HomeWork

The first of the winter fair applications came in the mail today. Our neighborhood community center has a very well attended event with a reputation for well-crafted items. The jury selecting applicants requires two pages of photos documenting the scope of work the artist will have for sale.

As I approach the first anniversary of this business venture, it was an interesting process to put together two mosaics that represent SpiderFelt. The spring was so busy, I realize some of these pieces weren’t chronicled here. Some are personal items I’ve kept for myself, others were custom orders that went out the door as soon as they were made and some are waiting for the next fair.

This signals the end of a cycle and an extended blog break. Thanks for visiting, looking and commenting. It has been an exhilarating year, but now it is time to put my feet up. I’ll be back late in August.

Phew. Deep breath. A whole lot of activity, a whole lot of sleep and then a rush again. School ended a week ago, and as I prepared to leave for the Black Sheep Gathering, ready the house for my father who was going to stay with my son and finish some custom orders, I was struck down by an acute sore throat. It left me speechless and gasping in pain. Needless to say, we had to cancel the trip to Oregon and I was forced to sleep for the better part of four days until my strep culture finally came back positive.

My parents stepped in as the heroes of the day, taking over caring for the house and for me without skipping a beat. As soon as the youngest returned from a birthday party, they whisked the children north of the border so I could continue my convalescence and catch up with last minute business details before shutting down my production for the summer.

First thing on my list was to post the rest of the nunofelt scarves I photographed in early June. There are still two more nunofelt scarves in the rosewood series not photographed, and a couple more turquoise scarves, but they will have to wait until fall.

Two custom orders for purple collars prompted me to begin a new series unexpectedly in late June. I was trying unsuccessfully to make a small crescent of felt lay flat on my neck. When it refused to cooperate, I cut little points to give it some ease and voila!

In addition to the pink collar, I made four larger purple collars and a few pieces of fabric using a merino/tencel roving blend - a total of twelve pieces for two custom orders. Unfortunately the delicate nature and the beautiful drape of the merino/tencel fabric made it too fine to hold up for this form. The buttons would have ripped a hole in the fabric, even with a reinforced buttonhole. I’ll have some experimenting to do with those pieces later.

With a custom order for four felt boxes left, and a tutorial to photograph for a new kit, I’m just about ready to clear out. Maybe Saturday if all goes well in the next two days. In the meantime, I’ve photographed most of my current inventory and posted it in my etsy shop. There are still a few more pieces, but I really hate photographing myself, and as the clouds started to clear this morning, the battery on my camera died, so I called an end to the photo session.

One of the new business directions I’m exploring: DIY felting kits. The first in a series is a felt soap kit, available in four varieties: Green Tea, Verbena, Lavender and Unscented.

Thanks to Lora, who documented the process yesterday, a photo tutorial and video tutorial are now ready, with links included in the instruction sheet.

The first pair will go to the teachers in my daughter and son’s classes. More will be for sale at the AP Business Fair, and in my etsy shop.

PS. Check out Lora’s blog Little Kids, Big City - great ideas for Seattle families who want to know what is happening in the city.

Enough people commented on the shame of hiding the colorful parts of the pincushion on the bottom, that I worked to alter the design.

I started with a small snake of felt, needled it a little to hold the edges together, then added successive layers, needling a little as I went along. With each layer, I varied the colors along the length, which accounts for the variations between each pincushion. When it was large enough to draw snide remarks from my sidekick on the sofa, I put it aside.

The next day I wetfelted it as best I could, an unwieldy process considering the size of the roll. Next came rinsing and then slicing. Finally, each piece was finished off with ten minutes of needling to trap the fibers and firm up each individual piece.

These are now listed in my etsy shop, either with or without felting needles.

These pincushions were a suggestion from Diane at Venue in Ballard. She bought something similar at Bumbershoot several years ago, but doesn’t know who made them or where to get more. My apologies to that artist, whoever you are. Please identify yourself if you read this post.

I started the first pincushion with the red center at swimming lessons on Saturday; first I needlefelted a solid ball, and then needlefelted subsequent layers until I ran out of colors. This ball was fairly solid when I was done, which accounts for the smooth outlines of each color layer.

