Sunday, February 19, 2012

Something new !


Well I’m getting into my Mixed Media Course with Victoria and I’m loving it.  Our first week was creating a book page but I did mine on a canvas, I’ll be working on either canvas’s or calico during the whole course, I will play around with making a book to but really want to create separate pieces.  In the first part we had to go foraging for flowers and leaves, use paints and dyes. So on this canvas I used some left over dyes just poured on and moved around, it was a bit pale so I went over it with some watered down paints, just for the background.  I pressed flowers and leaves for a week and the added them in.  The theme was nest’s using paint , stitch and flowers. I couched down some of my hand made yarn for the branches and then added her thread salad stitch for the nest.  Glued down the flowers and leaves and added a couple of egg shaped beads for the eggs.  I really pleased with the results although I’m not sure I have the whole composition exactly right, but I still love it .



Then I was just playing around and my daughter is totally into drawing right now and her favorite artist is Tim Burton ( she’s 16) and she loves him lol 
One of her drawings I totally fell in love with and asked her to draw one for me so I could stitch it.  Its not perfect but it was definitely  a lot of fun



I’m almost finished last weeks TAST with the lasy daisy stitch, I just have to embroidery the name



Doing Victoria’s course is really opening my eyes to so many more possibilities and I’m  looking forward to including what I learn in some felt pieces.
Would love to hear what your all working on this week and if you haven’t yet joined our interactive forum
http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/index.cgi?
 
What are you waiting for !!!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Making a purse

I'm having to re-do each and every single post on this blog because i was hijacked by someone and everything dissapeared,  so some of the pics might not be in exactly the same place as they were, sorry but its already taken me hours of work and i am missing some of the pics, i'm also trying to remember what pic went where, fun times lol

Well i tried my hand again at making a little purse.   I used BFL for the main background then added in threads, silks, merino/silks and rainbow nylon. Its a bit thin in spots ( i still cant seem to get it nice and even) and i did only use 2 layers to this as was small

 So i have a couple of problems, or questions really

 Sorry this could be a bit long winded

My first problem is in the layout, i cut a resist of bubble wrap and started on the back. I know a lot of people use resists and then cut the felt later to open it up , i'm wondering if that might be easier ? 
i know its a bit fluffy but this is the back of the purse , the resist is underneath and cut at the top to create a curved flap and its here im already thinking, if i get this back how i like it and then turn it over , the fibres from the front are going to wrap around and sit on top of these fibres here,  right, so if this was perfectly how i wanted it right now at this stage , how do you get around that.
                                             



So the back is now wet and had a little rub, i actually love how this is turning out though !  


I've turned it over and added the fibre to the bottom half, on top of the resist ( didnt think to take a pic first) and started just lightly rubbing to hold in place, then of course its lots more rubbing and a few rolls and more rubbing rubbing & rubbing, i was a little scared to roll to much as thats when it really started to shrink up and go a bit wonky, i was stopping a lot and reshaping but the opening  length always goes a little wonky and the corners are never right



The top corner bits from the underneath never seem to get super strong



and i had to add more fibres to this side to, to hide the fact that the fibres from the back wrap around to this side and you could see the difference, although slight, in how it was placed. Can you tell why i wanted to make a smaaaaalllllll purse lol  
So this is inside ( of course)



And this is the back with the front folded down. I'd like to line it with something nice and add lots of stitches and beads and maybe use it for a make up purse or put it away and never touch it again lol


I will finish it to see how looks all lined and embellish but i just wanted other opinions on how to get all of the above perfect !!!!
I'll have to keep practising as i really would love to make myself and nice big bag, but if i cant get something this small right then, what hope have i got  haha Its back to the felting board !!