Something New ! Again !!

I seem to be moving in all different directions lately and exploring new things.  I'm having a fantastic time learning and developing new appreciations :) 

Here's another Altered Book i finished, i wanted to put some aussie flavour on this one , i do think there kinda strange but i'm enjoying playing around. 

 

Then i was looking around the web for more uses for Gesso and well, one thing let to another and i was hooked on abstract painting,  i really want to have a play around with that but in the mean time i found an excellent tutorial on painting so of course i had to have a go. One of the artist's that i was watching is Skye Taylor, he does some awesome work but also has lots of video's, with tips and ideas',  one of the main things he said ( that i heard) was  Dont be afraid !  so i wasnt and i jumped in lol

This is my first Ever painting and i'm very happy, i followed an online tutorial from Amy Pearson (herartintheattic.blogspot.com ) and i had so much fun ,  i'm looking forward to learning more and getting into some abstract work ( my favorite) so far    

 another favorite is Pete Dranitsin and i might even do his online art lessons,  i've painted another small one using one of his free online lessons but its not quite finished , i'm so loving it

so anyway, its onwards and upwards, things change, people change and i'm in the throws of trying to find whats best for me and having a lot of fun along the way.

New Year, New Work !!!

OOOO its been so long since i've posted, life, family, Christmas, Holidays did get in the way !!!

 

I've been working on something different these last couple of weeks and it all started with Ruths Challenge on our studio site on a daily dose of fiber, 

 http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2013/01/01/a-daily-dose-of-fiber-challenge/

 

Ruth wanted us to join in on this challenge for the first quarter and at first i laughed and thought , No Way can i do that lol   but it did get me thinking a lot and i knew i needed a change of pace. So i decided to play with some books, i've NEVER  been much into Altered Books but playing with these has changed my mind :)   I"m still playing with lots of fibre, as there made with, silk, silk paper, beads, threads, sari silks and ribbons, paint , paverpol, shima sticks, felt and other light weight materials. Basically anything i can get my hands on :)

 

I made a full post over on our studio site, which is here

http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/

 

 

So here are a few that i've made, i will only improve as i go along but i'm thoroughly enjoying the fact that i can have a few on the go at once, there all done in different stages so there's lots of drying time in between to work on another one so they do take a couple of days all up. 

 I'm having a Ball

 

 

 

this one is using, felt, light weight material, beads, shiva sticks, and lots of threads

 

This one is using paint and Tyvek, i wanted  to see how it melted down around the pages, i might have overdone it here but i think the tyvek will make great lace work or even cobwebs !

This one is using, paints,silk,  tyvek, threads, felt, angelina and light weight material

 



This one is paint, beads, silk and silk threads and shiva sticks

 

I used silk paper on the back of a couple and should have saved it for the front, i love the effect

 

So thats what i've been working on and i have to say thanks Ruth for the challenge, i'll be keeping this going all year, not just for the quarter  !!!!!! 

New Covers

 

New Journal covers and making them inside out !!!!

I blogged about this over on the www.feltingandfiberstudio.com  and all the silly mistakes i made, getting confused with the inside outside and right way round

 

First layout of hand spun yarn and silk threads

 

I did put white on top instead of on the inside and this green was supposed to be on the outside under the threads

 

then this was supposed to be the inside of the cover as you opened it up

 

 

but silly me got really confused and ended up with the white on the outside, and now of course you cant see the other colors at all !!!!

 

I couldnt believe how i did that but i kind of like it anyway so its not all lost lol

 

Next one with silk threads and sari ribbon

 

i cheated this time and used the same fiber all over, thinking i was clever :)

 

Then i forgot which side to cut and almost cut the wrong side, its quite hard to remember where your thread side is once its all covered in other fiber

 

But i guess they turned out ok, although a little wonky but   I'm on a mission now to get this journal cover making down patt, if its the last thing i do lol

 

I did have fun though so Happy Felting to You :)

 

 

My First Nuno Felt

I finally did it, my first nuno felt and i made a little vest for my Granddaughter Charlie, I did blog about it here
http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/


But !!!!!
So this is my first nuno one and although its far from perfect i'm happy to have had a go and looking forward to trying again

I used Merino and BFL along with lots of silk, silk threads & sari ribbons

 

 Thought i might have over done the bits and pieces at first, and i did add a bit to much fiber on top because i wanted it a bit more wrinkly than what it came out, but thats ok '

 

This is after throwing it about 100 times, it did shrink a lot

 

Cutting it up and adding beads, blanket stitching all the edges and all had to be done by hand as i dont have a machine anymore , and i know its just plain and simple but its the first one lol

 

Of course i did cut a pattern from one of her tops but i should have made the front sides a bit larger, she's still only little but she seems to be filling out nicely, love the double chin lol 

Its not going to fit her for long but i'm still happy with the way it turn out and learning by my mistakes is half the fun  !!

