I haven’t been able to play in the studio for several weeks now so it was good to get back to a more routine Friday. The only problem was that we are in the process of starting to update the store website and sell off the site. Dennis is supposed to be doing it but he hasn’t ever used WordPress before. So I am teaching him and today we uploaded the e-commerce plug in and started uploading products. This is going to take a while! But back to what I did on the creative side today.

I recently posted on the Felting and Fiber Studio site about finishing and framing. But I hadn’t actually finished the back of Ice Flowers. I had originally thought that I would glue black felt to the back and then add a hanging device. But I hate gluing and wasn’t sure how I would hold it in place while it dried. So I decided to fuse it on. So I added the fusible to my black felt backing.

Pulled off the paper backing.

And ironed it down. I didn’t show the ironing since I needed both hands. This photo shows the finished back.

You can see from the side view that I left about a quarter inch around the entire edge. I thought I had hardware for the hanging device but it was too big. So I need to get some from the hardware store this weekend. I want to put this in the store to sell so I need to get it done.

I also made a sleeve for my Jackson Pollock challenge piece and I’ll stitch that on by hand watching TV tonight.

All week I have been spending a few minutes here and there working on this plaster piece that I started last week. I used a nail to draw the pattern on.

Then I used a rotary tool to carve out inside the lines.

Here’s part of the design finished.

Once I got it carved out, I did some painting today. Didn’t get it finished yet though. You can see the original design in my sketchbook in the upper left corner.

I also started a small (5″ x 7″) landscape piece based on a winter photo from Big Mountain. I put the photo into Photoshop first and abstracted it slightly so I wouldn’t feel the need to make the felt piece just like the photo. I hand needle felted first.

And then I used my Janome needle felting machine to get the wool well adhered. The plan is to finish this piece with hand stitching. But I may start with machine stitching and add hand stitching afterwards. Haven’t quite decided yet.

Last but not least, here are the slippers I made last Sunday. This pair is mine made with white wool inside and green wool on the outer layers. I used the tutorial/template from Nada.

I wanted the slippers to be fairly plain so I just added hand dyed cheesecloth to the outer layer.

I made two pair and these are the ones I made for Dennis. They were made with navy blue wool and white inside. They look almost slate grey due to the mixing of the white and blue wool with felting.

I added the rest of the cheesecloth to these and Dennis really likes them. Now I just need to have a bit warmer weather so I can spray the Plasti-Dip stuff on the soles. It was cold and lightly snowing today and the stuff is so strong, you can’t spray it inside. You can see what it looks like here.