Permutations in Fiber

Dyed in the Wool

2009-11-06T15:59:00.001-08:00

Here's what I've been doing today. This is a pretty lousy photo but I dyed lots of wool today. I needed to dye some for my prize give away. That's the blue green to the left. Then I needed some for Christmas gifts. I tried to dye some maroon to match Griz colors and I did a very poor job.

I had felted these coasters last week and now I dyed them green. I've been meaning to experiment with using thickened acid dyes for surface design and finally got around to doing that today.

I thickened the dye with sodium alginate. And then used a foam brush to put it on stamps...

and stencils.

Here's one close up. This one is stenciled. This is before steaming.

Here they all are before steaming.

And after steaming and rinsing. It worked!! Now I'm going to do a little stitching on these. This was great fun and even though you can't get a lot of detail on the felt, it still gives a good imprint if you use a chunky stamp or simple stencil without a lot of detail.

I had left over thickened green dye. So I did some leaf printing on an old wool blanket. Boy was that messy. I will do further work on this later. It's steaming now. I still have leftover dye. I put it in the refrigerator. Remind me in 6 months to get it out and throw the science experiment away.

Here are some Wensleydale locks that I dyed as well. Some are blue/green and the others are the same green that I dyed the coasters with first.

Here's a close up. They are drying. Now I have lots of dyed wool to hopefully get through all the Christmas gifts I am making. After Christmas, I always say "I'm not making all those Christmas gifts next year," but somehow, I always find myself in November and December busy making gifts. Why is that?

And the Winner Is...

2009-11-01T09:53:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to Textile Traveler!! I used the random number generator and you were lucky number 13! Please let me know your snail mail address and I'll send you out a blue and green woolly goodie package per your color request. Thanks everyone for leaving such lovely comments. It's nice to hear from you all.

GrizWear

2009-10-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

I made two hats today. We've got another football game to go to tomorrow and it's going to be cold again. So even though these look like Christmas hats in red and white, they are really maroon and grey. The light today is very poor as it is cloudy and rainy. There was snow on the ground again this morning.

Here's a close up of the griz paw. There is one stitched on all four panels of the hat.

Here's the other hat in the opposite color scheme with the hat grey and the brim maroon.

Here's the griz paw detail. What do you think of the head? It was an old, crummy looking wig stand of Styrofoam. I spray painted it with the spray paint that is supposed to look like rocks. It's quite textured and came out fairly well. I made two of them for the store for hat displays but they are still at home so I used it for these photos.

If you haven't signed up for my 200th post give away, you need to sign up now. Tomorrow is the last day. Just go to the previous post and leave me a comment. It's great hearing from all of you and thanks, as ever, for leaving such lovely comments.

Surf's Up for my 200th Post

2009-10-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

This piece was done for the October challenge on the Felting Forum, "Sea and Sky".

I used a combination of wools, scrim, silk and a recycled fulled sweater for the backing.

It's called "Surf's Up". It's all done on my Janome needle felting machine.

Have you heard about the TV program "Talking Threads" in the UK? You can watch it online on Country Channel TV. There will be 10 episodes. The first two are already available. It has some great instructions on various fiber arts. There is also a great series called Inspirations about 5 textile artists in the UK. Just put "textiles" in the search engine at Country Channel TV and it will come up.

This is my 200th post today. In celebration, I am having a give away prize of woolly goodies (merino, mixed breed wool, Wensleydale locks, silk etc.) to a randomly picked commenter. All you need to do is comment on this post and let me know the colors you prefer and I'll dye them to your choice. If you don't like to use wool (or are allergic to wool) please let me know and I'll come up with another prize for you if you win. I'll do the drawing on Halloween (Oct. 31) and announce the winner on November 1st. Make sure that I have a way to contact you (I get a lot of comments that are no reply blogger comments and sometimes it is difficult to contact people). Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, I always appreciate your comments and suggestions. Hope you have a great weekend.

Sneak Peak

2009-10-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a peak at what I've been working on. It's a very large piece currently and I'm considering writing an article on the whole process and submitting it to some magazines. We'll see how that goes. It was a bit frustrating today as my sewing machine was giving me fits. Not really the sewing machine's fault as the piece was too thick for sewing really. But I kept going and finally managed to get this step complete. It's drying now and then on to the next step.