Happy Felting !!!

Finished Book Cover

Well i finally finished my book cover, i just added a few clusters of beads and i'm pretty happy with the end result. Normally when i add beads to things i have this thing that i need to make them nice and even and really symetrical and thats what always stops me and ends up giving me so much grief. This time i decided not to fuss and just start adding willy nilly sort of.   I kind of just picked up certain colors and beads, dropped and spread em and then stitched in place. Sooo much easier and a lot less stress than trying to get them all perfect and patterny :)  I dont even think it needs any fancy stitches. I havent fixed on a closure for this one and i dont think i will but i'll sit on it for a while and see !

 

A little close up of the bottom part and i dont think it needed any more than this,  I really like the colors of the fibre as well !

 

And now i'm a Happy Camper :)

New Book Cover

 

 

 

I've been working on another book cover, this one i added a whole piece of silk to the front, you can see where it didnt quite felt in but thats ok as i'm going to add stitching and beads to this one, It actually fit the book to so i was pleased as punch with that.

 

 

Front of course

 

Just to give an idea of the texture, i love it

 

                                                                             Inside right

 

Inside left

 

and back cover, its a little darker than what this shows up

 

I'm also making a small purse for my camera but its giving me a bit of grief so i'll keep working on that.

To let everyone know as well, i've been trying to add comments to some blogs and that word verification just wont let me, Heathers in fine but not the rest. I've unchecked the sign in box as last time that was the problem but it still wont let me add comments and i give up after around 8 goes :)

 

Happy Felting xo

My Week

Hi Everyone, I just put this post on the forum so thought i'd put it here to,  I tried to get in some felting this week, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I would have liked but at least I managed a few things, We had such a beautiful sunny day the other day that I felt like felting some flowers

I had a fair bit of trouble with the first smaller one getting the stem attached, it took me an episode of NCIS of rubbing and squishing with lots of soap to actually get the flower head and stem firmly attached. Then with the larger one I decided to do the stem and large flower as a whole which seemed to work so much better, I also made another smaller flower head and inserted it in the centre by needle felting it together, there both pretty strong now and I’m fairly happy though I know I can do better.

 

 

 

 

 

I really wanted to make a vessel of some sort to so off I started again, I cut a resist and was thinking I’d do an enclosed one and then cut and see whats underneath, mmmmm first of all the shape was all wrong again, it was more bag shape than vessel shaped, well to me anyway

I wasn’t really sure how many layers to do so I started with 3 layers of white Romney, ( sorry I forgot to take a pic of that part) then added a layer of purple BFL –merino

 

Then a layer of redy, it looks more pink in the pic but its redy orange really

 

 

Then the final layer of more red and lots of sari silk, threads and nylon

 

5 layers in total and its already super strong and nice and thick.

So now I didn’t much like it as a vessel, as I said the shape is wrong and I’ve already cut the top off and tried to get it in the shape I want but of course it just wanted to look more like a sack than anything else :) and once again I didn’t take a pic of trying to get that shape, so after much bravery I cut more and more and now I’ve ended up with what will be a small bag but Ill have to make a new handle and mess around with it way more than I wanted. Having said that I’m really enjoying playing around with it and we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out. Don’t be shocked but this is what I have to play with now and I do have more of an idea of what the finished piece will look like but it’ll take me a couple more days to finished it off

 

 

 

The flap isn’t going to stay that shape this is just as far as I’ve got with it right now and I’m going to add some leather ( i think) and generally mess around with it.

So thats it so far, next week i wont have anything in my house, not even the kitchen sink so it might be a couple of weeks before i can get into anymore felting. hope your all having a fun week. Happy Felting xo

 

 

Inspired by Heather W

Hi everyone, i just put a new post up on the forum with my latest pieces inspired by Heather @ Woollove-functional fiber

 

I love the way Heather made her new journal covers, all in one piece and not stitched together so had to have a go.  Yes i made a few mistakes but im still very happy with how they turned out, especially this first one, not so much the second one :)

 

I added in a slim resist to make a pen pocket , you can just see the plastic sticking out of the center top ( i thought that was clever) and a way to always have a pen with the note book, also some tribute orange  ( her favorite color) :)

 

 

I cut a piece of leather and used the inside of it for the closure ( the right side is brown and i wanted the orange ) with a toggle for the button

 

 

I loved this one at this stage but after it was dry there just not my colors, my daughter loved it so its hers now.  Again another resist for a pen pocket which works really well

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankyou for the inspiration Heather,  i loved making these and plan on making more and perfecting more :)

http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2012/08/30/inspired-by-heather/

 

Heathers blog

http://woollove-functional-fiberart.blogspot.com.au/

 

Re-doing this blog

I'm having to re-do this blog as i was hijacked and all my pictures gone,  so far its taken me almost the whole day to get done what i have,  re-loading pics ect in every single post :(   not a happy girl )

So excuse the mess right now as i've decided to re-do everything including a new banner, but i havent got the right size yet. 

