Winter Song

Days shorten, children sicken, schools close and meetings pile up. Promises made, deadlines pass, apologies offered.  I wonder where the days have gone. Interviews completed, orders filled, deliveries made. Opportunities arise, boxes packed, bookshelves moved, all is good. Sometimes, what I need most of all is a few moments of quiet followed by a little perspective.

It has been such a busy fall it is hard to prioritize the excitement. SpiderFelt has moved down the hall at BallardWorks to studio 2D. I’m sharing a beautiful space with fellow feltmaker Linda Kjarstad. We have twice the space, twice the light and twice the fun. If only there was a way to capture the feeling of working with golden sunshine streaming on my shoulders; it makes the most monotonous work enjoyable.

With these new digs, we will be able to teach classes and host workshops with lots of elbow room to spare. Come see the new work we’ve been creating and start your holiday shopping by supporting local artists.

There were several large wholesale orders for felt soaps and kits that kept me in production mode in September and October. But just in time for tomorrow’s open studio, I finished a pair of new nunofelt vests or wraps, depending on how you wear them.

Out of the blue, I was interviewed for an article about felting that ran on the AP newswire, which means it was published in various newspapers across the country and will continue to run for the rest of November. It was enjoyable to speak at length about a subject that soothes and excites me every day. The author, Jennifer Forker, did an excellent job providing an overview of the various types of felting.

Unfortunately, this will be our last artwalk for 2011 as the building will not be open for the December artwalk. BallardWorks is located at 2856 NW Market St. We hope to see you tomorrow night.

For the Love of Color

Last week, I was invited by a magazine to send some felt geodes to their offices to be photographed for the Spring 2012 issue. It was a good reason to finish felting the geodes I’d needled this summer while my studio was officially closed.

The geode kit has been a popular item in my Etsy shop for several years. Currently, each kit contains 1 oz of wool, 2 felting needles, a 3″ foam square and instructions for needling and wetfelting a geode. However, when I create geodes for sale in my studio, I use more wool than offered in the kits because they just seem better that way.

Incidentally, the black walnut cutting board is from Gray WorksDesign. I love the footed design and the curved sides. More than simply functional, it is a beauty.

After a bit of tweaking, I’ve decided to reformulate the geode kit, swapping out a few colors and increasing the amount of wool. This will mean a small price increase, but I think the results are worth it.

This new collection of geodes is available in my Etsy shop and in my studio this Saturday during the Ballard ArtWalk from 6-9pm. Should you be in the neighborhood, make sure to stop by BallardWorks at 2856 NW Market St.

Shades of Green

One of the experiments I tried at Whidbey was using a loosely woven apple green cotton scarf I found as at a thrift store as the base for a nunofelted piece. I paired it with merino roving handpainted in shades of moss, grass and pea green by Faun at Handsandotions.

The scarf started out 60″ long, not nearly long enough to make a long nunofelted scarf. It was wide enough to split vertically, then lay out end to end. I put down some pieces to span a deliberate gap in the middle, making the piecework a design feature.

Note: I found this unpublished post in my draft folder. At this point, I’m not sure why I didn’t publish it. This is one of my favorite scarves, one of just a few I decided to keep for myself.

Bless This Home

A customer admired my felt flowers during the most recent artwalk. He picked up a brilliant yellow flower with a purple center attached to a headband. “Can you make this in reverse?” He was inspired to present his sister with a purple lotus as a housewarming gift. “Anything is possible,” I told him happily.

Aiming to please, I created two flowers so he could select his favorite. When he came to pick up the finished flower on Sunday, I asked him to tell me more about his sister. When she returned to the US after spending a few years working in southern India, she began a tradition of painting or making a purple lotus blossom for loved ones when they moved to a new home. According to local tradition in her community, the flower represented the cleansing of a space, offering the dwelling new breath. Finally, it was his turn to offer something for her new home.

As the school year draws to a close, I am wrapping up operations in my Etsy shop and studio. My trusty sidekick will package any kit sales that happen while I’m away. The rest of my inventory will be offline until I return. While I will have some access to email, it is nice to spend the evening in bed with a book instead of waiting for the churning of a slow connection as it trolls for a satellite signal. It may be wishful thinking, but I’m packing six books for the four weeks I’ll be away in New Hampshire. I look forward to making a valiant dent in the pile.

Experiments with Drape

A sales representative from Rimmon brought fabric samples to Seattle recently, giving me the chance to handle pieces I don’t normally see. While the prices were essentially retail, the variety was so much more than I have seen at our local fabric stores.

I experimented with a couple of bolts, buying the minimum 10 yards of something that had no label, just to see what it would do. The first fabric is a loose knit, that drapes just how I imagined it would; the fiber content is anyone’s guess. I nunofelted some basic merino with a squiggle of tencel for shimmer to see how it would react.

This started as two yards of fabric, but the felt cinched the fabric substantially, leaving me with a piece that is 38″ long, a little longer than 1 yard. My intention was to use it as a window covering for the small window in our front door, but once I draped it around the mannequin, possibilities seem to open up.

Cool Wall, Warm Space

Waiting for my appointment on Wednesday, I was struck by the contrast in structures and textures at Nola in Fremont. Located next to the Burke Gilman Trail at the corner of Stone Way and Northlake Way, the original structure was built as a depot for goods shipped to Fremont by train.

