Utilizing Leftovers

As a fiber artist, I have developed quite a stash of bits of this and that over the years. The problem is, what to do with those bits. My frugal twin tells me to hang on and not waste a bit of fiber. My practical twin tells me to either toss it or create something useful. So, I've always been a reader of books, and know a lot of cohorts who read too, so why not extend my fiber art to the book world and create some bookmarks. Great gifts in a pinch and a lovely addition to your book's visual appeal. My style is to add Mohair to my felted pieces, so I used Mohair in the body of the bookmark and the fringe. I'm selling them on Etsy, of course.

New Year Resolutions. . . .well maybe

You can probably tell that I haven't posted to my blog for quite some time now. 2009 has been a year of expectations not equaling reality. It's difficult to keep a stiff upper lip at times and not feel so discouraged as to give up your dreams. 2009 didn't start so well and sort of kept that pace all year. Many things fell through, classes didn't go, but I did manage to get into a gallery last November.

I've been rather mad at technology lately, as my computer has been giving me problems and it seems I spend an awful lot of time on it. Really, I'd rather be creating something, but the Internet has taken over as a marketing tool and if you're not represented on it, well, you're not with the times. Textiles are hard to sell on the Internet, I think. It's such a tactile medium and it's hard to represent it well in photography, especially compressed photography. You just want to touch it. So, 2009 has been a year of finding out some lessons about presenting your craft via the WWW and learning to deal with an economy that isn't art friendly right now. Now, I see the Internet as simply exposure.

On refection, I've thought of a list of New Year's Resolutions (NYR); doesn't everybody? And these are ones I think I can actually keep.

My first NYR (I thought I'd throw that in there, since acronyms are the thing in computer texting) is to be more vigilant in Internet marketing and keep my blog and sites current.

On top of that, I would like to pursue more craft shows (second NYR). The outlay for some of the higher end shows can be daunting though. I simply don't have the capital to rent a space for close to a grand for the weekend, never mind the outlay for the physical booth itself. So, I'll start with participating in various guild sales and smaller shows to get my feet wet. Those usually don't require huge outlays of fees, nor do they sock you with huge commissions on sales.

A third NYR is to try to get my Herchomers into galleries that specialize in whimsical artwork. I'm thinking perhaps Fireworks for starters. They used to be in a gallery in Snohomish, but it went out of business several years ago. It's a shame to have them sitting on a shelf in my studio.

A fourth NYR is to get my dog coats into upscale pet boutiques. They've been sitting on Etsy for over a year with no results, so it's time to get them into places where people can touch them and try them on their dogs.

The final NYR is to work on my creative groove. I've been finding myself lamenting over times when I was much more creatively robust and had more zeal. With life's challenges, creativity can take a hit, so I need to focus on dealing with challenges in a more creative way too. One way is to enroll in professional development courses designed for artists. There's one in my area I'm keen on.

There are no pledges of weight loss, exercise nor promises of complete personality changes. Except for maybe parts of the last NYR, most of mine involve professional development and I feel they are realistic, concrete and lasting. Besides, personal growth on the emotional level is a lifetime's worth of work, not something one can simply change in the context of a year, other than being involved in the process.

So, these are my NYRs and since I'm posting them on the WWW for all to see, I'll add an addendum - a NYR on accountability.

I Finally Got a Dog!

As many of you may know, I, who have collected a herd of cats over the years have finally found my best friend. His name is Petey, or as my SO and I call him, Snorky. He's a Japanese Chin rescue dog from Furbaby Rescue in Bellingham. He's still a pup and a bundle of energy and lots' of fun, fun, fun. I have him profiled in Dogster.com. Now, I'll have to felt him his own little dog coat and I mean little as he is only 5 pounds!




Petey has developed a love of chasing squirrels and will scout the tops of trees in specific locations on our walks where squirrels have been last seen. They've been raiding the wilted sunflowers outside our front window and he has been going nuts watching them! He's about as big as they are, but doesn't know it. So the cats get a bit of a reprieve while the squirrels gather their nuts for the winter as he is very distracted.

Finished another tea cozy. This time I used Merino wool, Mohair and the influence of Tiffany.