I'm also going to learn to back up everything !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Help Please

I'm having so many problems with this blog and im not sure how to fix it.  I was hoping someone would be able to lend a hand,  this blog keeps going straight to some other web ring and its driving me banana's.
I dont know why its doing it and i'm not sure how to contact blogger to find a solution, I'm ready to delete the whole thing and start again but in truth that would be horrendous lol 
Does anyone have any ideas of either what i've done or whats been done on my blog,
I appreciate any advise you can give
Thanks karen xo

Book Give-Away

Over on the felting studio Ruth is giving away a signed copy of her new book.  I can tell you this is a brilliant book jamed packed full of informatiom, tip and ideas.  She shows lots of different breeds of fleece and what there best used for with some great samples of how they felted.  Theres projects for wet , nuno & resist felting plus needle felting by hand and machine. Over 800 color photos is this gorgeous big book so  if you'd like a chance to win one  then hop on over to the studio and all you have to do is leave a comment then check back to see if your the lucky winner !!!

http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2012/08/16/win-the-complete-photo-guide-to-felting/

Where have i been

Hello Everyone

I just did a blog post on our studio site but thought i'd put it here to

I thought it was about time I explained my absence and whats been happening in my life over  the last few months.

I started out with my Father In-law very sick in hospital for a month and everyone thinking that he wasn’t going to come out,  Happy to say he’s well again, home and at 86yrs young hes back at work lol  loves his job and not quite ready to finish up yet.

Then we had a huge flood in our house and imagine all this water inside as well as outside

I had to call the ses for help and they promptly dug up our back yard to fill sand bags to put at all the openings in the hope of stopping the water. It did work but what a mess, this pic was taken a few hours after the storm and most of the water had gone, we had a months worth of rain in one afternoon.

Then both hubby and I ended up with a very bad flu, I think that was because we waddled in this water and a deluge of rain for hours, freezing cold to so we ended up pretty sick.  In fact that nasty flu found it way to so many people down here, it wasn’t nice and to top that off we then had a strain of gastro that was worse lol  Were healthy now and I personally plan on staying that way.

The insurance is just coming through now so were in the middle of packing up the whole downstairs of our house in order to have new flooring, were going for polished concrete this time and in case we ever flood again then it’s a matter of mopping up instead of ripping up floating  floors and vinyl. My craft room is downstairs to but I saved just about everything in there and now its being packed away till the floors are done and I’m so looking forward to re- organizing my room again and starting fresh.  I’ll be like a brand new room so no excuse for me not to have it organized properly

I had to stop everything and then I think we get ourselves into a mind meltdown and find it hard to come back from. I’m very happy to say that im getting back into the right frame of mind and cant wait to start working with some wool again.

Ruths new book came and Its fantastic,  im enjoying reading through it and very eager to get my room all set back up and unpack supplies. I really needed the inspiration so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Its a Gorgeous  book jam packed with lots of information, projects and over 800 color photo's. Well done Ruth !!!!
  

I have so much to catch up on and looking forward to seeing what everyone has been doing while I’ve been gone.

For now I’ll leave you with a pic of the one little person who keeps  us all going with her happy little smile and squeals of delight. At 7 months old now my Granddaughter Charlie is the happiest little  girl ever and cant you tell that she's well looked after with those bright chubby cheeks :)  

Happy Felting Everyone xoxo

Something Different !!

Well i havent been able to do anything for a while now due to Father In-law being in hospital ( hes finally on the mend and at home) so things can settle down a bit now and we can get back to some normality
So having said that this week at the resort i manage we had a lady ( Dianne) staying for the week who came down to teach workshops in Paverpol Dolls, and since i havent done anything for what seems like ages and i'd never seen them before i couldnt wait to do a class with her, good or bad move i'm not sure yet as i think i'm hooked lol  I love them
Ive made these 2 dolls using an electrical wire amateur, wrapped in skin, dressed and coating them in paverpol, they set very firm so once possed they'll stay that way, i'm already starting another one tonight and because i havent been able to do much lately i had so much fun with this workshop


This green girl was the first one and i really like her although i think she's a bit on skinny side

This one is bit more solid and i made a little bunch of flowers for her to hold out of the silk paper that i made the other week

I know its not felting but i thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing , Thanks Dianne for giving me something else to obsess about  lol