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Book Review: First Time Felting by Ruth Lane

Ruth Lane has already published a successful felting book 'The Complete Photo Guide to Felting'.  It's a well-written comprehensive guide to felting and the text is supported by over 800 photos.

'First Time Felting' by Ruth Lane is a compilation of all the essential information from 'The Complete Photo Guide to Felting' and is aimed at absolute beginners that just want to start felting with minimal outlay on materials and equipment.

'First Time Felting' is well presented with uncluttered pages, making the text and photos easy to read and understand. The book covers Needle, Wet and Nuno Felting and the projects in the book are achievable by absolute beginners.

It is available in the UK here or in the US here.

Playing, Sketching, Experimenting

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Using shells as inspiration for a felt experiment

Annie

We had a blissful few days in Cornwall recently at a lovely quiet hotel right by a secluded beach.

I don't like hot sunny weather, I prefer colder days often with a nice drop of rain. Cosy!  So I was delighted when we only had one sunny day and the other two were overcast and a bit rainy - perfect for my favourite pastime of wandering up and down the beach picking up and putting down every shell and pebble and interesting bit of string or other debris!

That is my happy place.  A few hours on my own, just the sound of the waves and a treasure trove of bits n bobs from the sea.

I found there was a huge patch of these shells

I'm not sure what they are but there were lots of sizes and interesting colours.  Many of them had been worn away creating interesting wobbly circular shapes.  I have to admit I stole a few but I will set them free one day back to the beach.

Circles are one of my favourite motifs in design, and a wobbly, slightly oval one adds a bit of interest.

I decided to make a sample to capture the moment so I can stick it on my pinboard for future reference.  So many of my ideas and photos go unrealised so I'm pleased I did this one, I think it has potential.  Well, not necessarily as it is but I like some of the passages in it.  Also during the making I realised I like it better for various reasons at different stages.

I made it from a fine base of merino fibres then used layers of circles cut from scrim for the first layer then fine prefelts for the rest of the layers.  As always, no idea when to stop so I got layering happy.

The effect was different with every layer.

I also like to crop pieces in several ways to find new compositions:

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While I had the prefelts out I decided to make another piece of felt this time for trying out a new piece of fabric (an old top!) and also to have another piece to cut up to use for making cards or small pictures. I realised halfway through that it was unintentionally looking a little bit like a harbour - must have had images on my brain from Cornwall!  I like the white thread and the bubbly fabric:

I love to get the view finders out and crop pieces out as they always seem more interesting than the bigger piece.  Unplanned passages that become something completely new.

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As well as "sketching" with felt I'm also rediscovering the joy of sketching both on the sewing machine and with pens in a sketchbook.  I seem to go in phases with this but it is something that I know to be valuable to both my sanity and my creative process.  

Just some quick 5-10 minute machine stitched sketches can really set me up for the day...

Or a half hour doodle with felt tips.  The escape is a joy.

I'm fiddling about with small things at the moment partly because my table is covered in this 120cm x 120cm "thing":

I had been wanting to try a massive piece of felt for a while, so back in June I laid out a white square then over a few days added some colours and some yarn thinking that a splotchy background would be easier to work into than a big blank white "page".  However, I keep changing my mind about what to "draw" so it's just been sat there, in the way! I started off with the thought of a big messy vase of flowers but since then I've imagined up all sorts of other things, mainly just big patterns with random geometric shapes in all sorts of colourways.  One day it will happen, but for now it's like a roundabout in the middle of my workroom!

 

Felt & Stitched Sketch of Tower Bridge

Lyn

I wanted to make an abstract background for 'Tower Bridge', shown above, and as I have a large box of handmade felt off-cuts and experimental samples, I chose a piece that I thought would be suitable colours.  

I had made this sample with base layers of royal blue merino wool fibres then randomly placed pieces of open-weave fabric and rectangles of felt off-cuts on top.  After a bit of felting I added orange stitches using tapestry wool then carried on with the fulling.  I liked the texture and colour blends but it was just a bit of fun and it was consigned to 'the box'.

I used a rotary cutter to cut the sample into small rectangles then played around with the placement of them. 

I wanted to achieve a background reminiscent of tall buildings, lights, sky and water.

I made four fine layers of white merino wool fibres then placed the cut rectangles on top - I changed the arrangement as I worked.  The whole lot was then felted together.  The finished felt and stitch sketch is approx 23 x 15cm (9"x 6").

 

This angled shot shows the lovely texture.

 

The third quarter challenge on The Felting and Fiber Forum is 'cityscapes' - please go on over to have a look and perhaps consider entering the challenge - doesn't matter if you're a beginner or a pro - just have a go!  Membership of the Forum is free and it's easy to join.

