Summer Felting

Wet Felted Vessels 

This week has been great for working on my felting. Although the weather has been warmer than I would like it it to be I had a lot of free time while our Bathroom is being remodeled. I did the next two vessels using a flat resist. The red one has silk waste and white Angelina fiber that gives a hint of sparkle that may not show up in the photo. The black and green vessel has silk hankies and glass stones embedded.

To

The next two vessels are wet felted with aluminum window screen encased between the layers. As far as I can find no one is doing this technique. I am still working on perfecting the process. It makes it possible to felt a flat surface and then be able to bend and sculpt it in to many varied shapes including square boxes etc. I'm still working on the wire cut edges to eliminate the thin wires from popping through the felted edges. The main thing is to leave some felted edge beyond the wire. Don't trim felting close to wire edge.

Back Side

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Wet Felted Fiber Art Items Video

More Felted Jewelry

More Felted Jewelry

Contact me at lpcolor@sbcglobal.net for prices and other infomation.

Also check out my website at www.h2ocolorpainter.com  

Sunset Necklace and Earrings

Earrings

Bracelet

Brooch

          

Butterfly Necklace

Butterfly Necklace

With a little inspiration from the Internet and a class online by 

Jeanne Harlan-Marriott, I designed my own butterfly felted and beaded

Necklace. I hand needle felted the butterfly and the 4 large black beads

and hand beaded the butterfly. Then I constructed the necklace

with beading wire and a magnetic closure.

I never thought I would get into jewelry makeing but here I am getting

Hooked on it. It's a great way to use up small bits of leftover wool fiber 

From larger felting projects.

          

Fun and Funky Felting

Fun and Funky Felting at the Felt Fest 2013

On Sunday the workshop was Fun and Funky felting. We worked on Making felted cords to be used as purse handles, Bolos, and for slicing up to make beads and jewelry.

We also made a felted flower ring that can be worn as a ring or used as a scarf ring or hair embellishment. By making the ring a bit larger it could be used as napkin rings

Bolo with flower scarf ring and felted earrings with a bead embellishment.

Beads sliced from a felted cord strung with other beads as a necklace.

Felted ring with glass embedded center and beading.

Side view showing the finger ring loop.

 

Thank you to Nicola Brown and Everyone at the Tin Thimble for putting on the wonderful 2013 Felt Fest.

          

Felt Fest 2013 Saturday Class

     

 

 3d Workshop at Tin Thimble Felt Fest 2013

Saturday class with Nicola Brown an international instructor from  Ireland.

The first workshop was three dimensional wet felting using the open resist method. We also learned how to embed glass stones into our work. Also we learned how to make spikes and dreadlocks.

The first thing I did was make spikes leaving loose fiber at the bottom to attach to the vessel.

Next I began working on a vessel which turned out to be more of a bowl shape.

This photo shows the vessel at the stage where all the wool has been layed out on a plastic circular resist on both sides. The other side not shown has an opening left in the center for the top of the bowl and for removing the resist. The photo shows what will be the inside of the bowl. The spikes are being added to the bowl by spreading out the dry fibers left on the spikes and wetting them down and felting them into the bowl fibers.

 This is the bowl as it is being felted more after adding on the spikes. At this point it is inside out. It still need to be fulled and shrunk more in hot water.

This is the completed vessel. Not quite a masterpiece but not bad for working in a workshop situation. This spike technique can be used in many different forms such as on hats, in the center of flowers, on wrist cuffs etc. When felted well the spikes will stand up quite stiffly and can be formed when wet in to spirals or curves.

Adding a wire stem to felted flowers

Adding a wire floral stem to a felted flower

This is one method I came up with to add a wire floral stem to a wet felted flower. First I use an ice pick to punch two holes in the center of the flower about 3/8 to 1/2 inch apart. Insert the wire from the back into one of the holes and bend over and insert back down into the other hole. Leave yourself enough wire to twist around the stem tightly. Then starting at the top of the wire next to the flower back tightly wrap floral tape around twisted wire and all the way down the stem. You can also attach leaves to the stem in the same way.

Close-up of center of flower after wire is inserted.

Wire can be hidden with more wool needle felted on or some other 

embellishment.  Now you can easily arrange a bouquet with your felted flowers by bending and posing them as you like.