabinet that we bought for a specific recipe and never used again. Well, if you want to use it for dyeing, it yields a lovely clear yellow with alum and a light olive with copper, and a clear yellow on cotton with both mordants.


Indigo

The indigo pot had also been used before and was close to exhaustion by the time I got my samples in but I still got a lovely light blue. It’s like magic to dip in the indigo bath and then watch the blue develop as the sample is exposed to air.


Pecan


The pecan husks yielded two browns similar to the walnut but with a green undertone. The difference is very evident in the cotton squares although the two mordants are still identical.


Safflower

One of guild members who couldn’t come sent a huge bag of safflowers. The color obtained was a tone somewhere between the gold of the onion skins and the yellow of the tumeric. The cotton squares, however, are a pale peach.


My introductory foray into natural dyeing was a huge success. I may actually be a convert from chemical dyes - at least occasionally. At least as successful as the dyeing was the gathering itself. This was a lovely day spent outside with friends, dyepots, and sunshine. I couldn’t have asked for more.

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Blog Space-holder

I haven't posted anything for quite a while. I haven't had time to do anything fun since I've been too busy trying to make my NJ house look like nobody lives here for real estate showings. I guess I didn't have a true understanding of how hard that would be - since someone does live here. So when I do get it to look unoccupied, I'm closing the door on it, going to Virginia, and leaving it to the house-hungry buyers.



I didn't want you think I was abandoning the blog, however, so I thought I'd post a non-art related entry just to keep in touch. Last week I took a break and we went to visit the Presby Iris Garden. The weather wasn't perfect but not bad enough to ruin the day and the irises were amazing.






















Irises have always been high on my favorites list and this trip helped me visualize a swath of irises across the lawn in Virginia. Click on any of the photos for a better view.













Then there is the main reason this house thing is taking me so long. I've always been a fairly voracious reader and lately I've been downright addicted. The reason for this?? My new Amazon Kindle. When the first one was released I turned up my nose and told myself that I needed paper in my hands. So I went to the library and bought books and added to my huge book collection. Packing up things in the house opened my eyes. I ended up donating boxes and boxes to the Salvation Army when I bit the bullet and talked myself out of keeping books I had read multiple times or books I was never going to read again. So I started to rethink my need for paper and then the Kindle 2 was released. God, I love this Kindle. I won't bore you with all the things I like about it. My best friend is calling me a "book traitor" but, suffice it to say, it has turned a voracious reader into an insatiable reader - at least until the novelty wears off. END OF POST

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