Author Archives: ruthlane

Putting Off Tasks

Posted on by under distorted cross stitch, hand stitching

Today I did a lot of tasks that I had been putting off for a while. First, I sprayed the soles of the slippers that I made for my husband and I. This task had to be put off because it was too cold to spray before this. It was a warm, sunny day, so I took them outside. So far, I’ve done 5 coats. I think I’ll do a few more until the can runs out.

Spraying Slipper Soles

I did a little felting after that but I’ll show you that next week on the Felting and Fiber Studio blog. When I bought my Pfaff sewing machine in June 2012, I was told that I could get a free cleaning and tune up if I brought the machine in before two years was up. So I decided I should get that taken care of and also learn how to use the embroidery unit on the machine. I was offered three free classes to learn how to use the machine which I never used. So, since I was already taking the machine in, I decided I should take a class as well.

Digital Embroidery

Here’s the embroidery piece that I did during the “class”. Essentially, the woman just showed me the basics of how the embroidery unit works. I’m not sure I will use it much but I thought I should at least know the basics. The patterns aren’t exactly what I would normally use and it costs $2,200.00 to buy the software package that allows you to develop your own designs. So I guess if I do use it, I’ll be using what came with the machine.

Felt and Stitched Landscape

I haven’t gotten much work done on my felted landscape but I have started the stitching in the tree section. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you’ll be able to see the stitching a bit better. It still needs a lot of stitching. I’m not sure why I haven’t been working on this one but somehow, I’m not too excited about it. But I’ll get it done eventually. What have you been putting off?

Free Felted Soap Tutorial

Posted on by under tutorial

When I wrote The Complete Photo Guide to Felting, the book was supposed to include 15 projects. But because I was so wordy and went on and on, they projects got cut. But then the publisher wanted to keep the projects. They haven’t done anything with them so I now have the rights back to them. My plan is now to publish the projects separately as PDF’s and that is what I have been working on today. I have the first wet felting project in PDF form and it is how to make felt covered soap.

Cover Page Felted Soap Tutorial

This first PDF is free and you are invited to download it and take a look. I’m sure many of you who read this blog are way past needing instructions on how to make felted soap but you can see how the other PDF’s will look and the amount of information that the tutorials will contain. This is the easiest project of the wet felting tutorials and they become more complex. I will be releasing the PDF’s over the next several months and will be selling them from The Purple Pomegranate website. I have been working all month on getting that website store up and running. Hopefully, it will go live on May 1st. So I will let you know when the other tutorials are available. But here is the PDF tutorial on felting soap.

Felt Soap Tutorial

The rest of the day was spent getting ready for the Cosmic Felt Phone Case classes that I am giving at Glacier High School tomorrow.

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I have piles of stuff ready to take with me. I am going this evening to scope out the room and set up as much as I can. I will be posting about the class next week on the Felting and Fiber Studio blog.

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And my daffodils are finally blooming (the first one bloomed on Easter Sunday)! I have about 500 daffodil bulbs planted on a south-facing hill by my house. Spring for me is when the daffodils start to bloom. And it hasn’t snowed on them yet so we’re doing good 🙂

Circles Sketchbook All Filled Up

Posted on by under mixed media, Sketching

I have been adding a few more pages to my circles sketchbook over the last month or so. The notebook is completely filled up so I guess it’s finished. I’m sure I will keep using the circle in designing as I have really enjoyed working in the sketchbook.

These three pages were some of the pages that I printed with breakdown screen printing. I just added a bit of silver with a silver Sharpie pen.

Circle Stripes

This one is done with various sized black pens.

Doodled Rainbow Circles on Yellow

I doodled on the rainbow-colored paper and then cut it into a variety of sizes of circles. Then I glued it down to the yellow page.

Orange Zentangle Pie

This one was cutting the circle up into wedges and then filling the wedges with Zentangles. I added the black lines on top to add a little interest to the page.

Shades of Grey

These circles are done with white, black and grey. All of the designs don’t really seem to go together but I like the individual designs.

Spiral Explosion

This one was an experiment with wet paper that I pushed on to a textured rolling pin. Then I painted it to go with the page. I’m not sure how I got the yellow “explosion” on the right side of the page but I didn’t do it on purpose.

Spiral Star

Here’s a spiraling star done in ink on a painted page.

Trilobyte

This is another of my screen printed pages. I glued down the trilobite that was screen printed on paper towel and then added walnut ink. It’s not really a circle but I put it in anyways.

Circles Notebook Cover

And this is the cover. It is done with metallic Sharpie pens on black paper. I had never tried the metallic Sharpies and I really like them. They come in a set of three with silver, bronze and gold. It’s amazing how many different designs you can develop just starting with the concept of a circle.

More Notebook Covers

Posted on by under free motion machine stitching, surface design

I finished up a couple of more notebook covers this week. I used another piece of my soy wax batik fabric which was big enough to make two covers. I quilted the fabric and then stitched the cover together with more of the “hand written” fabric for the inside.

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Here’s one of the covers.

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And this is the second one. I decided to use just white thread and not add another color.

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I finally got these to fit almost exactly. The trick for me was adding 3/8″ seam allowance and stitching a 1/4″ seam.

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So three down and two to go. The one that was too big and the one that was to small, don’t count 🙂

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And here they are all together. I hope that they sell well because they are pretty simple to put together and I have a lot more fabric to use up. If you want to hear about our break down screen printing session, check out my post over at The Felting and Fiber Studio tomorrow.