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.

I finally finished working on this project. I didn't get any comments or suggestions on finishing the edges so I couldn't help myself... I had to couch some decorative yarns over the raw interior edges and hand made some edging on the felting machine to finish off the exterior edges. And as you can see the project grew in size.  I was playing around and made the 3D circular shapes one evening when I had some time to kill. I decided to incorporate them into the piece I had already made. That meant I needed to make another section. Since three is always better than two in the design world.

This was strickly an intuitive piece of art. One experiment lead to another and one piece lead to another. It's hard to appreciate all the textures in the photograph. I had a lot of fun with this piece and my felting machine has opened up so many possibilities for creating art with fiber


"Down by the Sea"  23"x12" machine needle felted and machine stitched and quilted.
Materials include: felt, scrap terry type fabric,organza,  raw silk yarn and other yarns and threads,
batting.


Detail

"Iris Fields Forever"  22"x17"

This is an art quilt I just finished using Rose Hughes method of "Fast Piece Applique".  With her method you can easily piece together curves and shapes of any sort quickly and smoothly. After the entire quilt top was pieced I couched various yarns over the seams by machine. On the gold colored part of the iris I satin stitched around the petals by machine. Then on the gold petals I used some stenciling paint and gave the petals some shading and finally painted another layer of glitter paint on all of the flower to give it some shimmer. The edge was finished by trimming the quilt squarely and attaching a purple cording with a decorative stitch.  I made the pattern for this quilt by using a photograph I took of one of my irises. I traced the iris photo in Corel Painter and then freely added the landscape in the background. I changed the colors of the iris to match the printed fat-quarter that I had.


"What came first the duck or the egg?" 8.5x11 felted fiber art

This is a piece of fiber art that was felted on my embellisher machine. I did a grab bag thing and pulled out the aqua colored velour terry type fabric, cut it in to strips with pinking shears and felted it to a piece of black craft felt and then turned it over and felted the black back thru to the front creating the black stripped effect. I decided to make sort of a framed look out of it by not filling in the middle area and dropped in a scrap of felting that I had done as just a practice piece a while back. I placed a little batting under the felted egg are and gave it some 3D effect then felted it to the black area just around the edge. I then layed some raw silk yarn around the border frame and covered it with some aqua organza and felted all the layers around the border together. I did some zig-zag stitching around the edges. I'm still contemplating whether to felt or couch some type of fiber around the inner edge of the aqua frame to cover up the raw edge or to leave it alone. What are your suggestions? Check back next week to see what I decided to do.

"Branching Out"  23x36 Whole Cloth quilt, digitally
pieced and designed, machine felted with wool
roving and yarn, and free motion quilted.

If you look back in one of my earlier blog entries you'll find this piece of fabric I designed on the computer using Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Draw. I sent the file by email to "Fabric on Demand", an online custom printing on fabric company that I was really happy with their product and service. I finally got around to completing the quilt.  I decided to felt the branch to give it more pizzas and texture and also did some free motion stitching on it as well as free motion quilted the entire piece. It has a hanging rod in the back and makes a very attractive wall hanging.


Love Bird 15x15 raw edge applique and free motion quilting

I did a sketch of our love bird several years ago and I came across it on the computer and decided to make an art quilt out of it. I made a line drawing to use for the pattern and cut out the individual pieces and free motion stitched them to a piece of muslin. Then I trimmed it out and started creating the background layout. I placed the bird on the black background and added the red triangles around the outer edges for accent and interest. I machine stitched all the pieces to the base fabric and then sandwiched it with batting and backing and freemotion quilted the whole piece. I finished the border with a new method I found on the internet. I didn't want to use a traditional binding so this method fit the bill. You cut about 1 1/4" strips of felt. I used black to tie in the black background square. The outer most edge was cut with pinking shears. This is cut off in my photo so you won't be able to see that edge. You line up a felt strips under each edge of the quilt and let about 3/8" of the pinked edge extend out beyond the edge of the quilt. Then you use one of your decorative edge stitches to sew the quilt to the felt edge. At the corner you can just overlap the two sides squarely or you can cut one of the edges at an angle so it looks mitered. This felt edge makes a very nice clean contemporary edge and will not ravel and needs no hand sewing. It is less bulky of an edge. I will probably use this method for most of my art quilts from now on.

The photo above was kind of hard to take because the background fabric has a lot of gold metallic in it and it reflects strangely in the photo. It's much prettier in person.




Felted landscapes about 8 1/2 x 11 each

These landscapes are intuitively done from my head. Mostly done like a sketch but with the felting machine and the sewing machine. They are mostly done with the felting machine using wool roving felted on to a base piece of craft felt. Then I free motion embroidery with my sewing machine all the flowers and other details after the large background shapes on felted. The top piece was sold during the "Art Studio Trek"  tour I participate in every year.