 

More Experimental Fibre Layout for Wet Felting - Seascape

Cropped section of experimental piece of felt

Annie

Continuing on from the last post here is the second piece I made by laying out fairly sparse fibres, threads and fabrics, skipping the more traditional perpendicular base layers.

This one I laid out with the intention of looking like a seascape to fit in with this quarters challenge ("Seascapes").  Here it is as a whole piece, approx 50cm x 55cm (20in x 22in):

But I like it cropped into smaller pieces:

I also quite like it whole but with the edges cropped, although it is maybe a bit "busy" with not enough areas of plain colour to give it breathing space:

I had intended to keep the layout really sparse but I got carried away.  Here is how is started and ended:

Still, have got plenty of scope left for more experiments with this technique.  Definitely time for some flowery pieces! :)

Lyn

I really enjoyed making my seascape "Waiting for the Surf" ...

... and in it's frame ...

... and a close-up of the surf.

I made this seascape for the second quarter challenge on the Felting and Fiber Forum so if you'd like to see it from 'inspiration to completion', please pop on over through the link.
 

 

Experimental Fibre Layout for Wet Felting

Above: Experimental Fibre Layout

Annie

A while ago I made a tiny sample of "barely there" felt from a few wisps of fibres and some threads and yarns.  It's only approx 12cm x 17cm (5in x 7in) and I pinned it on my board for future reference:

This structure of fibres would only really be useful for artwork as it's so delicate, but that's mostly what I like to do anyway. I found it quite interesting so I decided to have another play with this way of laying out fibres, only a bit bigger. It's quite similar to the work I'm doing with puffing out and felting batts, skipping the laying out of perpendicular base layers as you might in the traditional fashion. This also uses lots of extra bits like fabrics and threads.

I've made two pieces so far, both of which ended up more substantial than I had planned but will be making some more to try out various structures of threads and fibres to see what works. That's the trouble with feltmaking - I find that I start off with one idea in mind then end up doing something else!

Anyway, this one started out as a seascape because I had the forum quarterly challenge ("Seascapes") in mind but actually reminds me of when you look up through the trees towards the sky:

Here it is while it was still wet:

It is approx 40cm x 40cm (16in x 16in).  It didn't change or open up as much as I thought it would during felting despite laying down the fibres quite sparsely. I think I put down more fibres than in my original sample. I made the sample ages ago though so it's hard to remember exactly what I did.

Some cropped out sections of the bigger piece look quite interesting. They become seascapes, landscapes, or just colourful abstracts.  These 2 cropped pieces I think do look like seascapes...

...but it's satisfying how you can see different passages as different things as you move a viewfinder around over the surface of the felt.

The second piece I've made is a slightly bigger piece and is more seascape-y. I'll post it in a couple of days as I'm aware this is getting long and rambly already!

I'm going to have a go at a few more too. I think I'm going to have to do one of a meadow or a vase of flowers. I'd like to go bigger too. I also think it needs some experimenting with paint and stitching. This felt would possibly make interesting prefelt if cut up into shapes too. Hmmmmm..... :)

How to string felt beads, make a double sliding knot, and a few ideas

Update to this blog post: Aug 2024

Thank you for visiting our blog.  This tutorial has been on our blog for several years but we have now moved it to Etsy to join some of our other tutorials. Please take a look here:

Link to Our Etsy Shop

How to do Simple Embroidery on Felt Beads

Update to this blog post: Aug 2024

Thank you for visiting our blog.  This tutorial has been on our blog for several years but we have now moved it to Etsy to join some of our other tutorials. Please take a look here:

Link to Our Etsy Shop

Sketching with fibres and fabrics

Above: Fun with making & felting carded batts

Annie

Hello.  Anyone know where the first 3 months of the year went?  I appear to have lost them somewhere!  Hope you are all having a lovely and creative year so far. 

Life has been busy, busy, busy (mostly in a good way so I'm not complaining!) so when it comes to getting big creative work done I'm not finding enough time at the moment.  Am planning to change that but in the meantime I've just been doing things in small, easy doses and simply enjoying the process of "sketching" with fibres and fabrics etc.  Not planned pieces, just whatever comes. Same as you might doodle in a sketchbook with paints or pens. No pressure. Feels nice :) Here I'm sharing some of my landscape "sketches" that I've been playing with recently, in keeping with the Forum First Quarter Challenge.

