Felt! I've missed you!

I've had such a lovely time this weekend making and embroidering on Handmade felt. I ferreted around to find as many lovely textured bits to add to the layers and found little scraps of silk organza, recycled sari fibre, hand dyed scrim, and silk throwsters waste.

Look what happened! Felt is magic!

I embroidered it with number 5 perle WonderFil Eleganza threads. They are variegated colours and matched my felt so well. A few people have asked about the background under the felt. Its a page in my sketchbook where I've been playing with weathered and worn textures.

Silk Magic!

Last Saturday we had a day of experiencing Silk!

This was also at the Hertfordshire Embroiderers Guild. We had a whole day of playing with silk in lots of it's different forms; chiffon, dupion, organza, silk rods, silk tops, strippings, throwsters waste etc.

We bonded, shredded, ironed, collaged and stitched and the results were wonderful.

Here are some photos to show you the beauty and lustre that is SILK!

This first one is bonded, collaged with scraps of different kinds of silk fabric and stitched with hand dyed silk thread.

A silk collage onto vintage wool with shredded silk fibre and merino felt. Stitched with hand dyed silk floss.

Work in progress, above, to show how the patterns are built.

The photos below are all work in progress made during the day. Aren't they fab?

This one is drawn and painted onto fabric, cut and applied.

Easy Silk flowers! Made with Silk Organza with a wool centre.

Needle felting the fibres to make delightful textured backgrounds.

The one above has had drawn and painted details

 Shredded and Needle felted fabric and fibres. 

Flowers, flowers, flowers!

simple, sweet and stitchy

New Year, New Workshops.

Now that I have finished hibernating after Christmas, I am so excited to be able to tell you about the new workshops that will be coming up very soon.

The first two will be Handmade Felt:  A workshop for beginners on Saturday the 21st February. This will also be fun for anyone who wants to get back into felt and play with colour in the softest merino wool and silk. 

We will be making flowers....

And a picture. 

We will be layering, using silk and other exciting fibres and discussing methods of stitching, beading and embellishing felt. Have a little look at some of the photos of Handmade Felt at the beginning of my blog to get some more ideas.

The second workshop which is on the 21st March.will continue from the first one. We will be finishing and hand embellishing our pictures and brooches, learning about needle felting and making a seamless wool and silk felt bag.

The cost of each day is £65 and includes everything you will need including refreshments but not lunch. The times are 10am till 4pm. Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead. Let me know if you'd like to book. You can contact me through my website:www.paulawatkins.co.uk  I'd love it if you'd join me for playing with beautiful wooly stuff.

Ready to Fly!

One of my earliest blog posts on the 17th May had a doodle  from one of my sketchbooks that I had used as inspiration for a piece of handmade felt. 

I had a lovely time laying out the felt fibres using some of the colours in the sketch and then because I was so busy with my teaching schedule and because I had covered every available space  with art stuff I rolled up the fibres in their net and bubble wrap  and left them till the summer. I originally intended to add the details from the sketch into the final piece with stitching. I was going to 'doodle ' with the sewing machine to add the final touches.

I finally had time to finish felting it and here is the finished piece! at last!!

 I am so pleased with the way it has come together. Because it was made by wet felting, it has  a really dense rippley texture and the pattern on it has stayed in relief. Because I am an embroiderer and I am addicted to stitching I had to really make myself resist stitching this piece. I think it has enough detail now that it is finished and it is a good note to myself that I don't need to stitch on everything . 

You can see in this detail that it has a variety of different fibres on this panel Thin mohair, silk, curly hand dyed Wensleydale, hand dyed roving and lots of coloured merino. Just like painting with fibre! Hmmm What shall I do next???

Handmade Felt on a Summers Day

Now that it looks like the weather has finally got its act together I thought I would show you a picture of my Summer Meadow. 


If you look closely you can see that it has all kinds of gorgeous stuff in there. Different kinds of wool, silk fibres, hand dyed cotton muslin, and stitch.

The stitching, which is the final stage when you are making a panel like this, really adds so much detail and dimension to handmade felt that it doesn't feel quite finished to me till I have done some. But then I am a stitchy kind of a girl I suppose. 

On the Fabulous Felt Course we have a session on stitching and embellishing our felt with beading and ribbons and lovely stuff like that. Hand stitching is easy to learn and is such a nice way to pass the time!