Wet Felted Wall Hanging
Wool roving was wet felted using 3 layers of solid color and the 4th and final layer was the design top layer also done with wool roving and then embellished with needle felted yarn and then free motion machine embroidery.






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Third Class... Wet Felted Vessel

The third class on Sunday (Mother's Day) was the wet velted vessel. We used a coarser wool roving called Merino Corriedale. We made the vessel using a resist method. You place a round circle of plastic on the worksurface and lay out the roving on one side then flip it over and repeat. Going back and forth from side to side you add more layers and the final layer you add your design and embellishments. Then the felting process begins. After felting you cut a hole for the opening and pull out the resist plastic and shape the vessel the way you want it and let it dry. This is really a simplified description of the process. There are more detailed processes inbetween these steps and 3 to 4 hours of work but they are very rewarding hours and lots of fun.












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Class Two... Nuno Felted Scarf

The second class I took on Saturday was the Nuno felted Scarf. Nuno means "fabric" in Japanese. We laid out about a 60" pre-dyed silk scarf and then created a design on it with Merino wool roving. After the design was laid out then we wet felted it. The wool fibers mesh into the silk and create a permanent design and at the same time a wonderful texturing occurs called Rucheing..












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2012 Felt Fest...Loomis, California



I had a great opportunity last weekend to attend classes at the Felt Fest in Loomis California. It was put on by The Tin Thimble. The first class I took was wet felting these beautiful flowers. All three layers of each flower were felted at the same time creating a three dimensional flower. This was such an awesome felting technique.









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For those of you that receive this post, it is a test. We are trying to get a new app to work on my iPad so I can do blog posts from it. The photo is from my painting studio during the Art Studio Trek last weekend. I and eighteen other artists opened our studios to the public. We had a great turnout. I met lots of wonderful people, had great weather and sales this year.















Sent from my iPad

For those of you that receive this post, it is a test. We are trying to get a new app to work on my iPad so I can do blog posts from it. The photo is from my painting studio during the Art Studio Trek last weekend. I and eighteen other artists opened our studios to the public. We had a great turnout. I met lots of wonderful people, had great weather and sales this year.













Sent from my iPad

For those of you that receive this post, it is a test. We are trying to get a new app to work on my iPad so I can do blog posts from it. The photo is from my painting studio during the Art Studio Trek last weekend. I and eighteen other artists opened our studios to the public. We had a great turnout. I met lots of wonderful people, had great weather and sales this year.







Sent from my iPad

Well it's been a long time but I'm finally back. I was ill for some time and got out of the habit of posting. I never gave up on my painting and fiber art though. I got a new camera and it does great videos too so I decided to try making a "How-to" video and posted it on YouTube. That was fun and not hard to do so I will probably do more of them in the future. Here is the one I did, posted below.This video demos how to embellish an art quilt with machine felting. Before felting the yarn in the video I placed a piece of tule netting over it to hold it in place. Then latter it is easily removed. The netting does not felt into the other fibers easily.



Here is a photo of the finished art quilt. You can see that
I came back in and painted with metallic acrylic paint
and sewed coordinating beads in the spiraled area just
to repeat some of the colors from the interior motif of the
quilt.


"Peace Doves"  20 x 17

The interior motif of this quilt was machine felted with layers of craft felt then a dryer sheet and some wool roving and then some acrylic paint. I printed the outline of the doves on some white organza with the inkjet printer then outline stitched around them with metallic thread and trimmed excess fabric away from the edges. Then I came back and shadowed the doves with some interference acrylic paint. The stripped border is a dotted piece of quilting fabric that I felted purple felt from the back side. Then I couched and felted yarn around the edges and did some more beading.

The month of July has had a few hot days that were only good for staying indoors. I took the opportunity to finish up some projects that have been laying around. I experimented with new ways to finish off projects to hang on the wall. The latest piece is this abstract that is wool roving needle felted between layers of netting and then felted around the edges on to a piece of felt. Then I felted yarn on top and added the yellow accent shapes which appear to me to symbolize fish. This piece laid around for a couple of weeks and I decided to mount it on stretched canvas. The plain white canvas seemed to stark and I decided to try something new. I used gel medium and smushed wool roving into the gel medium and then after it dried I put a coat of varnish over it. That was fun.  Then I used fusible web and fused the felted piece of art onto the canvas. I think I would like to try and incorporate this technique in an abstract painting using the wool roving. Next time I would like to try painting the canvas a different color under the roving.


"Something Fishy" - 12 x 16 felted and mounted on stretched canvas

I felted another abstract and decorative stitched on it and quilted it and added a felted border.  I also finished of a felted landscape in the same way. The two photos follow.


" Vessels Abstract" - 14x12 painted, felted, machine stitching, quilted.


"A Spot in the Road" - 15x12 felted, machine free motion embroidered, quilted.

Here is one more piece that was felted using scraps from my scrap bin. Included are pieces of various fabrics, netting, and threads. After it was machine needle felted I did some decorative stitching and added felt borders and bound it with a purple cording.


"Poplar Trees" = 12x15 Machine needle felted, decorative stitched, quilted

This is a small piece I did as one of my daily exercises. It has several layers of fibers felted onto a piece of felt.  Then I decided about halfway through that it was going to be a water scene. I added a piece of organza in the shape of a fish and felted that on but decided it was to bright so I layered some white organza over the whole thing to soften the colors and  create more water like texture.  Then I started to embellish the piece with machine free motion embroidery (thread sketching) with polyester and metallic threads. I also added some fused white organza on top of the stitching to set the fish back and create another transparent layer. Then I painted the canvas to coordinate with the fiber piece and hand stitched the piece to the canvas with invisible thread.


"Goldie"- machine felted and machine free motion embroidered mounted on painted
gallery wrapped canvas - 8x10


"Goldie" -  closeup of free motion embroidery with metallic gold threads and felted
background made from felt, wool roving and organza layers and topped with strips of
fused white organza.



Machine Needle Felted Bowl

6 1/4" Diameter Miniature bowl

This is a miniature bowl machine needle felted from collaged organzas, taffetas and yarn. I felted the scraps of fabric together in the shape of a circle and then cut out small wedges at equal intervals around the circle and then brought those edges back together and machine satin stitched the seams and sculpted the outer edges and satin stitched them.