This is my 199th post so keep your eyes peeled. I will be doing a give away with my 200th post. I am going to give away some wooly supplies or if you don't like wooliness, I'll get some other supplies together. Thanks to everyone who follows my blog and for everyone who leaves comments. I really appreciate all you cyber friends!

Grizzly Flower Pins and Greeting Cards

2009-10-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

Here are the pins that I made for Homecoming yesterday. They were made from the scraps leftover from the scarves and some cute buttons I found. We won the game (even though we nearly froze to death) so the pins must have brought good luck!

Here are some cards that I made. I had made the paper quite some time ago for a book which I didn't use all these pages. So I cut them up and glued them to cards. Now I have some greeting cards when I need them.

Here's a card made from dyed papers.

And another of the cards like the photo above with a bit of dyed paper behind it.

Winter, Anyone?

2009-10-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

So this is the scene that I woke up to this morning. The high today was 31 degrees F.

Because it was so cold, this light layer of snow froze on the roads and made everything really slick. Luckily now it has almost melted off the roads. We are off to a Grizzly football game tomorrow and it's is supposed to be similar weather. So I decided we needed a couple of scarves.

So here is the one I made for DH. It's reversible with a thread sketched Griz paw.

Here's the whole scarf. They are made from fleece.

And here's my scarf. I'm sure everyone has already made one of these years ago but I never had. It's super easy though. So hopefully, we won't freeze tomorrow. I'm also making some flower pins out of leftover fleece. I found some great griz paw buttons. I'll take photos when they're done. I can always finish them on the two hour trip down to Missoula. Go Griz!

New Felting Technique and Featured Artist

2009-09-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

Zed from the Felting Forum showed us a site that had instructions for an easy to do felting technique. You lay out layers of fibers choosing ones with lots of texture. You should lay them out on something that won't stick to your fibers. I used a nylon netting. This was OK on this green piece but did not work on the grey/black piece. I will use sheeting next time. You then stitch it all together. I just basted with a heavy thread.

Here's the photo of the other one. I used heavy thread and then pulled tightly to get more texture.

Here's the green one after coming out of the washing machine. The netting came off easily. I just threw both of these in the wash with some other things I was washing. It is very textured and was super easy to do.

Here's the black/grey one. This is a bad photo but you can see that lots of the netting felted to this. I just ripped it off in shreds.

Here's how I used the green one.

And here's the black/grey one. The netting still stuck on just gives it more texture ;0)

Due to a late cancellation from another artist, I am the featured artist for Gallery Nights in October at my gallery, The Purple Pomegranate. I set up all my work today. Had a bit of a problem with the jelly fish light. It has an acrylic lamp shade under the wool and the acrylic was melting - aaaaaahhhhh...... So I had to re-do it a bit. The wool part was fine so I got new washers to go over the hole (now enlarged) in the acrylic part and got a 7 watt light bulb which changes colors. In the dark, it looks really cool but now it's really just a night light.

Here's another view.

The back wall.

And my thread sketched pieces. So opening night is tomorrow night - wish me luck!

More Shibori Scarves

2009-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the shibori scarves that I finished today.

Lots of colors and I'm really tired.

Plus my hands are a weird color.

Here are a few closeups.

I'm glad these are finished!

Shibori!

2009-09-18T16:02:00.001-07:00

I have wanted to do some shibori pole wrap dyeing for a while now but I just hadn't gotten it done. I did two scarves today. I also did the base dying for 9 more scarves and 1 wrap. So I've got a bunch more wrapping to do. Here is one of the scarves wrapped on the pole.

Here is one of the completed scarves hanging on the front porch.

Here's a closeup of the scarf above. It looks like flames.

Here are the rest of the scarves, waiting to be wrapped.

And these are some pages I painted with leftover dye. Not sure what I'll do with them but perhaps I'll use them in making some greeting cards.

