Squirrel Update

Posted on by under Felt

I posted earlier about the squirrel attacking my felt bird house. I took the bird house down and finally got around to repairing it. This is what was left of the hanging strap. It was double thickness felt made around a resist and you can see how the squirrel had almost chewed through completely.

I cut off the strap and then sewed a very small loop back to the bird house. Then I hung it back up on a metal hook. It’s been up for several days now and it doesn’t appear to have been attacked again. Hopefully, it will make it through the winter. I have my doubts that any birds will nest in these but I thought I would give them a try and see what happens. I’ll let you know if any birds take up residence.

 We have a forecast for another La Nina winter which means a long, cold, snowy winter is upon us. We have had a few days with a skiff of snow but nothing heavy yet.

It is supposed to snow this weekend with valley accumulations. So we’ve got the snow shovels ready. I think I need to go visit Karen in Australia :0)

November Felting Party

Posted on by under Felt, nuno felting

 We had another felting party today. The photo above is from October’s felting party and Paula was making a scarf with pencil roving and winding it around the bubble wrap. She said it took her between 6-8 hours to lay out. She then covered the pencil roving and bubble wrap with plastic and rolled it. Since it was so long, she could only roll one half of it at a time.

 But look at the result! Isn’t it gorgeous? I really like the result but I don’t think I have the patience to make one. Perhaps a smaller one to add to the front of a bag or notebook cover…

The project we worked on today was an idea I had about making nuno felted flowers. I have made lots of felted flowers before but thought it would be interesting to use the wool to hold numerous layers of silk petals together. I made the bottom left, top center and bottom right ones. Paula made the other two. They are really quite easy to make. We used prefelt cut in small circles layered between the petals of the flowers that include a variety of silks as well as some netting. Now to add a pin back and I’ll have several quick and easy nuno felted flower pins.

Dyed Scarf Photos

Posted on by under Dyeing

 I promised better photos of the scarves that I dyed.

 Here they are all after ironing and

 straightening out the tassels. I always find that to be a pain.

But I do like the colors. I think the deepest red one in the second photo is my favorite. What’s your favorite? I’m putting these up for sale in my store for $45 each. Send me an e-mail if you would like to purchase one.

Nuno Felting and Dyeing

Posted on by under Dyeing, nuno felting

 I met with my local group on Friday and we started a nuno felted bag. We didn’t manage to get them completed as we ran out of time.

 Here’s Louise straightening out some fiber. The piece with the scraps of silk in the foreground is my bag. Because I went to the Grizzly football game yesterday, my bag is still in the bathtub waiting to be finished.

 Here’s Carole using the sander. She’s trying to hide her face with her camera, what a bad girl you are Carole 🙂

 This is Bunny’s bag. she used silk gauze over the surface of the bag. We all used white merino and we’re perhaps going to overdye these after they’re completed. I will have to show you the completed bags at a later date. Next month, we are going to try encaustic techniques. I’m looking forward to that.

 I also dyed some scarves to sell at the store. This is just a few of them and sorry for the lousy photos. I took these photos this morning and the light wasn’t the best. I still haven’t ironed these so I’ll try and take some better photos after they are ironed.

Here’s two that just would not rinse out. Red/magenta dye just kept coming out. So I let them soak overnight and then rinsed them again this morning. They are drying in the bathroom. I used these pre-mixed dyes I bought at Wally world and the process was really simple. I usually use acid dyes for these but since they have so much rayon in them, the colors always turn out pretty pale and anemic. These dyes provided a much richer color. I like them much better.

The publishers have finished taking all the beauty photos for my book. The manuscript is at the editor and I should be getting proofs to look at sometime in December. It’s really exciting.

I signed up to take Level II Hand and Machine Stitch with Gail Harker and the first session starts December 7th. I finally got word that the class is a go and I’m really excited about going over to LaConner, WA and seeing Gail’s new studio. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you had a great weekend!

Mobius Scarf

Posted on by under Felt

So how many of you remember what a Mobius strip is? The definition on Wikipedia says that it is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. Essentially is is a circle of something flat with a twist in it. I had seen Mobius knitted scarves but when Zed challenged us to make something with a twist, curls or swirls, I thought I should try a felted Mobius scarf. Sorry that it isn’t the best of photos. I took it last night and photos of white felt objects are really hard for me. I started this scarf at our felting party and finished it at home. I wasn’t sure it was going to work out but I actually like it and I may even wear it. I hardly ever wear anything that I make so that would be a change. It is made from the local merino I bought and is really fairly light and airy. I can’t decide whether I should dye it or leave it white. What do you think?