Author Archives: ruthlane

Felted Bird House Adventures

Posted on by under Felt

 If you remember, I made three felted bird houses for Felt United Day. This dark purple one got put in the back of the house. Yesterday morning while eating breakfast, I looked up and the bird house was moving! It was jumping around and I thought a bird was inside and couldn’t get out. But after watching a bit longer, I saw a different culprit.

 It was my friendly neighborhood squirrel. (click on the photo for a closer view) He is tearing it apart to get the wool. He has almost chewed completely through the felted loop. I wondered why it was looking so lumpy and out of shape.

Here he is with his stolen fiber. If you look at the lower right hand corner of the photo, you can see where he has almost chewed through four layers of felt! I’m going to get another metal hook and shorten the loop. I’ll keep you posted. I guess I need to put out another fiber/nester for him.

Itching To Open Those Bundles

Posted on by under Dyeing

 This is what the bundles looked like last week right after they were steamed. They’ve been sitting outside on the bench all week. It has gotten below freezing several times so they are getting both the hot and cold techniques. It’s kind of like Christmas as a kid and all those tantalizing packages were under the tree. You want to sneak down late at night when everyone else is asleep and open all your packages to see what’s inside. Did you ever do that? It’s been so tempting to peak and unroll these bundles.

Here they are after one week. I’m not sure they’ve changed much. The one on the right certainly looks more promising. Another week to go. I’m not sure I can stand it.

Steamed Leaves Anyone?

Posted on by under Dyeing

 I got the book Eco Colour by India Flint recently. So today when I was cleaning out the planting beds for winter, I gathered a bunch of leaves to try a little printing with leaves and steam. This is lupine leaves on a merino felted scarf.

 Here is the bundle all rolled up on a stick. Then you wrap the bundle tightly with string.

 Here is the second scarf. This is one I got from Dharma Trading that is a silk and wool blend. I covered the scarf with sunflower petals and leaves. I did not use any type of mordant with these just to see how they would work without anything extra. I did wet the scarves down first.

 Here it is all rolled up and wrapped with string. I didn’t think very clearly with the string because it has been used before for shibori dyeing and it had blue dye in the string. We’ll see the effect of that later, I’m sure.

 Here are the bundles steaming on the stove top. I think I will definitely have to cut the sticks a little shorter if I am going to be doing much of this type of dyeing. We’ll see how it comes out.

Here are the bundles after steaming for two hours. The one on the left is the lupine leaves and felted scarf. There is transfer of the blue dye for sure. The one on the right looks more promising and is the sunflower one. Now the really hard part. I have to wait to open these for a couple of weeks. I put them outside so hopefully I will forget about them and not try and peak too early in the process. I will post the results when I just can’t stand waiting any longer.

Painting Fabric

Posted on by under surface design

Our surface design group met yesterday. We started with white fabric and used paint sticks over texture sheets to start. Then we added Dye-na-Flow paint.

 Here is Bunny adding some color. We kept adding layers.

 This is my paintbrush. I didn’t wash the paint out when I changed colors.

 We added some details with pens.

 We used some stamps for rubbing with paint sticks.

 Here is a little closer look.

This is the final outcome. It is drying and then I’m going to iron it. We are going to cut it into quarters and each use it to make something. I think I will use it to make some note cards. We had a great time. We hadn’t been able to meet all summer and I had really missed the group. Next month we’re doing nuno felting.

The stack is growing…

Posted on by under Carding

I’ve been working all week, teasing out Merino fiber and then carding it. I still have at least 3 times more fiber than what’s shown left to card. Luckily, I get to keep the borrowed drum carder longer. Thanks Bunny! So I will keep carding a batt or two every day and hopefully will get all the wool carded before the end of the year.

Our surface design group is meeting this afternoon. We haven’t met since June due to scheduling difficulties so I’m excited to get back to it again. We are going to paint a 6 foot stretch of cotton fabric today. So more photos to come. Have a great Friday!