Sunday's Class

Here's a few photos of the pendant making class on Sunday. A felting machine was brought to class by one of the students and everyone got a chance to use it. It certainly makes felting go faster than using the one needle. However, if you are only doing occasional projects, a felting machine isn't necessary. Several of the ladies (from both classes) belong to a fibre arts group. Every month they have a challenge to complete. One member of this group felted a background that she was going to use for this month's challenge. I hope I get to see her finished piece.

Free Motion stitching with Sulky Sliver Metallic thread

supply table

 

This is for the fibre group challenge

 Here are a couple of the finished pendants:

Interesting use of free motion stitching

I enjoyed my stay at Espanola and teaching my Fibre Art Pendant class. The ladies were a great bunch to work with. Thanks for everything!

Needle Felting

This afternoon, with the sun shining in my studio window, I did a bit of needle felting. I totally ignored my felting machine as I wanted to see how long it would take to do a piece 4" x 6" using a single needle. The felting machine is much faster. However, on another note, the surface texture was more pronounced than from the machine. The machine tends to flatten the piece out. Flattening out isn't an issue, as that can be fixed with the addition of more fibres and gently felting into them.

I started out with two pieces of dark gray felt and added wool roving, bits of cut up felt and yarns.

 Usually, using a sparkly thread, l will free motion stitch over a piece that will be used for wearable art. I didn't do that for the first two pendants below. Instead, I hand stitched into the felt.

You can see the back stitch in the oval. I used lime green purle cotton #5

beading completes the pieces (colours are a bit off in this shot)

New to Studio

November 17th and this was the temperature in the back garden this afternoon:

Amazing!!!!

A new 12 needle felting machine or embellisher, as they are called in industry, was added to my studio yesterday.  This one replaces my 5 needle felting machine. The 5 needle machine is in excellent condition but the 12 needle one is much faster for my needs. I will be selling the older one.

An added feature of the new machine is a holder for yarn and a place to thread the yarn so that it comes out by the needles for easy felting. I am making a few new needle felted Wearable Art Pins to replace the ones sold at the Christmas Craft Fair. There is also a place on the front of the embellisher foot to thread ribbon. I'm looking forward to 'playing' with this new machine!!

Here are a few felted projects / tutorials to check:

• How to Make Flat Wet Felting   
• Wool Felt Projects on Pinterest  
• Felt Goodies to Make 
• Felt Projects   
• Free Needle Felting Projects   

Enjoy!!

Felting With a Five Year Old

Our internet connection at the campground has been pathetic! Hit or miss most of the time. Thank goodness for relatives even if they are over an hour away from where we are staying. AND I did have some awesome lobster for lunch!! Worth the trip.

Now to back track: I did some felting with Gale, my five year old granddaughter last week. We used the felt I purchased at the Lunenberg Makery (see previous post). She did a great job. I forgot to take a photo of the finished piece but will post it next time.

She certainly enjoyed pulling the wool roving apart and stepping on the pedal of the felting machine. She wants to do some more this week in between swimming and going to the playground!

Searching for yarn from the stuff I brought with me

Making Fibre Art Pendants

I may not be as active lately writing this blog, but I have been busy. I have a few more Fibre Art Pendants ready for the wholesale market this month.

I used a white felt base and added other coloured bits of felt, wool roving and decorative yarns. This was then needle felted to hold everything together and free-motion stitched with Sulky Sliver Thread.

Linked up with Linky Tuesday (Freemotion by the River)

This is the start of the base fabric used in the pendants.

Finished base showing a tear drop pendant cut-out

Some of the finished pendants.

Felted ornaments

Today's topic is felted ornaments - wet and needle felting. Last week I made needle felted ornaments for the Devon House Shop, Craft Council of NL. I put silver lame cord at the top for hanging. My art work has been selling there since I started making original art pieces in 1999. Check out my web site and photos (link at the top of my blog) for a quick view of my work. I own a needle felting machine so making flat, decorative pieces of felt is quick and easy. However, for more dimensional work, hand felting needles are used. Check out a previous post on needle felting HERE.

Making Felted Balls with Judy Coates Perez
20 Coolest & Weirdest Needle Felted Creations
Needle Felting Basicshttp://www.thesilverpenny.com/freeprojectneedlefelting.html
Videos for Needle Felting 
Slow and Steady
Felted Round Balls

Enjoy!

Yarn Forward

I visited Yarn Forward on Hazeldean Rd. Kanata, the other afternoon. They have a variety of yarns, knitting needles, pattern books and accessories. I did purchase a couple of balls of yarn that caught my eye! It's called Drake and is made in Italy. I will use it in probably use it in some felting project. I met a very talented artist, Francine Hebert, at the shop. She showed me some of her shawl pins that were on display. Please check out her blog.

Needle Felting

This morning was spent packaging some of my card sets for retail. I also have a new set from the last four commissioned pieces I've done. Those still have to be printed. Now I'm 'playing' around with my needle felting machine. I need to get some felted sheets ready to make some art cards and wearable art pins. HERE's a video on machine needle felting. Tips for machine needle felting can be found on Linda Matthews blog HERE.

• I started out with a piece of dark gray felt which I covered with different colours of wool roving and decorative yarns. 
• Next, I let my felting machine / embellisher do the work! This machine takes the place of doing it the hard way - by hand! 
• Using Sulky Sliver thread, I free motion stitched over the entire sheet of embellished felt.
• The sheet was trimmed and cut into 2 1/2" x 2" pieces.
• Each piece was taped to a blank card, initialled and packaged.

It's difficult in a photo to see the glitz in the Sliver thread but the cards pop! 

Machine Felting

I spent the afternoon experimenting with my felting machine. The Fine Craft & Design Fair is in two weeks and I decided to create some Christmas Tree art cards. The first thing was to make a base fabric. I started with green craft felt and laid lots of decorative yarns across horizontally. These were then attached to the base by needle felting with the machine.


I made a triangle template to use as a guide to cut my trees from the needle felted fabric.

Tree trunks from a thick brown yarn was added last.

Linen with gold threads was used as a background for the finished tree. This was mounted on a blank card.