My next task on the panto’ costumes is to make orders, medals and general bling to go on the royal sashes. What a great excuse to rummage in the bling box to see what is there.
Metallic painted pelmet Vilene and buckram make a great backing.
Inspiration is striking
Finally a use for some long-ago purchased Angelina fibres
Buttons?
or sequins? Good to be able to re-use the yellow, felt stars from my Stop Brexit banner.
Two challenge pieces to complete by the end of the year, and I’m rushing to get these completed. November is a single bacterial colony on a microscope slide. A chance to use some toggles made a long time go with Karen Ruane. I must have had my camera on some very odd setting as these colours are all too blue.
On Wednesday, I joined a group of volunteers to assist at a “ Patches of Hope” stitching event run by the Craftivist Collective.
I have been aware of the work of the collective for about 18 months, and have been impressed by their philosophy of "gentle protest”. I’ve been a regular attender of demonstrations during my life, but am increasingly worried about the lack of impact even the largest of public demonstrations is having on government policy.
This event was a prelude to a Tate Late on 24 Feb ( free, but registration needed, I think ), and is based on the Crystal Quilt by Suzanne Lacey, an installation addressing several topics but one of which was how women, particularly older women, are perceived in society. ( Photos from @Craftivists and Aron Klein)
The intent was that each attendee chose a word that they wanted to see more of in the world, and while stitching, thought about what actions they would take in their own life to enable more of that word to come to the fore. In addition, each table had a facilitator who eased people in to discussion about why their chosen word was important to them, and encouraged cross-table debate about the word. The little bottles of Prosecco helped conversation flow, but were not as helpful to the flow of the stitching.
This was a lovely event, and an opportunity for cross-generational conversations about the state of the world and what we can each do in our own communities, however small or large they may be, to increase hope. Unfortunately, I can’t make it to the Tate Late, but the Craftivists will be there, as will be many of the attendees from Wednesday, all wearing their patches. As one of my words was “Share”, a much mis-used term in these days of social media, if you do go , and want to wear a patch, please contact me and I’ll send you one of mine!
Plum posted a really good tutorial about using decorative stitches on the sewing machine to make quick felt Christmas baubles. As I had some red felt circles n my stash of stuff, I adapted that tutorial to go into production.
White stitching on red
Red wool thread on top of foiled circles, and also used on the back, in the bobbin. Sewed beautifully, but there was surprisingly little length of thread on the bobbin, requiring lots of bobbin rewinding.
Back of baubles, with design developing across 4 different batches.
Front of baubles.
When you don't have room for a real tree, a fabric panel from Ikea can do a sterling job. Decorated with Procion P dyed fabric baubles, foiled and then mounted on to red felt, all it needs is the pine scent. Also, there is no risk of our dog mistaking it for a real tree, as has happened in the past.
Morley last week was experiments with merino tops on the embellisher and then wet felting the results. I was lost of inspiration, so just did some random circles, and challenged myself to make some pastel mixes and use them. I’m not sure about the results, perhaps en masse they might be impressive.
Before and after wet felting
Before wet felting – the pastels didn’t last long, as you can see.
Then more experiments with nuno. This time on undyed muslin, with undyed wool tops rather than merino. Much harder work, so much so, that I brought this piece home wet, rolled it in a towel, sealed with rubber bands, and then washed it in the washing machine at 60 degrees C. It certainly speeds up the felting, but the edges are hard to control. Still, when an expert talks about cutting off the end bits, this could be a useable technique.
Nuno felting at Morley last night. This is an astonishing technique, where fibres of wool become trapped in a fabric base layer, causing that layer to pucker and move as the wool shrinks.
We first of all carded our own blends of dyed merino tops which was a strangely hypnotic activity. This produces fine rolls of blended wool, rolags. These are then placed on to the base fabric and felted in. Hard work but great results. We were first asked to make a sample piece, including a colour we don’t normally work with, so I chose a yellow backing.
This started off as about 12 inches by 10 inches, and has felted in to about 7inches by 5 inches. Circles of rolag of graduated, blended blues, on yellow muslin backing.
For the second sample we had to cover the whole surface with rolag and then trap non-felting fibres in the felt. The orange threads are silk cut tops dyed at a workshop with Myfanwy Hart several years ago, and the fine red threads ( barely seen) are silk weft from a scrap left from my wedding dress.
Morley course started again last night, module 2, felting and transfer printing. Although I like felt as a medium with which to sew, I haven’t really felt the urge to make my own felt. That could be about to change with these results form last night. Each of these are about 8 inches in longest length and are surprisingly strong. The colours of the merino tops almost glow. Could need another trip to the Handweaver’s Studio.
Felt, white thread, too much snow, lots of film watching, leads to…
Happy Christmas to all our readers.
Morley last night and a few hours spent on the embellisher, led to these.
The first four are wool felt background with felted pieces of of old blanket. The back is as interesting as the front.
Wool blanket, with cashmere cream yarn and black merino wool tops , again front and back.
Different wool blanket, with merino wool tops form the Handweavers Studio, front and back. I really like the shadow effect in the other side from where the embellisher needles went in.
Cotton quilt wadding, with cream cashmere yarn embellished at the right, and folded and embellished to itself on the left.
It was the Contemporary Textile Fair this weekend. There are many wonderful objects in this fair, but this year, I actually bought something - a pantoufle. This is a gloriously tactile felt vessel, made a Gillian Royal.