Sometimes I find it can be frustrating trying to work fast and loose with textiles because it can be hard to get immediacy and spontaneity if you have to stop to make a piece of prefelt in the right colour, spin a piece of yarn or dye a piece of fabric, so I decided to do some work using an embellisher machine because that does give some immediacy to the process. I started by taking an old piece of handmade felt and laying down some random (repurposed) fabrics. I really didn't like what I had created but using my trusty view finder I found a small section that I did like, and it seemed to work both ways up which was interesting!:

I decided to have another go and this time this piece is showing more potential, albeit an experiment. I didn't have quite the right mustard colour but used what I had (an old jumper that had seen it's way into the fabric box) and felted that in, it worked well! This is the work in progress:

I like it as it is but it's a bit plain so I think it is a candidate for some experimental painting and stitching :) I rediscovered some paint experiments I did a while back and want to have another go. It's only a small piece approx 28cm x 23cm so it might be worth making a bigger one as well to have more room to work.

I also really like the back of this one. It's got a freedom about it and I especially like the way the embellisher pushes up loops of fabric. I do quite often like the back of pieces of felt!

I also chopped up some scraps of felt and made some wet felted samples. These came out a bit 'cartoony' as I outlined in black and white thread (forgot the lines would wiggle when felted, doh!) and kept the colours flat. Except for the square of fabric in the sky which I think was the most successful part of the pictures. When I felted these 4 they were very close together and a few bits attached so they were partially joined together. I snipped them apart but that's another discovery that could be quite interesting to attempt intentionally. It's all learning time :)

Another thing I've been playing with is my drum carder to mix up colours to make some interesting, very thin, prefelts to cut up and use in further works. So far I've felted two batts and I really like the results. It's very fragile felt because the fibres are running the same way in many places where I just sort of pushed and pulled it about to lay it out, and I have only lightly fulled it. It's very thin and has holes in places and is thicker in other places. It will either make interesting prefelt for inlays or will fall apart when I use it :)

I've carded two more, 1 using pinks and 1 using some more blues:

It got me thinking that I'd like to make a really big piece with this method and keep it as a big finished piece - maybe a landscape, but maybe just an abstract colourful thing depending on how it goes. It would also need some way of mounting as it's quite fragile. I'll do another post about that at some point as things progress. I have reconfigured my work space so I can make a 1 metre square piece. Wish me luck, it's got disaster written all over it! :)

Happy New Year! Getting Organised.

Some of my new pinboards with various samples pinned on

By Annie

Happy New Year!  Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.

I don't really make New Year resolutions but this year I am definitely going to attempt to get more done creatively and make it a priority. Part of that is making sure my environment is more conducive to creativity. For me that involves being able to see everything but also having everything tidy enough to have mental breathing space and also space to work! I'm practising tidying up after myself and not letting the end of each task remain on the desk but back where it belongs.

I'm midway through a partial reorganisation of my creative space and it feels pretty good. I can see my entire sewing desk now, but it still feels like an inspiring place. I've chucked out some things that I decided were not "sparking joy" anymore (channeling my inner Marie Kondo!) and my favourite thing is that I've finally resolved my handmade felt "sketchbook" issue.

For ages I've been trying to figure out how best to organise my samples & experiments so they are useful and not just left in random boxes piled up. I've considered various things like making a giant fabric sketchbook or just pinning them in regular scrapbooks but that felt too inaccessible for how I want to work. I used to have things pinned on a few pinboards on the wall but they were not easily accessible as they hung above a desk and were also all wobbly as they were hanging on the picture rail, so I took them down and packed everything away again. However, I had a lightbulb moment recently and I bought some more pinboards, this time to use as sketchbook "pages", not up on the wall but free to sit on the floor, against the wall, or on the desk.

I unpacked all of my boxes of samples and experiments and a few random small pics and pinned them to the boards.

Now I can pin, unpin, rearrange and move the samples about and also I have a blank board where I can pick a few relevant bits and pin them like a working mood board.

The boards can travel round the room with me or stack up neatly like a giant book :)

This solution is relatively compact (compared to the plastic boxes) and is accessible and easy to use.

This is not completely everything - I still have some of the bigger pieces in a pile but it is a small manageable pile not a mountain of random disorganised odds n ends. It suits me because it is both messy (lots going on) and neat (easy to stack away).

Two of the boards that I have used mainly for free motion samples are sat on my newly tidied sewing desk. Feeling pretty smug about the tidy!

Now I've got space I might even finish the llama print pyjama trousers that I started making about 6 months ago!  Also, while sorting through my fibres and fabrics I've rediscovered quite a lot of nice fabrics that I had forgotten about.  Feeling newly inspired, I'm aiming to make a few small landscapes with some of them.

Btw, in case you were wondering, the cork in the background of some of the photos is my wonderful cork wall that I use to organise all of the house stuff and any bigger projects that I have on the go but it wasn't suitable to house my samples as they would just take over! :) 

Season's Greetings!

Thank you to everyone who has read our blog this year - we really appreciate all the lovely feedback we've had.  Let's hope that 2019 is a creatively fulfilling year for all!

Note to all fibre enthusiasts - have a look at this festive giveaway from ZED: The Right Fibre