The second and third balls were made by rolling roving into rough a ball shape, needlefelting just a little to hold the roving in place and then adding additional layers. The navel orange was melon-sized by the time I stopped adding roving.

All three balls were wetfelted to varying degress. Some friends suggested I finish them in the washing machine, but that really didn’t squeeze them hard enough. So after going around with a load of towels, I wetfelted them by hand. The red pincushion needed very little work, and is still the most dense of the three pincushions. The green and orange pincushions required a lot of felting because they had to compress so much to create a solid felted core, which resulted in the swirls.

For the sake of scale, the smaller two pincushions measure 2″ in diameter, about the size of a clementine orange. The largest pincushion is about the size of a navel orange. This would be a great kid project, especially if you had a Clover needlefelting tool to keep inattentive fingers safe.

These are now available in my etsy shop.

For starters, please forgive the image-heavy post and the shameless self-promotion over the last few weeks. I’m going to blame it all on my sister-in-law Beth. She phoned me a few weeks ago to ask if I had any ideas for shower gifts. Five friends were holding baby showers in the coming weeks and she needed ideas.  With a little help, I was able to brainstorm a slew of ideas from my own archives, as well as some new ideas:

Felt Bead Necklace - beads slide along a wax-coated cotton cord so mother and child can play at feeding time

Felt Balls - solid felt balls when they are fully felted actually bounce!

Felt Boxes - for toys, socks and more

Soft plushy made from recycled felt - try stuffing the toy with dried lavender

Felt-covered Journal - for the hours you spend just sitting quietly, it is nice to have a few journals scattered about so you can capture the memories before they fade away

Felt Mobile - imagine all the different dangles you could hang from twigs, bamboo, chopsticks, skewers or a bent clothes hanger

Felt Booties or Slippers

Felt Sleep Sack - either for an older sibling, or for a tiny baby

All of my items are either currently available in my etsy shop, or can be created as a custom order within one week’s notice.

Here are some of my favorites from etsy:

The neatest baby toy I’ve seen in a while is a Magnet Caterpillar, made by a Dutch woman on etsy. Large felted balls are created around strong magnets. Love it!

The tattoo artwork on this breastfeeding pin-up girl t-shirt is fantastic.

Silk or wool baby Waldorf pilot caps knit with love by Shelleycaskey.

There never seemed to be enough clean nursing pads in my drawer during my son’s first year. This great shop makes colorful nursing pads with great fabrics. If you prefer something neutral in color, why not hemp nursing pads?

Though I haven’t purchased a baby carrier on Etsy, so I can vouch for any of the sellers as I can for the lovely artists I listed above, there are lots of choices.

If you want even more ideas, check out the Etsy Gift Guide - Baby. Phew! That is a lot of shopping!

Here’s the second version of my felt journal cover with a modified lining:

Instead of cutting a large buttonhole for the cover, I sewed a second layer of fabric over the lining to create a pocket. This does a better job of lying flat when closed and looks more finished than my previous method.

I hesitated to leave the edges of the flat felt wavy, but one of my students encouraged me, describing the edges as organic. My husband thinks they look ‘girly’. I think they lend the piece authenticity; there is no way this cover was cut out of wool felt bought by the roll at the fabric store. I’m particularly enamored with the quilted texture of the felt after I applied the machine stitching. This rough leaf motif was used to create hundreds of little leaves for my mobile.

This cover is now available in my etsy shop.

A student recently asked if I had ever made a felt journal cover. Though I’ve seen several versions in various felt books, I’d never tried one. When I picked up Warm Fuzzies last week and saw the journal project, I knew the time had come to make one for myself.

This illustration by Jane Dyer in Sophie’s Masterpiece was the inspiration for the design needlefelted on the cover. After the design was finished, I threw the flat felt into the wash with some sweaters I was fulling.

The journal is lined with a piece of woven wool fabric upcycled from a shirt picked up at a clothing swap. The journal slides into two large buttonholes on either side of the spine.

The next time I make this cover, I’ll modify the lining as it bunches a little when the cover is closed. I love the way this seller on etsy finished the inside and created the cover pocket. Unfortunately, I didn’t do any market research before beginning my project, so this first iteration is truly my own as I’m not really sure how Betz finished hers (my library copy of Warm Fuzzies has been returned, and my purchased copy has not arrived in the mail).

