Crochet and Felt

At last week's Fabulous Felt course one of my learners was our Elizabeth, Director of the Community Learning Partnership. I have been running the course for a few years and she loves to see all the learners work but she has never really had the chance to make any felt herself. She is slightly addicted to wool though; the colours, its softness (its SMELL!!??) and all the amazing things can be made from those lovely wool tops! 

However, Elizabeth's greatest current addiction is Crochet. Whenever I go into the office she has crocheted something new or bought more delicious wool for our learners to use on our crochet courses. So it shouldn't be a surprise that she had been wondering if you could combine crochet with handmade felt.

The answer is, of course, YES!

Felt making is such an amazing adventure that we never stop learning how many different things you can do with it. The wackiest things work if you know the basics of how felt is made  
and you can embed all kinds of things into the fibres as they felt.

So this week, on part 2 of the course, she is going to bring some pieces of crochet to experiment with. In the meantime I had a little experiment of my own.

I found some gorgeous space dyed merino yarn in my stash and crocheted some circles of different kinds and sizes and added them to the bottom of of my seascape panel that I was using to demo felting to the class. As the felting was barely started the crocheted motifs adhered really well to the pre felt and moulded the bottom of the panel with some lovely curves.

I added shells and some stitching to finish it all off. I love adding crochet to felt! Thanks Elizabeth and lets see how our experiments turn out on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone's felt turns out. It is always wonderful to see beginners turn into Fabulous Felters.

I will post some  photos of the class work next week. 

Coming up for the next 2 Saturdays. 2nd  and 9th March 2013 

Watford.

10am-4pm

All materials and refreshments included.

I think there may be a couple of spaces left!

The Liberty Best of British Open Call 2013

Since I was very young I have loved visiting Liberty in London. It isn't only the most beautiful shop, with gorgeous architectural details and a wonderfully serene atmosphere but it also has a bedazzling array  of luxury designer merchandise in its many different departments. It is food for my creative soul just to visit and to wander.

Even when I have been almost broke its been such a treat to buy a little something scrummy and take it home in its distinctive, gold lettered, purple bag.

So after many years of admiring the work of the other designers I thought I'd register to show mine! Being BRAVE remember!

I registered in the summer last year and before Christmas I got a letter inviting  me to join the other 2,000 designers and artists to show my work to one of the panels of experts from Liberty. 

January 12th arrived! The day  for The Liberty Best of British Open Call 2013!

It was a freezing cold winter's day. The doors opened at 10am but people were queueing from about 6am. By the time we got there at 10, the queue reached around 2 sides of the store.  We would waiting for hours in the chilly British weather so we wrapped up well. We were asked to bring only what we could easily carry and to have protection from the rain.

I took my DH with me for company. He is such a great support but he hates queueing! However, it was lucky that he promised  not to complain as we eventually had to wait  for 5  1/2 hours!! (2 hours outside, the rest going up 4 flights of stairs and in the waiting area) We did get to go away and have lunch at a lovely little patisserie for a treat though. 

The great thing that made the time go faster was that there were so many interesting people to watch! All kinds of artists, all ages, all kinds of products. It was fascinating to see some of them practising their pitches, revising their prices and talking about their inspiration.

We did get a peek at some of their designs: Gold jewellery, screen printed scarves, and lots of different designer cushions.

I took 3 different kinds of things and was registered to see the buyers of the Home department. When I got into the room where I would be doing my 3 minute pitch I was so thrilled to be told that I would be seeing Julie Hassan the Senior Buying Manager for Home, and Harriet Patterson the Style Director of Living Etc Magazine.

The lovely thing about the Liberty Open Call is that although they only take about 10 out of the 2,000 designers they see on the day, everyone is treated so nicely. It isn't scary like Dragon's Den at all!  The staff are so friendly and helpful throughout the whole process.

This is a real chance to have your designs seen by some of the top professionals in the industry and get an honest and constructive appraisal of your work. They were so interesting to talk to and gave me some great feedback. I was there for longer than 3 minutes because they asked me lots of questions but it went like a flash! What a great experience and well worth waiting for.

The youtube video link below will show you Liberty's own clips of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LJGFNTwDA0&list=UUxUf2HdD5Se6biJzxc_xeWw&index=1

  

Happy Brave New Year!

A couple of months ago I was having lunch with two of my lovely friends and we were discussing New Year resolutions. They are SO hard to keep and in the last few years I have only made 2 in the hope that I could keep myself firmly stuck to them!

One of my friends said she was going to make just one! Be Brave!

It was such an amazing moment because we could see, in that second,  that for all of us this meant really different things but to each of us this would be such an important resolution. We all decided right there that this was the one for us!

As we talked about it we realised that that we all feel scared about some things and that everyone needs a little bravery in their lives. Not only to cope with some of life's challenges with things like health or family worries  but also because we all choose the easy option sometimes, rather than challenging ourselves to take risks. Without stepping out of our comfort zones a little bit every day (or even from time to time) we don't know what wonderful things could be waiting for us, what talents we could find, and which new friends we could meet.