With a lot of vision, pluck and faith, Brandon and Jennifer Trimble renovated a dark, scarred premises vacant for more than a year to create a space that is both chic and warm. Exposed timbers, painted brick walls, vintage upholstered pews and classic gym lockers pull together a look that is hard to label. It was exactly the sort of place I wanted to photograph my new collection of sheepskins, pillows and wall hangings.

The wool for these pieces was all sourced from Island Fibers on Lopez Island in May. Several intrepid friends responded to my request for help wrangling the bags of raw fleece. I am deeply grateful for their enthusiasm.

Seeing is believing, but to touch these pieces is to fall in love with wool in a way you didn’t know was possible. Sink your fingers into the wool during the Ballard Artwalk this Saturday June 11 from 6-9pm at 2856 NW Market, Studio 2b. If you are too far from Seattle to visit, each of these pieces will be listed in my Etsy shop.

Thank you Jennifer, Eunice, Brandon and Chad!

Texture

Romney and cotswold locks felted to a merino base

Romney, rambouillet, blue faced leicester, mohair and tussah silk fiber on an icelandic base

Cotswold locks on a merino base

Rambouillet locks on a merino base

Many thanks to Catarina Hoekman, Kate Treseler, Kelly Rogers Flynt and Linda Kjarstad for their invaluable help laying out and felting these pieces. Thank you to Ginny Huber for the icelandic fleece.

Two Plates

Currently, there are two projects pulling my attention in separate directions with equal force. In preparation for teaching a nunofelt workshop in my studio last week, I felted four nunofelt garments. Starting with a well fitting piece I own, I created a paper template, then sized it up based on the shrinkage rate of a sample swatch to create a large plastic template.

The result was this piece which fits me to a tee. I loved being able to make small adjustments to the fit, felting a little longer under the arms and across the back until it fit me perfectly.

Working with this template as a departure point, I made a rosewood version two sizes larger. Continuing to work with the same template, I felted a red and black vest, slit open in the front. The last piece was a black and plum asymetrical vest with a triangle front slit. There are dozens of variations floating around in my brain I can’t wait to try.

Incidentally, the mannequin is standing in front of a painting by Robin Siegl, one of the enthusiastic students in last week’s nunofelt workshop. If you are interested in taking a nunofelt workshop, the particulars are listed on the Classes page.

However, this weekend I brought a trunk full of wool back from the Lopez Lamb and Wool Festival. Since buying three fleeces from Island Fibers in February, I’ve been waiting anxiously to get my hands on some more raw wool. Three Romneys, and a Cotswold and four Rambouillet crosses later, my trunk was full on the ride home with fifty pounds of wool.

With so much to do and less than four weeks left in the school year, I’m offering a work/trade proposal to any willing hands available to work as my assistant for a day in my studio. Come felt with me and I will teach you the process and pay you in SpiderFelt credit to be used towards anything in my shop.

Ruffled Up

Three weeks ago, I participated in a Felted Clothing Workshop taught by the incomparable Tricia Stackle. She taught the basics of nunofelting, calculating shrinkage rates, translating the shape of a garment into a template and extrapolating the template  into a large resist.

With thirteen students enrolled from various backgrounds, Tricia was a wonderful teacher giving everyone just the right amount of attention. Students created either a  seamless tunic or a skirt. Some students finished two projects over the course of our three days together, while others plodded along methodically, completing a single garment.

After finishing my sample swatches with merino and silk chiffon, I decided to work with a design I’ve tried many times in my silk scarves: ruffles and ridges. Working with four yards of fabric, I ended up short on the front with sporadic ruffles. While I didn’t plan it this way, I think it made for a more interesting piece in the end.

On the third day, Tricia invited us into the dye lab where we experimented with different levels of dye saturation. My skirt cooked into a very soft dove grey. I’m thrilled with the result, and forever grateful to Tricia for modeling the grace required to pace us through our projects.

Watch out for Tricia’s sculptural felt furniture this summer at the Bellevue Arts  Museum ArtsFair.

Standing Out

At a loss for what to contribute to last week’s ArtWalk, I decided to pull two incomplete felt pieces out of retirement. Too short on time to build something new from scratch, I decided to see what I could do with something long abandoned.

Since I am not a painter by training or inclination, my primary complaint with the original composition was just how flat it was. Hoping to take advantage of the inherent strengths offered by fiber art, I built my piece out to give it depth and texture. Leaf shapes were cut from a piece of barely laminated nunofelt, then handsewn over the background tree trunk.

I wish the background were wider to allow for more of an exaggerated swoop in the shape of the upper story. Overall, I’m pleased with the texture and colors in this piece.

For the second piece, I turned to a sample made two years ago, preparing to teach a summer workshop for kids. Using various fibers in my stash, I built surface detail by needling  romney and merino locks, bits of silk noil and some clean wool from my Lopez fleece.

I wanted the handstitching to be a more prominent part of this piece, so I positioned the knots on the surface, and chose a contrasting color to stitch the noil in place. Happy with the general shape of this snag, I left the trunk exposed.

Unsure how to display two pieces of art with greater depth than most work, I called in Nate Stottrup, a talented artist down the hall from my studio for some advice. He suggested a weathered wooden background to offer a visual transition from the wall to my work. I bought a used pallet from the Re-Store, pulled it apart and rebuilt it, with the help of my home carpentry team, into something new.

Bringing these pieces to completion was much more difficult than I expected. There was lots of angst and casting about for my muse. When I finally figured out what to do, it was like being struck by lightning. While I received positive feedback from the visitors to the ArtWalk, I am eager to present both pieces to our local  Surface Design Association chapter for their critique.