Seeing Orange

Posted on by under Dyeing

I know, it’s supposed to be seeing red. But today I’m seeing orange. I needed orange decorations for a purse I am refashioning and I had found some little crocheted pieces at the thrift store. They were white and actually had some sort of glue in them when I bought them. I just soaked them in water and that took care of the stiffening agent. Today, I dyed them orange and since I had some extra dye, I put in a little fabric as well.

 This photo about blows your eyes out – the orange is really bright.

Here’s one you can see a little better. I’ll show you the bag after I finish.

 This photo is of 90# cheese cloth. I dyed both pieces of fabric in a baggie.

This piece of fabric is a combination of silk and cotton. The way it is woven, it has silk on one side and cotton on the other. I’m sure it will look more interesting when it has been ironed.

I spent most of today working on a new blog/website on WordPress. I am going to move this blog as soon as it is finished. It will be much more up to date than this blog. I wanted to have all my blogs/websites in one place so I decided to go with WordPress. I hope to have it finished in the next couple of weeks. I will let you know the new address. I appreciate all my followers/readers and I hope that you’ll like the new site.

Finishing Off

Posted on by under Felting Book, hand stitching

I have been going through my stash of items that I have made but haven’t completely finished or that just need labels. I am getting them ready to sell at my store. (By the way, we have a brand new website, if you’d like to check it out http://purplepomegranate.com/) I also have a few projects that need some hand stitching and I started on one of those.

 This one is called Avalanche Creek and is made with lots of different fibers. It has been wet felted and needle felted. The inspiration was from a photo I took in Glacier National Park. It was made for an example in my book, The Complete Photo Guide to Felting.

This piece is called Roots. It was made entirely on my Janome needle felting machine. It was also made for the book but sadly, none of the fifteen projects I developed for the book were included. I guess I’m too long winded. I had hopes that they would publish the projects separately but I haven’t heard anything from the publishing company about it. Roots also has a variety of fibers, yarn and fabric.

 Here’s a couple of closer views.

This was fun to make, I really enjoyed adding all those yarns on top.

 Here’s the hand stitching project. It is a nuno felted book cover. The threads are the colors I am going to use. I thought it needed a little brightening up.

Here’s a closer view. Chain stitch around the prefelt orange pieces. I think this is going to be a kind of paisley design. I have lots more stitching to do on this as I’m going to cover lots of the white.

Adding Whip Stitch

Posted on by under free motion machine stitching

I decided on the machine applique stitch that it needed some heavier lines. I considered cable stitch but wanted something that really looked organic. So I tried some whip stitch. I loosened up the bobbin so the bobbin thread comes to the top. To do this stitch, you need to move the fabric slowly but put on the gas on the stitch pedal.

 I used the dark purple thread as I thought it needed more dark lines.

Here you can see how far up off the fabric that the whip stitch comes. I’m happier with this now, but I”m still not sure it is finished. What do you think?

Final Daily Dose of Fiber

Posted on by under Daily Dose of Fiber

I can hardly believe it but it’s the end of the first quarter and the final day of my Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge. I have really enjoyed the challenge and learned that I need to work on a reliable method of posting while I’m traveling. I guess I’m just not a mobile kind of girl. But I did get a lot accomplished this first quarter. You can see my post about it on the Felting and Fiber Studio.

 Today I laced the print to stitch lichen piece around a card.

And then mounted it to matte board. I probably won’t get a frame for this one as it is quite small, only 3 1/4″ x 4 1/2″. It was a little tougher to lace this one because it had a couple of layers of batting under it so there was a lot of extra layers especially at the corners.

Prep Work for Lacing Around a Card

Posted on by under Daily Dose of Fiber

I was volunteering at Brewfest all day today so I didn’t have much time for fiber. But I did manage to get one of my small pieces ready to lace around a card for presentation. I will lace it up tomorrow and then mount it onto matt board.

 Here’s the front, all pinned and ready to go.

And this is the back. I”ll use the strings to attach the piece to matt board.