Reflections

Posted on by under goals

As the year winds down, I have been reflecting on what I have accomplished in the last year. At the first of the year I had decided my word for the year was “choose” and that I wanted to make decisions with intention. I actually did most of the things that I had planned on doing and then did several more “big” things that I had no idea I would choose to do. It was a pretty exciting year. Here’s my round up of the fiber art related things that I completed in 2011.

  • The Design Focus Friday series of blog posts was completed. I really think that writing about design has helped me think about how to design a piece with a better focus on the principles and elements.
  • Continued exploration into surface design including making my own silk screens, screen printing with oatmeal, torn paper and water soluble glue, gelatin printing, Eco printing with leaves and fabric painting.
  • I played with encaustics and even though I probably won’t do any more, it was fun.
  • The fabric book page swap came to an end and I fabricated my “tree” book.
  • I did attempt to get my work into another gallery in Missoula and sent entries to two fiber art competitions. None of my work was accepted but that’s OK, at least I tried.
  • Completed two rice paper and watercolor collages in my studio journal. 
  • Dyed a variety of scarves and made tons of cat toys to sell in the store.
  • Completed Level I Hand Stitch at the Gail Harker Creative Studies Center.
  • Began Level II Hand and Machine Stitch with Gail which will continue until February 2013.
  • Carded half of a fleece of merino wool (still have the other half to finish).
  • Felted three bird houses for Felt United Day.
  • Felted a mobius scarf for the “twisted” challenge.
  • Felted and direct dyed a bag for my husband’s new tablet.
  • Made a felt scrap bowl and Christmas tree ornaments with a step by step photo tutorial.
  • Mentored another artist in nuno felting.
  • Wrote the book ‘The Complete Photo Guide to Felting‘ which is being published by Creative Publishing International. This was 6 months out of the year of very hard work. I felted tons of samples and projects for the book but wasn’t able to show anyone any of it. The book is still in the editing process and I still have to work with the editor on making sure everything is in the right place and it says what I meant it to say. The publish date will be August 1, 2012. It will be so exciting to see it completed.
  • One of the most fun things I did this year was to get together with a group of three other felters from all over the world and develop our own virtual studio and forum. I have so enjoyed interacting with my felting friends in creating the website and I look forward to our work together over the coming year.
So, for me working a full time job, that’s a pretty impressive list. The next time I ‘choose’ to write a book, I think I will have to quit my other job. Writing a book is a full time job in itself. But there are no plans for another book at this point and the next year and a half, I will be concentrating on my Level II stitch class. I am going to be considering what my word for next year will be and what my other plans will be. Once I’ve decided, I’ll write another post to let you know. What are your plans for the coming year? I’d love to hear what you want to accomplish in the coming year.

Happy Holidays!

Posted on by under Felt, Felting and Fiber Studio, forum

These are a couple of felt scrap ornaments that I made at the last minute. I did add a little loop of ribbon at the top for hanging. They use the same technique as the Felt Scrap Bowl Tutorial that I posted on the Fiber and Felting Studio. Please do check out our new virtual studio and if you’d like to join our forum, just click on the forum button in the sidebar. We welcome anyone interested in any kind of fiber arts as we just aren’t limiting members to felting.

Thanks for stopping by my blog this year, I appreciate all your kind comments. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season. 

Color Mixing with Distorted Cross Stitch

Posted on by under distorted cross stitch, hand stitching

 Here’s one of the samples that I did for Level 2 Stitch. We started with cut up bits of fabric and then added distorted cross stitch over the fabric. This is the base which was the starting point.

And this is the end result. About halfway through, I thought it looked like a big mess. But I persevered and it did finally look a bit like what I had imagined when I started. The point was to use the stitching to mix the colors and achieve a look of foliage. I need to do another sample for homework and I’m thinking I’ll do one based on a garden against a rock wall. I considered doing a winter scene but I don’t really have the threads needed for that one. But I am going to dye more so… I’m sure I’ll make up my mind soon.

Level II Hand and Machine Stitch Class and a Surprise

Posted on by under Dyeing, fabrics, plastic fiber, threads

 I started the Level II Hand and Machine Stitch class at Gail Harker’s last week. The first two and a half days was spent in the dyeing studio. Gail has just moved recently from Oak Harbor to LaConner, Washington. Her new studio is wonderful and we had a great time. I won’t discuss the10 hour drive from Montana to Washington with two Yorkies who both had Giardia. The less said about that the better!

 Here are some other class members hanging up their dyed fabric and threads to dry. It looked like colorful prayer flags all around the room.

 Here are some of the threads I dyed after they were dried. They were waiting to be wound up with a thread winder. Normally, we wind the thread on half of a toilet paper tube but they didn’t have many so I only got two in class.

 Here we are at the table discussing something. We worked on hand stitch this session and I have lots of homework to do. We’ll be working on Kantha stitch on our next session in February.

 Here are some photos of my dyed fabrics. We will be using these over the entire course of the class. This is silk organza. We used Procion MX dyes. I usually use acid dyes at home but I’ll be ordering some Procion MX as it is part of the homework to have another dye session.

 This is cheesecloth – #50 and #90 weights. A lot heavier cheesecloth than the kind you buy in the grocery store around here which is #10.

 This is linen.

 And muslin.

 And then white burlap.

 Here are all the threads I dyed on their cardboard tubes. I finished winding them at home. We used all cotton threads in a variety of weights.

 Don’t they look yummy?

 I need to dye some deep purples and perhaps some more greens. So more thread to come!

 When I got home I found a package from the UK. Zed had sent me samples of nylon and plastic fiber to experiment and add to felt. Thanks Zed – it was a wonderful surprise to find this package waiting for me when I got home.

And look at these wonderful buttons she makes out of polymer clay. I can’t wait to add them to something.

Playing with Encaustics

Posted on by under encaustics

 I met with my local fiber group today and we played with beeswax and encaustic techniques. I had never tried this before and it was pretty interesting how the layers of wax and oil paint work together.

 The first step is to paint a layer of beeswax on a board. You can then mark the beeswax and apply oil paint into the marks.

 Once the oil paint works into the cracks, you wipe the surface of the wax with a canola oil on a paper towel.

 It then leaves the paint in the cracks. This is one of Jan’s pieces.

 You can then heat the wax again with a heat gun or a blow torch to move the wax and paint around. You keep adding layers of wax and paint. You can also collage in a variety of things such as papers. We used yellow beeswax so the results are on the yellow to orange side.

 These are the ones that I made. I had a hard time getting a good photo. This one has a piece of dyed paper towel on the first layer.

 This one has wool added to the first layer. The wool made the wax very bubbly and dimensional.

 This one has another dyed paper towel as the base.

 I can’t remember all the layers on this but it’s mainly paint.

This has pieces of “leather” paper I made several years ago with beeswax and paint. It’s hard to get the wax to react as you think it should look. I was just experimenting to see what would happen. This isn’t something I think I’ll do all the time but it was fun trying out the process.