Nuno Felted Scarves

2009-09-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here's my first try at a nuno felted scarf. This scarf was already dyed but had some spots that didn't look too good. So I added some merino wool that I dyed with spruce. And it worked great. I love it's crinkly look. It's quite short but would look great with a pin to hold it together.

Here's a close up.

This is the second one. It is done on a white silk scarf and white merino. I'm going to dye it when I dye a bunch more scarves. This one is done with a lattice pattern instead of wool length wise down the middle like the first one was done. Sorry this is such a bad photo. I am also going to start working on some home accessories that I'm not going to show you as I'm going to submit the idea as an article to a magazine. We'll see how that goes. And the challenge for this month from Tricia's Textile challenge is "cubism". Not sure what I'll do with that though. (Edited to show back side of scarves.)

Perpetual Poppies

2009-09-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged for two weeks because I was working away on this piece. It took forever! I covered all of the applique with thread painting and I sewed and sewed and sewed. It turned out OK but I'm not thrilled with the perspective. It doesn't have a name yet. I was considering calling it "California Tourists" but didn't want anyone to take offense.

Here's a closeup.

And another.

I also made some rusted fabric out of muslin and scrim that I had already dyed with leftover black dye.

I think I'll layer the two together but not sure what I'll do with them as of yet. My next project is going to be collaged, felted home accessories. More on that later.

So Disappointing

2009-08-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

I debated with myself about posting about my recent disappointment with the Pfaff Embroidery Challenge but decided I should, since I had already posted about being accepted. I got an e-mail this week that the jury panel had not accepted my work since it wasn't 3D as they had expected. Apparently, they thought that my piece was 7 cm deep instead of .7 cm (7/10) as I had put on my form. I guess because I didn't put 0.7 cm, they didn't notice the decimal point. To say I was disappointed is putting it mildly. I would have much rather been notified at the very beginning that I didn't make it as opposed to thinking I had. The organizer apologized after I sent a return e-mail explaining the decimal point confusion but they are returning my piece. I'm not sure how they thought my piece was going to be 3D since a sample was required which was a near duplicate of half the piece but...

Anyways, now you can all see the piece entitled "The Landscape of Bark - Beneath Notice" that I entered. It is a 2D piece that is 18 x 27 cm. It is machine embroidery with on lay applique on a base of canvas. It is based on a photo of bark that I took in Glacier National Park. It represents a topographical map of bark as I always am reminded of topographical maps when I look at all my bark photos.

Here is a close up. I am trying to let this whole incident not upset me and felt much better after the apology. Next time I enter a piece, I won't be announcing acceptance until after I'm sure that it has been accepted. So I won't be coming to London this fall (even though I'm not sure I could have come even if I was in the show) and don't look for my piece at the Knitting and Stitching Show.

I have been working today on my machine embroidered poppy piece that I showed a preview of last week. I have all the background done and have started on the foreground. I'll post it as soon as it is completed. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Machine Embroidery

2009-08-07T15:35:00.001-07:00

Here is a machine embroidery piece that I have started today. It is loosely based on the photo of the California poppies that I posted about here. I am using canvas as a base and then I fused down various hand painted and hand dyed fabrics which I am stitching over. The canvas is stiff enough that I don't have to use a hoop.

Here's a close up of the background trees. I'll show you more once I get it stitched. I am debating on whether to do some poppies on dissoveable fabric to put in the foreground. I guess I'll decide once I get part of the foreground done. Thanks for all the positive comments on the jelly fish!

Where has July gone?

2009-07-31T14:42:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's been so long but I seem to never get time to play with fiber in July. I always have company, we're busy with tourists at work and I've been out and about boating, hiking, going to festivals and fairs. Hopefully, I'm now back on my regular schedule.

I did manage to finish this felted jellyfish lampshade. I wanted to make my own base for it and I still plan on doing that but I made this for the Felting Forum July mixed media challenge so I wanted to post it today. It's done with wet felting, machine embroidery, machine needle felting and then sewn on to an acrylic lamp shade. My hubby suggested that I put wire in the tentacles so that they would sway out to the side as if it was really underwater. I'm not thinking I'll do that but I have to see how it looks once I have the lamp base made. Hope everyone has been having a wonderful summer (or winter if you're on the other side of the world) and you'll hear more from me in August.

