rosiepink

Time flies!

Hi...Can't believe it's been over two months since we wrote!

Have been really busy with work commitments (officey work, not fun fibre work!) and other stuff so all of a sudden it's June and we haven't been playing with fibres nearly as much as we'd have liked.  Anyway, hopefully will have more time now and so have just recently unburied some woolly, fibrey treasures and dusted off the sewing machine and have been making a start on some more felt pieces.

Mum has been trying out a carding machine we bought a while back and I think she is finding it somewhat addictive!  Below are some photos of felt pictures she carded some wool for and then did some really beautiful decorative stitching on.  I haven't got photos of the whole things just some details.

 

 

 

I decided to get some old bits and pieces out of my samples box (where I throw odds and ends of felt scraps and experiments) to get a few ideas and start thinking about some future projects, here they are laid on the desk...

 

I got all inspired and decided to make a large panel with the greens and pinks and somehow have ended up with blues and yellows.  I haven't got a photo of the new work in progress, as the light has gone for today.  But it just shows that it doesn't matter if I make a plan, as soon as I look in the boxes of colours I am lost to grabbing whatever takes my eye!

I have also been doing a bit of experimenting.  The other day I decided to rework a piece of felt I made a little while ago.  Normally I leave the edges of felt to be natural but I decided to cut this piece up and "finish" the edges.  I rather like the wavy edges and think I will definitely be playing more with this idea!

 

Felt & Machine Embroidery Artwork - Beach Huts

Just thought we'd share some photos of a commission piece of artwork we've just finished.  It's very similar in style to the previous beach huts pictures we've created but this time it was a lot bigger at 4 feet long!  Really enjoyed making this one and would love to do more!  Here is a picture of the finished thing and also of some detail:

 

 

We have just been to Cornwall for a long weekend and have come back with a camera full of inspirational photos so hopefully will find some time to turn some of them into new felt artwork.  Too many ideas, not enough hours!

Making Felt Lampshades

We’ve had several emails enquiring about how we make our nuno felt lampshades.   We thought perhaps others might like to try too, so here’s our own ‘recipe’.

 

 

(This type of lampshade needs familiarity with seamless 3-d shapes and nuno felt but if you’re just starting to make felt then you can make lampshades from flat felt – simply make a large piece of felt then cut panels to fit a lampshade frame and join them together imaginatively with bold stitching.)

 

Nuno Felt Lampshade

from scrim and merino wool top/roving

 

Cut a resist from plastic - the same shape as your wire frame (for example the resist for the lampshade in the photo resembled a bell shape), adding 10-20% for shrinkage (shrinkage very much depends on how thick you make your nuno felt).

 

Put scrim down as a first layer on both sides of the resist with just enough folded over to hold together.
Make three fine layers of wool on both sides of the resist, perhaps topping with a little silk then felt in the usual manner.

When the resist starts to buckle, make opening cuts across the top and bottom, remove the resist, smooth the sides then continue the felting process until the felt is firm.

Cover the lampshade frame with clingfilm - several tight layers - so that you almost have a solid form on which to work.  Put your lampshade onto an old table lamp stand (or a 500ml water bottle, filled with water, and the top screwed back on to secure the lampshade in place) to elevate the shade from the work surface. 

Place the felt onto the frame - it obviously won't fit too well at this point – but you will be able to see which part needs more shrinking by rolling.  When it fits quite well, literally bash the felt until it shrinks to fit the frame (you could use the bowl of a wooden spoon) - remember the felt also shrinks a little when it dries. 

After rinsing the soap out of the felt, put it back on the frame, tease it into shape and leave it to dry in a warm place.

 

You can fix the felt to the frame with bold stitching, and ornamentation is only limited by your imagination - this lampshade is decorated with 'flowers' made from circles of nuno felt and buttons.

 

 

Felt Making Tips & Tutorial

We are often asked questions about feltmaking techniques so we thought we would post a "tips" page based on some of those questions and we have also added another tutorial, this time about making basic flat felt.  (To view these, click on the buttons to the right).  Really these are aimed at those who’ve just started having a go at wet felt making and needle felting and are just some of the things we have learnt along the way.  There is no right or wrong way and you will undoubtedly find your own methods, but we hope what we have learnt will be useful to you.

You don't need expensive equipment and the basics of feltmaking are easy to grasp.  Take a look at the free tutorial and have a go!

Here at rosiepink, we mainly concentrate on wet felt making and then use needle felting as a compliment to this. For example, this penguin was needle felted onto a wet felted antarctic landscape.

Have a go at creating your own unique felt masterpiece!

Felted Pebbles and Tutorials

We haven't had many felty projects on the go over the last few weeks but we have got lots of ideas that we want to get stuck into over the coming weeks.   However, Mum did make this set of pretty wet felted pebbles:

They are made of merino wool (topped with white silk) wet felted around real pebbles (approx 9 cm in length).  This makes them ideal both as practical objects e.g. paper weights, or just for decoration.   Its a bit of a fiddly process but is fun to do - basically you have to wrap the merino around the pebble in layers, felting each layer a little as you go.  Once you have three or four layers loosely felted, add some silk or other toppings and then roll around and around in your hands or in bubble wrap until well felted.

In the past we have made lots of small pebbles and beads of wool and silk (no hard centre) that we made into jewellery and other smaller items.

We've added a couple of tutorials recently - Feltmaking with Children and Miss Haversham's Table Runner.  We hope they are useful - and of course the techniques can be used as a starting point for any other projects you have in mind e.g. the nuno felt made for the table runner could be used to make a wrap or other lightweight projects.

