Tag Archives: Wet felting

May 28, 2018 · 10:53 pm

I’m pickin’ up good Fibrations

You’re probably thinking “boy is she bad at spelling – she’s made a spelling error in the title.”  Nope – it’s correct.  Have you heard of Fibrations?  It’s a yearly community-based celebration of fibre, and this year I’m going to be part of the market – yikes!  It’s a bit terrifying as it is a larger market than any I’ve done before, and I have will have much more space than my usual 3×6 table.  I’ve vowed to myself that I’m not going to leave everything until the last minute (like I usually do), and I’ve already started working on some jewellery and wet felting.  Fingers crossed I can keep it up or I will be one stressed Dee in August!

Here are the details:

Fibrations 2018

When: Sunday, August 19, 2018, from 10-4

Where: The Fairfield Gonzales Community Place, 1330 Fairfield Road, Victoria, BC

Ryan and Stephanie, owners of Knotty By Nature, are the organizers of the event.  To help keep costs low for the artists/vendors, they organize a fundraising raffle – the vendors all contribute handmade items, fibre, yarns or tools to be raffled.

On the day of the event you can buy your raffle tickets at the raffle table for $2 each.  With your ticket(s) you get to choose which prize(s) you might win.  There is a strong fibre arts community in Victoria, and it definitely shows in the potential prizes.

You can find the Fibrations website here, and I’m quite sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about this market from me.

Here’s a picture of me and the neighbour cat – he visited while I was wet felting – we had quite the conversation!

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October 4, 2015 · 10:06 pm

I Procrastinate Therefore I Am…

I am all about the procrastination… anyone else the same?  I’ve been procrastinating writing about my finished needle felting because the pictures weren’t adequate.  Have I taken new pictures?  Not yet, but now I’m procrastinating on a different matter, so I’m writing about needle felting.

My last post was about a day of wet/Nuno felting.  I did one test strip, two larger pieces, and worked on a sample I had previously needle felted.  The one piece that I have completed from that day was for the annual art show at my office. Although the piece has sold, I’m hoping to take it out for an artsy photo shoot before it goes to its new home.

On that note, here is a question for fibre artists – what sort of tricks do you have to photograph your work?  I have been having a lot of trouble getting a true colour image, as well as an image that has any sort of depth.  I have tried photographing at different times of day, with direct and indirect sunlight, as well as in fluorescent lighting.

Here is the progression of “Chimerical”:

And here is the final (non-artsy) picture:

Chimerical

Chimerical

I have added some new dates for workshops on my classes page – pumpkin making is coming up later this month.  Call the Beehive Wool Shop to sign up.

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August 3, 2015 · 10:48 pm

Spiderless cobweb

Beautiful weather… low wind… a long weekend – definitely time to set up a table outside and start wet/Nuno felting.

Wet felting set-up

Wet felting set-up

I haven’t done a lot of wet or Nuno felting, so I started off with a small practice piece – I wanted to check how some of the different types and colours of roving felted and blended.  I re-read a lot of instructions, took from them what I wished and ignored the rest, so that I could see what would happen working a different way.

I was trying to achieve a cobweb type of fabric, so I was working with fairly thin bits of roving.  This piece was not on a silk chiffon base – it was only roving.

Pre-felting layout

Pre-felting layout

Once I finished placing the roving, the “fun” began… time to wet the roving, roll it up, then roll and roll until my arms and back hurt.

Bundle to roll

Bundle to roll

Here is how it turned out – see if you can find the fabric – it matches its background.

Cobweb fabric

Cobweb fabric

I also started a new project for the annual art show at my office, but that is a post for another day. 😀

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June 10, 2015 · 2:43 pm

You are now entering…

the picture zone… AKA our visit to the Halifax Public Gardens.

Front gates

Front gates

So many pictures from a truly amazing day.  This post will be about the garden visit, and I will do another post about the rest of our time in Halifax.

Truly I am exhausted, in a happy, seen a lot of beauty, sunburned kind of way.  We had the perfect day for our garden tour – it started off a bit cloudy and cool, and then brightened up considerably as the day went on.

We met Helen and Tracy at Horticultural Hall, and were introduced to many people (I would list names, but alas, my memory does not retain names very proficiently!) who were all so pleasant and welcoming.  Helen and Tracy walked us around the garden – sharing stories, history and knowledge.  I won’t recount everything we heard – I’m still processing it all – but I encourage you to visit the Halifax Public Garden site for more information on this scenic, middle-of-the-city treasure.

I think one of my favorite areas was the Duck House.  It’s a little shed/cabin on the edge of a pond… the perfect place to sit and ponder life while listening to the rain falling, or to sit in the shade and watch the ducks and fish swim by.

Duck House

Duck House

Niew from the Duck House

View from the Duck House

Here are some pictures from our garden visit:

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Coral edged garden

Coral edged garden

Brain coral

Brain coral

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Helen, Bo and Tracy

Helen, Bo and Tracy

As a person who loves trees of the twisty variety, this garden was perfection… so much texture and twist… My camera got quite a workout!

I feel so fortunate to have won this prize and to have been able to tour such a pleasing garden with two such excited and motivated people… The love they have for their work came through and made the visit that much more enjoyable.  Thank you Helen and Tracy.

But wait… there’s more!  Helen is a dyer, spinner and knitter, Bo is a knitter/crocheter/designer and I’m a needle felter.  Helen dropped off some plant dyed (dahlia), handspun yarn for Bonnie, and some indigo dyed roving for me.  Wow – these are truly special mementos from our visit, and I’m so excited about them.  Thanks you so much!!

Plant dyed, handspun yarn and roving

Plant dyed, handspun yarn and roving

 

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April 3, 2015 · 8:36 pm

I have holiday brain…

… so this may be a rather rambling post.  I’m coming to the end of a very relaxing week of vacation, and I’m feeling well-rested and content.

I’ve spent some time this week looking through books on jewellery making and getting excited about going back to the basics – I’ve gotten quite lazy with aspects of jewellery making – I don’t remember the last time I set a stone, and I have some gorgeous stones waiting to become part of a piece of jewellery.  A few ideas have already been sketched out… Yay!  We also took some photos of my jewellery on the beach and other locales.  Once the pictures get edited (gack!) I’ll be posting them.

We spent some time at Qualicum Beach and visited a wonderful shop called Let’s Knit!  I found some fabulous roving there – hand-dyed and a very different texture from what I already own.

Happy new roving

Happy new roving

Although I had brought a healthy selection of roving to work with, I thought I should start with the local stuff.  This is the beginning of an experiment…

An experiment

An experiment

I’m working on silk chiffon and plan to wet felt it (Nuno felting), but rather than place loose bits of roving on the chiffon and wet felt it right away (hoping desperately for a non-windy day or the roving tends to fly), I needle felted it first, and have let the needles ruche the fabric.  When I get home I will wet felt it and then start working into it properly.  I look forward to seeing what it becomes, texture and image-wise!  I consider this just the primer… many more layers to follow!

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