Here are several images of the process in creating my tea cozies. It's generally the same Artfelt process as other items I make.







For the smaller, individual shapes I use cookie cutters as a mold and thoroughly poked the edges of the wool around the perimeter of the cutter with my felting needle in order to get a good shape. I wasn't satisfied with how the butterflies looked after they were felted, so I created another pair that I used as the top embellishment.

After it's felted, I needle felt the leaves on to the surface and then sew the flower layers with a bead as a center embellishment. I use fabric glue and needle felting to attach the two halves around the top part, and buttons with elastic cord for the bottom under the spout and handle.

The thick wool helps keep your tea nice and hot for quite a long time.

Creating Curtain Panels

OK, this is diverging from my pet projects (I know, boooo), but you can expect this detour from time to time as my restless imagination wanders off into Unfocused World. Actually, I have completed several projects for business and pleasure. Here, I created a large curtain panel for my bedroom made out of Wensleydale fleece. I really love felting with Wensleydale as you get an amazing texture from the locks. The top red part is Mohair that has a curl of its own, but seems to adapt well to the exaggerated serpentine pattern of the Wensleydale underneath.

Basically, the technique involves a very large sheet of the Artfelt paper. I used an 80 sq. inch sheet (spliced to get the width in one direction) of the paper for a 4' sq. window (with a 33% shrinkage rate) and applied 2 very thin layers of Wensleydale fleece - one layer carded and applied horizontally and the top layer of the locks slightly picked apart and applied vertically.

I crawled around on the floor for 3 days the wool to the paper. It only took around 12 oz. of fiber. To set up for felting, I took it out to my driveway, placed face down on a large sheet of 2mm plastic and wet it down using a garden sprayer filled with water. I used foam pipe insulators to roll it up on and 10 feet of a fabric silt sock (the ones you use for 4" French drain pipes) to hold it. Of course, the wind always picks up when you lay out a large plastic sheet. However, if you get some dirt on the paper side, it will wash down the drain when dissolved. After I rolled it up and contained it, I flopped the log over my car in order to drain the excess water.

It flopped around curled up with 2 pair of tennis shoes added in the dryer for an hour and then another 15 minutes unrolled on it's own. It took 5 large pots of boiling water to get all the paper dissolved, doing the red part last to avoid the dye bleeding too much. I then ironed it and blocked it somewhat. I needle-felted fleece to patch any holes that might have occurred that looked bad. After it dried, I hung it on the rod using those curtain rings with the clips.

My next large project like this will be to create a set of curtains for my guest room using combed Merino roving from Skacel. These curtains should be easier (hah!) as the width is halved, so I won't need to wrestle with it so much. I'll still be crawling around on the floor though. They'll be a forest green to olive color.

My friend, Nancy, loved the idea so much that I helped her create 18" x 72" valances for her fiber room using the same method. They turned out great! I hope to teach a class on creating, perhaps a cafe curtain.

Ruff Work

I love to make these dog coats. People have responded well to them and they are fun to make.

When I discovered Artfelt, I immediately had the idea of creating one-of-a-kind felted dog coats. Why shouldn't your beloved pooch where something beautiful and unique?

In addition to wool, I use glass cabochons, glass beads and mohair accents. Flip the collar up and you get an Elizabethan look. One of the projects on this list is to create matching human and dog coats. These would be custom orders since sizes in humans and dogs vary, of coarse.

The process involves drawing your pattern onto the Artfelt paper, laying out the design with a felting needle, then wetting it down, rolling it up in plastic, containing the log in a nylon stocking and then putting it in the dryer for 30 minutes or so. After the felting process, the paper is removed with boiling water poured over it and then the coat is steam ironed into the final shape. The glass cabochons are completely encased in wool and then cut open and finished to expose the glass after it is dried. The flowers are felted separately and then individually sown on with glass bead centers. The nylon strapping is sown on with heavy duty thread. Snap buckles are used for ease of getting on and off. A washable fleece strap cover provides additional comfort. Each coat takes about 10-15 hours to complete with all of the handwork involved.

So, a lot of ideas for more coats are in my head and now that Fall is coming, it's a good time to ramp up the inventory. You can see more coats on my Pet Effigy web site.