I have mentioned this to quite a few other friends since then and each time it made such an impression that I think many people will join us in being Brave!

We have decided to have a Bird as our Badge of Bravery! because they are beautiful, brave and have wings to fly! The bird in the picture above is a doodle I have started in my journal. It isn't finished yet but I may leave it to show how the doodles are formed for the journalling classes which will be coming up later in the year.

So I wish you a very Happy New Year and if you wish to join us in Being Brave that you will find that surprising and wonderful things will happen for you this year. And that you will find your own wings!

Christmas Paper Patchwork

On the Mixed Media group I belong to we decided to do a Christmas patchwork panel swap.

We all got assigned different dimensions for our panel and as there were 10 people in the swap we each had to make 10 identical panels- one for each member of the swap.

At the end we each received one from each person and a diagram of how they would all fit together.

I thought I'd do a little tutorial of how I made mine because lots of people have been asking about how to make the paint effects, how to use the products and how to piece it all together.

This may take a while so get a cuppa  and lets get messy!

1. My panel is 4"wide by 5" high so I chose some black card and ran it through the Sizzix Bigshot in a Snowflake and a spotty Embossing Folder. It turned my cardboard into  deeply embossed  patterned cards and I painted them with Gold and Copper Jaquard Lumiere paints which is rich and metallic and perfect for using on fabric, card and anything you like. LOVE this paint!

I also cut some birds and reindeer in the black card with the Sizzix. I know they were all supposed to be the same but I got excited and can't make decisions when I'm excited!

  I wanted the panels to look vintage, so although the bright metallics look good I wanted more depth to the paint effects. When  you are making your own painted backgrounds you can choose your own colour scheme so I decided to make 3 different versions of vintage metallics.

The first one is Verdigris which is the look of copper when it has been aged by the weather. It gets lovely blues and greens mixed in with the copper and metallics.

The second is much brighter with more of the metallic colour showing through.

The third is more like an Aged Bronze.It is darker and has a white bloom on the surface.

2.You can do a mix and match of all the finishes and stop when you like the look of your backgrounds. There are no rules and it is fun to just play with the paints.

We start by putting a blob of lime green, turquoise and white on a plate. These look quite bright but we are going to be blending them and mixing them and between these 3 colours you can make all kinds of different tints, shades and depths of colour.

You can mix the colours on the brush and on the plate but it it really important to have a really dry brush before you paint so when you like the colour you have mixed rub most of it off on to a paper towel so that it looks like there is almost none left. Not like the brush above!

3. Now really lightly brush the colour onto the texture of your card. Try to brush over just the  top of the textured surface. Add some patches of the other colours and mix them together a bit but make sure your brush stays really dry.

4. Wipe some of the paint off with a paper towel to make it look old and worn and to buff up some of the metallic colours and make them shine.

Time to make the reindeer and birdy embellishments! I wanted a crackly vintage finish on these. Ranger make a lovely crackle paint called Rock Candy which produces  transparent glittery fine crackles with just one step of painting. I painted all my shapes with a fairly thick layer of the crackle and let them dry.

Because it is transparent it doesn't really show on the black so I needed to put something over the top to show off the lovely crackles! I used Copper glitter Stickles. I put a little bit on my finger and rubbed it over the crackles which picked up the texture really well. I also used some Treasure Gold on my finger to rub over the texture and give a bit of shine..

Before sticking my shapes on with PVA glue I rubbed the outer edges of the panels with black Treasure Gold to finish them and make them look aged. I then stuck on some gorgeous bronze metal snowflakes with Ranger Multi Medium in Matte finish which disappears when dry and holds really strongly, and some little berry wreaths which I made from a berry pick that I took apart.

Here is a closer look at 4 of the panels. Have a go at making one yourself but if Christmas is too near you can use this technique all year round to make lovely textured artwork for cards, journals and scrapbooks etc. Try using different colour combinations to make them look completely unique each time.

Boxmoor Craft Fair 2012

The Annual Boxmoor Craft Fair is happening this weekend!

This little fair is small but perfect. We have the happiest stallholders with the nicest crafts and a Kidzone where the children and adults can come and be arty, making Christmas decorations and Artist Trading Cards.

Some of the children come back year after year to add to their collection of cards and have made some beauties!

There are lovely refreshments, hot and cold, and some great stalls to visit.

This year I will be selling off some of my vintage ribbons by the roll for only £5.00. Some of the rolls have 20+ metres on them and would sell for £1.50 or more per metre usually.

I will also have pick and mix buttons and beads and fantastic leather festival jewellery. and I have found some amazing holographic cards with the solar system and planets which would make fab presents if you can part with them.

There will be felt bags and recycled silk purses and all kinds of yummy stuff so come along if you can.

Sunday 21st October, 10am 'till 4pm.

The Parish Centre, St Johns Road, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead. HP1 1NR

Next to the 3 Blackbirds.

The famous Conker Festival is also on that day so come and make a whole day of it with me!

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???