Fantastic Felting, Family and Friends

        So,...everybody is getting involved!

        
       Initially I mentioned that my son Isaac and his dear Mary gave me my  first needle felting kit. Mary is a needle felter as well and has shared amazing sites with me as we both learn this limitless craft. I have also shared my new interest with a dear friend that I visited early in the new year. More recently Elaine and Bob, her one-of-a-kind husband of over 30 years, returned the visit. 

Well,...her two-of-a-kind husband..meet Bob and Mini-Bob!

     
       All of the above recently convened at the home of my eldest son, Matt and his kind partner and unanimously acclaimed "hostess with the mostest" Swantje. 

       Add to this lovely mix my very youngest, Seth and my hard working hubby Mike and you have the makings of a  very merry, well needed and well overdue reunion of my very favorite souls. ( Not withstanding the forevermore stated and bittersweet absence of Sarah and Robin and Sadie, my own "hearts" beating outside of my body and this this province. ) 

 Elaine and I "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." 

  

       These are the people who love me despite my shortcomings and are always armed and ready with good advice kind encouragement and an enthusiasm for all of the creative things  do. The other thing they're very vocal about is wanting me to "get out there" and showcase my talents. 

       They have wonderful creative ideas about display, location, Internet promotion and sales. I wish there were 10 of me to carry out the plans they made for me during numerous and very lively "brainstorms". We talked about making a "diorama" of sorts, a marketing fixture to set the scene for new pieces. We spoke about  nativity sets, mobiles featuring several pieces,  there was even talk of marketing voodoo spouses when they passed around "Mini-Bob" and became inspired.  

       As discussion turned to the humor and caricature  of some of my work then we mused about venues that would promote pieces with whimsy and "flavor".  ( It may backfire on them if I revisit these plans and delegate and enlist their help.)
       

A Monkey mobile i found online.

     

        My personal pep squad has continued to rally behind me into the week as  I shared coffee with Mary and Isaac. Mary showed me her work, which was awesome!  I hope she will create pictures of her sweet masterpieces to feature in a future blog.  
        We peeked at some websites, my favourite of which featured  Gretel Parker an amazing illustrator and artist talented.

 
http://allaroundus.blogspot.com  

       After coffee they took me on a mission to discover what's out there in Halifax. We visited  two places to inspire in our chilly downtown.


"The Loop Craft Cafe"
 - http://www.theloophalifax.ca  

Samples of felting at a "Loop" event.

   

and "Argyle Fine Art".

   - http://www.argylefineart.com

       A wonderful adventure and continued support from the clan, I am truly blessed! I am taking sometime to fill a commission in papier mache, but after that I would like to do a pictorial blog of a felting project from start to finish. I'll be blogging again soon!

A "Needling" Desire to Felt

       Go ahead, ask me how much fun I'm having.
      I have been wallowing in woolies since Christmas and the learning curve is skyrocketing straight up! The first sculptural pieces were very well received at the "Crafter's Room" as 75% of what was added to inventory had snuggled themselves into new hands only three days later. You can look into the sweetest owly eyes below and see why! Just look at that face...

        When they were submitted last Thursday I took  most of the day to tweak them. Apparently, I live in a dank dark garret of a place and the lighting in my workspace is sorely lacking. Seeing them in bright commercial lighting, it seemed every piece needed a little something before they seemed finished! (..fluorescent lights are now prominently placed on my wish list.) 

         When everyone finally passed muster they were tagged and put out for display and some shots of them were obtained as they beamed from their new habitat around the shop. We've been blessed with some new pottery pieces and my coasters found a place with some lovely mugs and cups. I couldn't resist color-matching some coasters with the display.

     The fellows below have all gone to new homes. The buyer scolded me for underpricing the pieces. What a struggle it is trying to summon the ego to put a value on things! 

        I did do the research and pieces similar to these were price at at least triple what I had decided and in truth, the time invested even at "minimum" would be worth three times more.      