Felt Lampshades - Work In Progress

This week we've been making nuno felt from scrim and merino roving and creating the basis for lampshades from it, like the one below.  (They are all currently works in progress and need stitching yet to finish them off yet, but here is what we have so far!).

 

Nuno translates as "fabric" in Japanese and is easy to make.  (Please come back soon to see a tutorial on how to make nuno felt like this from scrim and merino wool).

We deliberately made the nuno felt quite thin so that when the light is on the felt glows and looks really cosy...

 

We layered two pieces together to make an unusual top and bottom to this one...

 

and a needle felted flower (temporarily pinned in place!) makes a pretty addition...

 

Adding silk to the roving before wet felting produces a beautiful shimmery look so the lamp is attractive both during the day and at night when glowing.

 

Hope you like them so far, when they are finished we'll post a pic so you can see how they turn out!

Some Pretty Things

Well, it’s all go here, busy, busy, busy!  But first some eye candy – I’ll assume you are a fibre lover and appreciate this gorgeous skein as much as me and mum - yum!

     

A trip for two days to London this week included a dash to 4 knitting shops/departments – Loop (delicious!), Liberty (lots of Rowan – yum!), John Lewis (lots more Rowan but let’s face it too much is not enough!) and I Knit (lots more fibre lovelieness!  This is where I finally caved in and bought this beautiful Colinette - I wasn't supposed to buy anything given that between us we already have enough wool to last a lifetime!).  There were no projects in mind, I just wanted to see all the wonderful yarns and yarn shops!  I’m sure you understand.  We still haven’t had any time to play with our new spinning wheel to make our own but I can’t wait especially after seeing so many beautiful yarns this week and getting ever so inspired!   This particular yarn is 100% wool so will felt into our wet felt projects beautifully!

A trip to the British Museum was also a must – there are so many beautiful and inspiring artefacts to see, here are some favourites:

 
Three terracotta wall tiles from 600-500BC, from the Nabu Temple, Borsippa

 
Faience Beads from 2250BC, from Tell Taya

 
Glass jar from 750BC.  Not sure where it’s from but its beautiful!

We have also been busy dyeing again this week for our next lot of scrim bundles, which will be available soon at Etsy and Ebay.  We dyed about 70 metres and have the turquoise and purple fingers to prove it!  Its quite an undertaking to dye that much in one go but its worth it when you see all the beautiful colours emerging...

 

Now we need to make some lampshades, finish some pictures, do some more dyeing, learn to spin….

Back from Camping - and a New Felt Picture and a New Toy To Play With!

We have been away on various camping holidays over the past few weeks and are back refreshed and ready to go again.  Between us we took 100s of photos "for inspiration" (my hubby just doesn't understand why I need 25 pictures of the same seagull all in a slightly different position...!)  Here is one of the pictures which I think I will turn into a felty, fabriccy picture one day soon...

 

Well, the English summer hasn't exactly provided much great camping weather - we went to several different places including Devon (twice), Norfolk and Lyme Regis and got soaked most of the time except for a few nice days in Devon.   I don't mind the rain as it makes the tent feel quite cosy but as it's still supposed to be summer I thought I'd make another bright and cheerful picture - this time another interpretation of the beach huts at Hengistbury Head in Bournemouth...

Hope you like it!

PS - We've just bought a new (second hand but still fabulous!) toy - a spinning wheel!  We are very excited and can't wait to get going.  Have had just one quick go on it so far (after about four hours of figuring out what goes where) and can feel a new addiction coming on!  We are super excited about having our own spun yarns to play with!

PPS - In case its confusing our blog sometimes says "we" and sometimes "I" in the text.  That's because I (Annie) do most of the blogging (mum doesn't like computers quite as much as I do!) so while its about both of us there's lots of "I" in it! 

Finished Picture & Problems Leaving Comments - can you help?

Hello, we'll be offline next week so I thought I'd just post a pic of our latest piece of artwork.  This has gone to Coastal Creatives gallery where it will hopefully find a loving new home.  Very sad to see it go, I really do love this picture - it is so colourful and happy!  Hope you like it too.

Can you help (please)?  We would really love to get more involved in the blogging community and we read with interest many other blogs.  However, we keep having trouble when trying to leave comments on other blogs, especially if the blog is not a Typepad one e.g. Blogger.  We just keep getting redirected to our own account page on Typepad - weird!  This also left us wondering if it is the same for people trying to leave comments for us.  We know lots of people do read our blog, going by the anonymous hit counter thingy at Typepad, (which makes us very happy!) but wonder if comments are difficult to leave here too?  If you have tried to comment, but can't, please please send us an email (rosiepinkATbtinternetDOTcom) to let us know.   That would be very much appreciated. 

Felt and Stitch Artwork

We're very happy today.  Another piece of our felt artwork has found a new home.   Its hard to let some pieces go after spending so many hours creating them, but it is a wonderful feeling to know that somebody loves your artwork enough to buy it and treasure it.

I've been working on another picture over the last couple of days.  Its at the stage of being ready for free machine embroidery.  Its of more flowers by the seaside but until I pick out the flower details in stitch it could almost represent balloons and streamers of a carnival - I love the colours!

This is quite a big piece (the pic is only of a smallish section) so I envisage spending quite a few days at the sewing machine on and off. 

Nothing better though than setting up the sewing machine, grabbing a cuppa, surrounding myself with reels of beautiful threads and listening to something relaxing on the radio while I work.  Bliss!