The journal cover is listed in my etsy shop with a blank spiral-bound journal I bought at an art store. However, I have big plans to make my own journals using recycled hardcover children’s books and signatures sewn by hand. We’ll see. There are other projects with priority in the crafty queue, but it is on my mental list and all the materials have been purchased. Perhaps by putting it on record in my blog, I’ll be motivated to make them sooner than later.

Incidentally, Sophie’s Masterpiece has been one of my favorite books since my daughter Sophie received it as a birthday present in her first year (thank you Aunt Michelle!). I still have a hard time reading the whole thing without crying. The character Sophie was the inspiration behind my business name and the spider I asked Geninne to draw for my mascot. There was something about the spunky spider wearing mismatched tights that captured my imagination.

Inspired by this tutorial on Carolineinkle’s blog, I decided to try a new method for making smaller booties. Though this method works well for larger sizes, it is difficult when you want something truly petite.

Before beginning, I needed to make a mold. I followed the instructions described by Mark Jenkins on TapeSculpture using a pair of size US2 (UK1/EU 17) saddle shoes. Take some time to explore his sculptures; you’ll impress everyone at the next dinner party when you describe how to make sculpture with plastic wrap and packing tape.

Once my mold was sliced open and I had extracted the tiny baby shoes, I stuffed it with felt scraps and taped it back together. Next time around, I would add a few extra layers of tape to prevent water penetrating the inner core (the little bubbles on the inside make me think this set will start sprouting a microculture soon).

Carolineinkle drafts small pieces of roving around her form, but I found it was hard to get the roving to stay in place, especially on a slick surface, so I drafted long pieces of roving which I wrapped around my form, much as I do for felted soaps. When the roving was fully felted, I marked my opening with tailor’s chalk and snipped an opening.

I felted the cut edges by hand for a few minutes; following their rinse, I dunked the slippers in a vinegar bath for a few minutes and then rinsed again.

Once they were dry, I needlefelted a motif on the toe. The mittens were my first attempt at creating a bootie using the Pat Sparks 2D resist method; they felted very quickly, leaving me with something too small to work as a bootie. The finished booties measure 4″ in length, equivalent to a size US 2 1/2 shoe (UK 1 1/2/EU 18).

These two cuties are now available in my etsy shop.

In addition to teaching classes at Venue in Ballard, I’ll also be teaching at Space to Create for the next few months. As always, class registration is by phone with the studio.

Picture That in Felt!
Wednesday, April 16, 7:00-9:00 pm
Space to Create, 1414 NW 70th St, Seattle WA 98117 ~ 206.784.0401
Cost: $30 plus $10 materials fee
Class size is limited to 10 students.

Learn how to create pictures, write words and add surface embellishment to wool felt using a combination of wetfelting and needle felting techniques. All materials will be provided, including 3 oz of merino wool, bits of silk and plant fibers. Students should bring a sketch, painting, collage or photo they would like to recreate in felt.

Felting 101 - Beads, Ropes and Flat Felt
Monday, April 21st, 11:00 am 1:00 pm
Venue - Ballard, 5408 22nd Ave NW, Seattle WA 98107 ~ 206.789.3335
Cost: $30 plus $10 materials fee
Class size is limited to 10 students.

A hands-on introduction to basic wetfelting techniques. Topics covered include creating felt beads, ropes and flat felt. Each of these building blocks will be used in subsequent classes to create more complex constructions. Students will complete two projects during the class time such as a three-tier flower brooch, a felt box or a neck cozy. Materials provided include 3 oz. of merino wool roving, bubble wrap, and a square nylon fabric screen.

Felt Resists: Purses, Slippers and Bags
Tuesday, April 22, 7:00-9:00 pm
Space to Create, 1414 NW 70th St, Seattle WA 98117 ~ 206.784.0401
Cost: $30 plus $10 materials fee
Class size is limited to 10 students.

Resists are used to create an air pocket in certain wet felted items such as vessels, purses, slippers and pouches. This is an intermediate technique that requires some understanding of how felt is created. All materials will be provided, including 3 oz of merino wool, bits of silk and plant fibers. Students will complete one project during class time, and have enough materials to create a second project at a later date.