   It is pleasure, far more than work but I need a business partner to do this visceral nasty pricing and promoting stuff. I just want to keep boogie-board along on the racing tide of creative "juice" that this medium inspires. See you again when the next batch of cuties are ready to upload from my photo files!

"Wool Ewe Look at These" - Felting Fever

      Oh boy, oh boy. oh boy!  I'm so jazzed by all of this woolly madness! I hope those of you who suffer through my rantings are even half as excited as I am. On first blush and still  eagerly learning, I am so excited about the variety and breadth of this new found skill and all it entails. I have enjoyed so many different art forms and tried my hand at so many materials but I have to say that this is pure joy.  I need sheep or a shepherd that wants to share fleece!  I want to wallow in wool, utterly can't get enough. ( If you're ready to send me to a padded room just make it fleece lined and I'll occupy myself into eternity!

      I am thrilled at how quickly things come together. Productivity is not my strong suit yet, in four days I've made 11 new things. Wanna see???

      These are coasters,...a set that will likely find their way to "The Crafter's Room" where I volunteer as a creative and charismatic shopkeep on Thursdays.

           
      Here are two individual ones. I'm guessing you can tell they were my first attempts.

      Today again, I had oodles of fun with Koolaid and rovings. Marvelous!  In trying to stretch my options, I managed to "brew" nearly a dozen colors. By mixing the a little of this and a little of that, then playing with the timing I achieved pastels as well as deep rich shades.  I dissolved the colors in mason jars with warm water then nuked them in two minute intervals. ( The wool can actually boil in there as long as you don't handle it or agitate it. ) The sources I read said to let it rest a bit afterward and the water in the jar will actually clear because the wool slurps up every bit of color! After it rests I just lift them out of the "dye and drop them in a bowl of water to rinse. Wow,  was I satisfied with the outcomes!




      The new colors prompted me to sort a bit before adding them to the basket. There were some odd bits that challenged  me, daring me to create anything from seemingly useless little bits. but  a bunch of the merest scraps made three "woolly eggs". and a "nest" to put them in. 


     
      My browser has giving me grief, and I couldn't post for a couple of days. In that time, these furry fellow debuted on Facebook in a new photo album called  "Wool Ewe Look at These?"  It seemed only right that one of  my first sculptures should  be a sheep, I felt my way through, ( yes, pun intended..) and came up with this fuzzy critter!



       
      The day after I made her barnyard buddy. I think I should add a mane or a "brush'.  I guess I should have executed a little research first  but felting is so forgiving that I can add it after I've completed jackass anatomy 101.  I'm just having so much fun that I can't put it down.  It pains me to relate that I have commissions to fill that need my attention. You can be sure though that as soon as possible I'll be  pluggin' away and update when a new batch of goodies are ready to post for your perusal. I thoroughly advise everyone in the meantime to  invest in some supplies, Google some tutorials and give it a try!

Felting free-for-all.

 

 

      The fun continues! Long overdue, I visited a very good friend this past weekend. Elaine is also an artist and also in every media you can imagine. I think the thing that binds us other than our 35 years of laughter and tears and yummy food and wine, is the creative longing in each of us and our love of exploring the next new thing. She is probably the most "travelled" of the two of us in terms of researching and then executing new techniques, new media, new materials. The "longing" part comes with the frustrating desire that even if there we ten of us we would never have time to do ALL the things we want to do...
   
      Home again, This morning I wrestled with my camera and computer to again enable the access to my own photos for the blog,...and SUCCESS!! Without further ado, I want to share the few little things I've created with this new and exciting medium. First off, to exercise my pokey fingers, I endeavored to embellish,..and mend an old lambswool sweater...the bigger bits like the hearts are repairing little holes. This sweater is the warmest ever and its great to have it patched up and cozy again...

When I finished I got wild and crazy and dyed raw wool included in the kit with various colors of sugarless Koolaid powder...an awesome experience as the wool slurped up every bit of the color and left clear water in the jar it soaked in. Just look at these colors,..in the absence of yellow Koolaid, I went digging in the pantry and tried turmeric..it made an awesome rich color.