Another Stained Glass Bag and a Field of Poppies

2009-07-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

Here are my California Poppies this year. I took the photo from a low angle. It makes it look like there is a whole field of them. The way they spread, that may be true any time now. They grow like weeds but for me that's great and the deer don't like to eat them.

This is the close up of the second bag I made. This one is for my MIL. It again uses Vicki's hand dyed fabric. Her fabric works so well for the stained glass effect.

Here's a photo of the entire bag. It as another of those canvas give away bags that companies advertise on. I just covered up the advertisement. I had to cut the square down a bit because of the way the handles are constructed. Next time, I think I'll just make my own bag as it was kind of a pain to sew the design panel on after the fact.

Birthday Gift for Mom

2009-06-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

This is the gift I made for my Mom. (I have ironed this bag although it appears to have never been touched by such an implement.) It's one of those give away bags that we seem to get so many of and never seem to use. So I dyed it black and made the "stained glass" cut back applique with more of the fabric from Vicki (thanks again!). I have a second one started but didn't have time to finish it. It is done in the same pattern but with the colors opposite to this. It will be for my mother-in-law's birthday.

Here's a close up of the applique. I really like how Vicki's hand dyed fabric makes it look like glass. We are having company all this coming week and then my sister is here for the month of July. I hope to get some fiber work done but we'll see how I do this summer. Last summer I did very little.

Shibori Felt Mask

2009-06-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Here's my entry for the Felting Forum challenge this month. The theme is using natural fibers. I decided to try a shibori technique to make the wrinkles in the face. I sewed the wrinkles before fulling and then pulled the thread out after completion. I then finished it with needle felting. It was an interesting way to add more texture and I'm going to experiment some more with this technique.

Stained Glass Art Deco

2009-06-14T16:42:00.001-07:00

I don't usually post twice in one day but I didn't think I was going to get this completed today. But since we are having a thunderstorm, we decided not to go hiking and I sewed instead. This is for a challenge with the theme of Art Deco which is not really my thing. I used the hand dyed fabric that Vicki so generously gave me. If you would like some of her fabric, she now has an ETSY shop so go check it out. This piece is done with cut back applique and is post card sized. The colors are bluer than this photo shows.

Here's a close up. I like the mottled effect of the fabric as it does look like hand blown glass. Thanks Vicki!

Framed!

2009-06-14T14:07:00.001-07:00

I got the frames for my most recent machine embroidery pieces. Now to get them into the gallery and get them sold!

Here's the Blooms Trio - the lighting somehow wasn't good for this photo but you get the idea.

Pinon Tree

2009-06-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

This is the piece I completed today. It is called Pinon Tree. I made the background quite some time ago with torn paper stencils and oil paint sticks. My plan had been to do just a bit of free motion stitching on the background and it would be done. However, I didn't iron my fabric before applying the paint sticks and there was a big crease in the sky which then caught more paint than the rest of the sky. So, there was a big ugly mark in the middle of the sky. So I finally decided to cover the mark with the tree. That's why the branch goes all the way across the piece.

You can see the mark if you look between the branches on left hand side.

Here's a close up. I think that the leaves needed more contrast between the colors. I used three different color of threads for the leaves but you can barely tell it. I needed a darker color to give the leaves a bit more depth. This piece took over 5 hours to complete because of the dense stitching on the trunk. So much for doing a simple piece! Note to self - iron it anyway, even if you're in a hurry.

Pfaff Art Embroidery Challenge

2009-06-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am so excited! My work got accepted to the Pfaff Art Embroidery Challenge. Here is a portion of the letter I received:

"Dear Ruth,

The first selection of the works, made on the basis of the submitted presentation dossiers
took place during 2 and half days on the last week. Among the 112 entries that we
received, the works from 50 artists have been selected.

I am pleased to tell you that your application is successful with the work:
“Beneath Notice: The Landscape of Bark” . Congratulations!"

So if you are going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in London, take a look. Sorry there are no photos in this post but I can't publish the work before the show.

