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.

  

Felted Rose

Wet felted rose 

Here is the rose I promised to do today. I used a layer of dyed silk hankies on top of the white roving. That gave the petals a nice variety of color and texture. 

These are so fun and spectacular to look at. The next one I do will have stems attached. That's a little more involved process.

  

Wet felted flower Ii

Wet felted flower II

Another flower today while I was doing the laundry.  Tomorrow I'm going to try a rose. 

  

Felted Flower

Wet felted flower

I've been painting and getting ready for an art studio tour that was last weekend.

Haven't had much time to do any felting so I sat down last night a made this

Wet felted flower. It is much more turquoise then the picture looks.

This flower is 7 inches across and about 3 inches deep. It's hard to see in this photo but the black center has gold metallic fibers running through it. They make nice brooches and scarf pins and stems can be added for floral arrangements.

By the way I did make the Mandalas into a large wall hanging and I entered it into the Blue Line Gallery show called Layered & Stitched. I got an email the other day saying that the piece was accepted into the show. Sometimes unplanned ideas turn out good. Here is the final piece below

  

Rambling Rose

Experiment gone wild

I had a piece of wool felt that I wanted to experiment with. I tried to felt on to the felt fabric by wet felting method.It actually worked pretty good using a thin layer of roving but where I had a second thick layer of roving I Had to go back and needle felt those areas by hand to fully attach them. I got that far and had a big piece of fiber so decided to try and make something out of it. It became a challenge to make it work somehow. I Felted on some sheer organza roses I fussy cut from a piece of stash fabric. I Needle felted on some white yarn swirls trying to tie all the areas together and add some contrast. They over powered the flowers so I free motion stitched on top of the yarn with green and brown thread. That helped tone them down. The flowers did not show up enough so I thread painted on them with the sewing machine. Still didn't pop enough so I thread painted a white edge around them. That sort of helped. I added more free motion stitching and added the thorns on the swirly stems.

I'm not saying it was a successful piece but it was not intended to be anything more then an experiment. It kept me busy for a couple days and was a learning experience. I call it Rambling Rose....Experiment gone wild.

Close up Photo