                   

       After the excitement of having the wools turn out so well in their newly acquired awesome hues,I wanted to splash all that color on something. My closet has a stash of varied and sundry resources I keep just in case an inspiration comes along and I dug out some 12" squares of a blanket I had cut for blotting handmade paper back in the spring.  I just experimented with a kind of "hit and miss" needling of my colorful fleece on the pieces of blanket.  I 'm aiming for a colorful clutch purse...and here is what i have so far:

I'm trying to decide what to do with the closing flap...

      The next fun exercise was to try and sculpt. Bear in mind I have no clue what I'm doing. It's a wing and prayer. The next fun exercise was to try and sculpt. and after multiple stabbing and fleece springing everywhere, I made this little guy...who looks like a headless soccer player in this picture....      

      

Ichabod Feltman..

And now, although still incomplete, he presents himself as a dapper bucolic type who may acquire yet...some hair and a nice hat, some boots and horse or a little burro,..maybe a cow or something??...Time will tell!

 Has his head on straight but can't find his hat and boots..

       I will spend sometime learning the ropes. Since I'm literally just taking a stab at this, I promise that in my next blog I will collect some useful instructional sites and share them along with new pictures of these projects and whatever comes next...Happy trails folks!!!

Felting Fun in the New Year

     

      Happy new year to all!  It's been a stretch. I've been experiencing technical difficulties,...every manner and description of them and I'm still struggling. Our computer "crashed" literally and figuratively and this borrowed one needs getting used to....The formatting was entirely discombobulated and I couldn't add pictures to blogs or change the color or size of fonts. ( or spellcheck, so forgive me if I've erred and strayed like lost sheep. ) But so everyone will know I'm still alive I vowed to send out a blog in its simplest "text only" form. Just now I've worked out some of the glitches, I've embellished with samples from the net this and  have reposted.

      December and the Christmas season have blown through on gale force winds here on the coast, all and all a tumultuous blustery blurr. but in its wake, a new adventure!

      Until Isaac's significant other, Mary, showed me some samples she had been working on, I had never heard of wool felting. In retrospect I have seen products in local crafter's markets but never questioned the manner of their creation...
    

My own koolaid dyed batch of rovings

The young folks blessed me with a beginners needle felting kit with a pound of raw wool,  two very sharp felting needles and a sponge to use to protect myself from inevitable stabbings. When I took time to familiarize myself my imagination exploded like the fireworks that lit up our the sky over our harbour on New Year's Eve..

      The possibilities! There are sculptural possibilities, clothing possibilities, decor possibilities "painting" possibilities. It boggles the mind. When I googled the craft on-line I nearly short circuited from data overload. Various techniques include: wet felting, needle felting and nuno felting.The raw materials and tools are simple with a huge opportunity for recycling. Raw and carded animal fibers like sheep, llama, alpaca,..( even your dog and cat...with some limitations. ) Pieces of manufactured  skeined wools and woolen fabrics. Better still a run through your closet or the nearest "Frenchies" for old sweaters, blankets, old melton coats and hats, socks, mitts, scarves...you get the picture.

      
      I'm in the learning stages of course...but so far I've embellished an old sweater,..sculpted a perfectly amazing ball, made a tiny man whom I need to "dress" and resurfaced a section of an old army blanket which I've formed into a clutch purse...

      My synapses are firing, my adrenalin is bursting at the seams and creative juices could fill an industrial dye vat... ( Oh, wow! Dying the raw wool that came in my kit, that was a whole other adventure. I've discovered, so far, the miraculous properties of Kool aid, onion skins, turmeric and beets. Only the beginning I'm sure!! )

     

So, for now, remember me as I endeavour to fix this spastic heap of technology and bend it to my will so I can carry on creating and sharing my own photos of my work in this new and promising year!