rosiepink

Giveaway of our new PDF tutorial! - "Creative Feltmaking"

We've released a new pdf tutorial for sale in our Etsy shop, and to celebrate we're giving away 3 copies!

Our new 142 page pdf 'Creative Feltmaking - Flat Wet Felting Tutorial For Beginners Plus 9 Fun Picture Projects' shows you step-by-step how to make your first piece of flat felt so you will be making felt in no time, and then you can have fun making the picture projects using your own favourite colours if you choose.

 

Find out more about the pdf in our Etsy shop

If you'd like to be in the draw, please leave a comment below (note: comments are moderated so they won't appear immediately).

Each comment will be allocated a number and we will use a random number generator to pick 3 winners.
The draw closes at midnight GMT on Monday 13th March 2023 and the winners will be announced on Tuesday 14th March.

Good luck in the draw :) Of course if you buy a copy in the meantime then win, we'll happily refund you!

We also have a paperback version available on Amazon:

   

Tree Inspired Art Yarns for Wet Feltmaking

Above: Art Yarn blending in with some twigs!

Annie

I’ve made some winter-into-spring, tree-inspired art yarn as my offering for the just-for-fun Q1 challenge over on the felting and fiber studio.

My yarn is purely for fun (it’s technically awful!) and for including in some wet felting at some point - it’s no good to knit with! It’s overspun and it’s messy & unbalanced (hmm, that sounds familiar!).

This quarter’s challenge is to find a tree that you like and depict it as it awakens in spring with buds/new leaves/blossom – it can be realistic or representational. It doesn't have to be a picture it can be anything textiles and fibre related e.g. weaving, felting, spinning, sewing etc.

I love love love making abstract tree pictures and will hopefully be doing many of them this year but for now I wanted to do something different so decided to spin some art yarn to represent what I saw in my garden - twiggy trees, some still very wintery, with frost, lichen & moss, some trees budding up and some really blooming like the witch hazel! I couldn’t choose a favourite so just went for "essence of tree".

There were lots of "sticky out bits" such as moss, lichen, buds, spurs etc, so I went for that as my theme. I thought that really really overspinning the fibre would make it coil and spring and stick up, and then adding chunks of cotton scrim fabrics and other bits would give extra texture & interest. These are some images I took for inspiration:

I couldn't make it quite as I'd like as I really need a wheel that can handle fat bonkers yarns but for now I have to force my little traditional wheel into submission as a new fancy one is really expensive, but firmly on my wish list!

So to start I made two batts - one twiggy coloured batt (grey, brown, blue, green - there are lots of colours in branches when you look close up) and a yellows based batt for the sticky-out bits like buds, and the sticky-on bits like lichen, with the plan to spin them, adding in bits as I go, then ply them together.  

I spun the twigs and branches first, adding a white fluffy yarn to autowrap for a short length as I thought that would represent some frost that keeps appearing still.

Then I spun the sticky-out-bits yarn - and added the yellow / green fabrics etc for lichen, moss etc.

Despite having a wheel for many years I’ve probably only spun a handful of full bobbins and plied about 2 of them! So I got in a right mess and decided to ply by hand and not on the wheel! Luckily I’m not interested in spinning technically good yarn I just want it to be fluffy and pretty!

For variation, I left a length unplied and plied the rest.

A new year of creative possibilities

Annie

Having moved house I've had a genuine reason for having a messy workspace for the last few months!  However, I now want to get on with some work so need at least one clear flat surface, some idea of where everything is, and what I have to work with. There is a lot to sort - bags of fibres, fabrics and other supplies, misc art materials, notebooks, sketchbooks, UFOs..... That's in addition to the 58 million or so inspiration photos I've taken (was life simpler before smart phones?!) plus the scramble of ideas lurking in all the corners of my imagination!

I feel like I'm now on a journey of rediscovery and I'm enjoying the process... emptying and sorting bit by bit all the boxes of crafting stuff into my new temporary work space (the spare bedroom!).  Although at one point earlier today, I was trapped at the far end of the room, surrounded by piles of fluff, fabrics, papers, threads and paints, wondering if perhaps I had accumulated too many things, then decided I just need a bigger room!

I've rediscovered all sorts of things, like the giant flowers picture I felted a couple of years ago (pictured above) just folded into a bag waiting for it's day to shine!  I haven't got a wall big enough for it here at the new house, so it may get a remodel in the form of taking the scissors to it, picking my favourite sections, and maybe adding stitching or painting..hmm.. not sure yet.  The many projects will have to form an (dis)orderly queue!

I'm looking forward to making plenty of new work this year, but also enjoying revisiting old work and mining for ideas there too, I think it's surprising how inspiring your old work and sketchbooks can be, those forgotten ideas can often spark new exciting work!