Playing in my Sketchbook

Posted on January 22, 2016 by ruthlane under sketch book, Sketching

I always take my sketchbook with me when I travel and I recently took a trip to the east coast. These are a few of the pages that I worked on during my travels.

The top two were rusted already and I added the blue. The other two colorful ones had a layer of paint and soy wax and I added a bit more color to them, filling in the areas that were white from the soy wax. And the last one is a sketch I did at my sister’s house. This is a seed pod from a Sweetgum tree. We don’t have them in Montana so I picked up one on my walk and sketched it.

These two I did at home. I like the one on the right but I’m not so sure about the one with leaves. And thanks Teri for your suggestion of adding some black pen. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Ice Dyed Silk Gauze

Posted on January 15, 2016 by ruthlane under Dyeing, surface design

When our surface design group met last week, we did some ice dyeing. I dyed 6 pieces of 5mm silk gauze that I am going to use in nuno felting. I did a quick tutorial on how to do ice dyeing several years ago on The Felting and Fiber Studio. Louise had us all set up outside to do the ice dyeing so we worked pretty quickly in the cold. I did one jar with more purple dyes and the other with reds and oranges.

It’s simple to do, just layers of ice, fabric and dye powder. Then you let it melt and rinse it out.

Here are the 5 pieces that were white to start with and then ice dyed. It was interesting that several of these had bands of color on them as I just wadded the silk up and stuck it in.

This piece was already dyed with eco printing to start. It was pretty sad to start and I was hoping to improve it but it didn’t take up much more color.

Here’s is a close up of one of the scarves. They all have some very nice patterning and mix of colors. Now to get the right color merino to go with each one and start some nuno felting!

A Present for my Other Sister

Posted on January 8, 2016 by ruthlane under nuno felting

This is a nuno felted scarf that I made for my other sister for Christmas. It didn’t get completed in time but since I am going to visit her soon, I will just take it with me then.

The silk scarf was actually a gift from Shepherdess Ann several years ago. I finally got around to using it. Thanks Ann! The scarf was dyed gold and purple. So I added a grey purple merino, slightly more purple merino and a gold merino. I also added some silk fibers and silk thread that Paula gave me. Thanks Paula! Very useful to have generous fiber friends.

Here’s a closer look of the silk fibers and silk thread.

The thread is loose in places so I hope it doesn’t catch on things. I thought about stitching it down but I like it the way it is.

And here is the silk side. I hope my sister likes it. You can click on any of the photos to get a larger view. Hope you have a good weekend!

P.S. I forgot to say that it was snowing when I took this photo and if you look closely, you can see a few snowflakes.

Presents for my Sister

Posted on January 1, 2016 by ruthlane under Felt, surface design

Happy New Year! I hope you have a wonderful 2016 with lots of fiber and felting goodness. I started the new year off right by nuno felting a scarf for my sister in Virginia. I will show you that one later as I couldn’t get any photos as it got dark very quickly today. I thought you might like to see the presents I made for my other sister in Kentucky.

This first one is a felted beading bowl. I got the idea from Teri over at Teri Berry Creations. She calls them Sewer’s Friends. It was simple to make. This one had a triangular-shaped resist around the edge. Once it was felted and the resist was removed, I stuffed wool into the outside edge. You can put your beads or buttons in the center and your needles around the edge. This photo shows it at her house ready to be used. My sister makes beautiful beaded bracelets that I sell at the store.

And this is the notebook/sketchbook cover that I made for her. All the felt is screen printed and then stitched together to form the notebook cover.

I used a piece of shibori dyed fabric for the inside.

And here’s the back of the notebook cover. If you are interested in learning how to screen print on felt, I have an online course starting January 22nd. It is 4 weeks of instruction with PDF’s and videos and loads of information about screen printing. Even if you don’t want to screen print felt, it also shows you how to screen print silk. So if you’re a nuno felter or use silk in your work, screen printing is a wonderful surface design technique to make patterns of your own design to use in your work. For more information about the class, go on over to The Felting and Fiber Studio Class page.

Thanks for stopping by and again, Happy New Year!