Hanging the Thread Sketched Felted Pieces and a Trio of Blooms

2009-06-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is the back of one of my thread sketched felt pieces. I thought I would try a new method of hanging them. This is a thin board that I drilled holes in and added some screw eyes. Then I stitched it to the felt with invisible thread. I also added a label to the back. So now I just need to add the picture wire to the screw eyes and it can be hung. You can't see the hanging mechanism at all from the front and I'm pleased with how it works.

Here's a close up of one of the drilled holes and the stitching. It takes a bit of time to stitch them on but I didn't want to frame these so this was a good solution.

The next photos are the three machine embroidered bloom pieces that I finished. I made these backgrounds quite a while ago which are oil paint stick rubbings on muslin and then overpainted. On the machine, I used free motion and automatic pattern cable stitch. The inside of the flowers are done with mossing stitch (Ala Ken Smith's workshop in WOW). The center of the flowers is hand stitched.

Here's a close up.

And the second one.

Another closeup.

The third one.

And the last close up. I am planning on framing these altogether but I have to get a frame. So I'll take another photo when I've gotten them framed.

Spring in Montana and a Grizzly Bear

2009-05-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

It is finally spring here.

But this looks almost like Christmas, doesn't it.

We were working on the property when I spotted these in the pine tree. I never noticed them before. Such a bright red!

Here's another thread sketch on felt that I finished yesterday. This is called "Grizzly". I have several others that I'm planning on doing including a moose, deer, mountain lion and wolf. I have to dye some more wool for those though so it might be a while yet. I'm planning on using a thin piece of wood at the top of these pieces on the back for hanging purposes. Once I get it worked out, I'll take a photo of the back so you can see how these hang.

Thread Sketching on Felt Tutorial

2009-05-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Lay out your wool and wet down to felt. You need to do a thin felt as really thick felt won't fit under the sewing machine. I used three layers but it was almost too thick. Thinner felt is much easier when you are first trying this technique.

You can use a hand held sander to felt. Just cover with a plastic bag but allow air to escape so it won't get too hot. Then finish felting and fulling in the sink.

Here's my finished piece of felt ready for thread sketching.

This is the photo from which I drew a simple sketch. You could trace your design if you're not comfortable sketching. For your first try, I would suggest something more simple than this.

I used the copy machine and enlarged my sketch by 150%. I added some mountains behind the mountain goat.

Here's the sketch on the felt to make sure it would fit and that it was placed well.

Then I covered the sketch with water soluble fabric. You don't need any extra around the edges, just the size of the sketch.

Then I used a water soluble pen to sketch the design on the water soluble fabric. Don't use a permanent pen as it may stain your felt.

Here's the sketch after it's all done.

Pin it in place on your felt.

Normally for thread sketching, I have been using black thread. But I decided to look at what grey threads would work best as this piece was so white and I didn't want the stark contrast. I used the middle grey thread.

Put your piece under the machine with the feed dogs down, use a darning foot and the stitch length to zero. Bring your bobbin thread up to the top surface, stitch in place several times to start and then stitch following your design. This is sketching so you do several passes over all the lines. Don't worry about being exactly on the line. It is supposed to look like a sketch so you don't have to be perfect!

I usually do a section at a time and go over it at least three times for the major outlines etc. I do only two passes on the less important features. When you need to move from place to place, just
stitch in place several times before moving your needle and when you start to anchor the thread.

For the mountains, I used a lighter shade of grey to let them fade into the background and only did two passes of sewing.

Here is the piece completely stitched. You need to snip all the loose threads where you moved from place to place. I left the loose threads on the back to provide more security of the end threads.

Then I cut off all the extra water soluble fabric.

You'll need small scissors for the tighter areas. You can skip this step and just dissolve all the fabric but depending on the brand you use, it can get kind of sticky and not dissolve easily.

Here is is after I've cut off most of the water soluble fabric.

Follow the directions on your water soluble fabric to dissolve it. Some use hot water and others can use cold. I just put mine in the sink and soaked it a bit. The pen lines and the fabric dissolved away.

And here's the finished product. You can click on the photo to see it better.

Here's a close up of the stitching. If this doesn't make sense, please let me know and I'll try to explain it better. It's a really fun project, give it a try!