I actually did some felt making today. It was just a couple of flat pieces of felt to make an applique but it was great to get my hands in the wool again. Then I worked on finishing up some projects and started on my beaded tassel.

 Here is one  of the piece’s of felt. I did quite a bit of dry rolling before I ever started to wet the felt down. It really speeded up the processs. Do you dry roll your felt?

This corner got cut a bit too close.

 Here’s the finished sample. This photo is closer to the true colors.

 Here’s a more straight on view. I used a dark brown thread for the edge so it wouldn’t show.

 The other project I worked on  was my husband’s slippers. I made them a long time ago but had promised to put plastic on the bottoms.

This is one of those days where I didn’t get much done. I was busy at work unpacking a big order of ceramics, tutoring someone on Quickbooks and then of course a few customers. So I started to work on a tassel for my bead book but I didn’t get very far. I made a twisted cord and wrapped the thread around the tassel template. That was it.

 The photo of the cord didn’t come out. Here is the tassel beginnings. Not too exciting, huh?

While I was unpacking the ceramics, I found these Styrofoam twisty bits in the peanuts. I’ve never seen these before. They were really cool looking. I’m not sure what you could do with them but at least they make a great design. So I got in 5 minutes of fiber. Tomorrow I’ll have the entire day so that will be more productive.

I finished my shadow applique piece today that I started yesterday except for the edges/finishing. I need an iron for that and I don’t have one handy here at work for some reason. I also continued to work on the design for my folk design inspired applique. I am basing this design on Kyrgyzstan carpets or shyrdak.

Here is the finished applique. You can just barely see the silk organza sticking out around the edges. I need to fold that over and fuse it to the back and then stitch around the edge. I think I will stitch the edge in a reddish brown so that it doesn’t show much. I don’t think I want to stitch it in green.

 Here’s a close up. I drew the stitching lines on with pencil so I had something to follow.

 Here is one of the designs that I am considering for my next applique piece. I am going to make this from hand made felt so actual felt making is going to occur amazingly enough. I laid out some blue wool today. Perhaps I’ll get it felted tonight. I already have a piece of red prefelt so I’ll use that as well.

 Here are four other design possibilities. These are all based on “ram’s horns” and from photos I found online of various shyrdak. I cut the patterns out from paper and glued them down in my journal. There are endless variations. I think I might just do one of the emblems instead of four connecting ones on a four inch square of felt. But perhaps I’ll go for it and do all four squares.

 The Kyrgyz use a lot of negative and positive space/shapes in their work. They usually cut out the pattern in two different colors and use both the positive shapes and the backgrounds to create intricate designs. Which design do you like? I haven’t decided but I know it won’t be the bottom left one as it is way too intricate to try and cut out of hand made felt. It will most likely be one of the simpler shapes.

Today I am back to stitching my applique homework, specifically a shadow applique sample from cotton fabric and an overlay of silk organza.

 Here is my sample piece that I tried out a variety of colors of threads to see which I liked the best. I did not used to do this but I find it really does help in choosing the right color of thread. I tried a dark reddish brown, burnt orange, pink and green. I never even considered the green but after I tried the first three and none of them did much for me, I decided to try green. And I really liked it. It makes the stitching stand out against the background. (click on the photo to see the different thread choices more closely)

 Here is the entire design and I’ve got about a quarter of it stitched. It is really hard to show the true colors because the silk organza disappears under the camera. The piece is actually darker and the green “pod” shapes are not as bright.

Here is the stitching design that I’m using. I made 8 different designs and chose the one I liked best.

This makes three weeks of A Daily Dose of Fiber and I’ve managed to post every day about my fiber activities. So how long does it take to form a habit? I think it’s longer than 21 days but I’m moving in the right direction. The exciting news today is that I finished the binding on the bead book!

Here’s the binding. I added a bead between each knot. This made this edge more like all the other beaded edges and it also helped to give space between each page.

 I like how it turned out but I think I should have done one more row on each end that was 1/8 inch in from the edge. The other stitches are 1/4″ apart. The edges are really heavy and put strain on the binding. But it will have to do.

 Now comes the bad news. As I was doing the binding, beads started falling off. Oh Nooooooo….. One of the fringes on the last page came undone. You can see the pink end of the thread so that means the knot came undone and the fusing of the backing didn’t hold it either. Shoot.

I love how this binding lets the pages lay completely flat when the book is opened. It is well worth the effort to do because the pages turn so nicely.

And more shoddy workmanship! Another knot came untied and beads fell off of this fringe page. This is the original thread that I started with that I didn’t like. I had to replace some of it already and I guess I should have gone back and redone all the white thread. Where is quality control inspection when you need it??