This is another felted bowl using wool roving felted between layers of water soluble stabilizer.  After felting the roving in an abstract design I then felted yarn around the edge.  Next I rinsed out the stabilizer and formed the wet felting piece over the bottom of a glass container and let it dry over night.  When it was dry I decided the bowl was not as stiff as I wanted so I tried painting clear gel medium on the outside bottom and half way up the sides. The gel medium did not dry as clear as I wanted so I painted Burnt Sienna acrylic paint over that. That gave the bowl a nice stiff bottom leaving the upper part more pliable. Also the painted bottom gave me somewhere to sign it like a pottery bowl would be signed. I'm working mostly on learning to sculpt the felted fiber. As I progress I will concentrate more on the design and color of the fibers.  Hopefully all this experimenting will lead to better and better finished products in the future.



Fluted Bowl


This bowl was felted in a circle and then wedges were cut out of the circle and the sides of each wedge were felted back together to form the bowl. Then at equal intervals I pinched the seams and felted down about an inch or so to create the fluted edge.

I've been playing around with flat felting to make wall hangings and fiber paintings. Come back soon and check them out in my next post.

I haven't given up my painting, just starting to incorporating some stitching into my paintings.  This is the latest one I just completed. It was painted on regular gessoed canvas and then sandwiched with thin batting and another layer of canvas for the backing. I then stitched around the leaves and the veins of the leaves which made the canvas buckle up a bit giving the leaves a very 3D look. This was what I was planning on happening. It was not a happy accident. Then I painted the backside canvas a mottled solid color to finish it off and also stitched around the edge with a decorative stitch.  This can either be floated in a frame or hung with no frame like a tapestry which is what I think I'll do. Saves a lot on framing and still looks great. The painting has lots of texture created with gel medium and layers of watercolor crayon on top of the acrylic. Well that's it for a while. Need to buy groceries clean house before I can do anymore artwork.


14x22 quilted acrylic on canvas painting

Amazing what you can do with the felting machine. I'm still doing allot of experimenting. I have not been able to find any information online about creating 3D objects with the felting machine.  Lots of info on doing bowls by hand or wet felting around a ball but nothing using the felting or embellishing machine as some call it. So I made a circle pattern on the computer and divided it into 8 equal sections.  Then at each section I cut out about a 1/2" triangle wedge in toward the center.  I created about a 3" circle in the center of a 7.5 circle for the pattern and then cut the wedges only in to the edge of the center 3" circle. The inner circle creates the bottom of the bowl. I cut out a piece of purple felt with the pattern and then overlapped the edges of the triangle wedges I cut out felted the 8 slits back together. That formed the bowl shape. Then I started adding yarns, fabric, and wool roving and felted that to the bowl. In the inner 3" circle I really added lots of layers of various fibers so that the bottom became thicker and more weighted. Then I did more felting and finally I decided to cut the edge into scallops for more interest. You can see the outside is more subtle. When felting you can use either side you prefer. The bowl can actually be turned inside out depending on which side you prefer. I think I'll put my hard boiled easter eggs in it!

   

Well it's been a while since I've posted. Time flies when you're having fun and are retired.  I've done some more 3D experiments. I'm intrigued right now with constructing dimensional objects with fiber and using my felting machine.  The photo below is a piece of felt for the base fabric and then what I call "collaged felting".  I felted various scraps of fabric and did some free motion stitching and felted the center of fabric scraps attaching them to the center with felted yarn to form flower petals. Then I added some fabric paint to the flower edges and also some acrylic paint to the base fabric.  This was a flat piece of fabric for about 3/4 of the time and then I formed it into a cylinder and felted the seam. I actually added the flowers after I formed the cylinder.  It just snuggly fit over the free arm of my machine. The finished product just fits over a large drinking glass or inexpensive glass or plastic container, making a more interesting flower vase.

 
Cylinder Vase Cover I


Cylinder Vase Cover II

The second Vase Cover above is an abstract piece made with metallic organza, scrap red fabric, alpaca yarn on a piece of prefelt.

This next piece is a free form bowl shape made almost entirely from remnants and scraps laying on my table and floor. Sometimes I go into my sewing room at night and just want to work for an hour or so and just play with what ever fibers are laying around.  I took all the pieces of yarn and fabric and sandwiched them between bridal netting and then felted it. I also added some white gauze and felted again. Then I layered that piece on top of some metallic organza and felted again. The metallic organza give the piece an almost starched feeling and thus it has some form able body. I decided to try and sculpt in into something three dimensional. From the underside I began felting thin tucks around the bottom to form a rectangle base and then I felted short diagonal tucks in each corner to bring up the outer sides. This could just set on a table like a bowl or be hung on the wall in a group with other ones of varying sizes.