Busy time around the Shanty

Finally got around to making a hat! I love this pattern. About 5 years ago, while I was at the Midwest Felting Symposium taking a classes from Judit Pocs, I developed a severe migraine. Ruth Walker went into the class in my place. She designed the pattern and over the next two days, we made this style hat. Truth be told, Ruth did most of the work. One day I was not even there, and the second day I was mostly "post-migraine". I think I've shared this pattern with most of my felting friends in Michigan. It is fun to make and most folks wear it well. It's been sooooo long since I've made a hat. Just felt good to make one again.


In a few hours I leave for a 4 day work shop in Wisc. where I'll be teaching nuno felt, bird pods, rug stomp, and vessels. I've been packing most of the day and trying to get some last minute dyeing done. Sometimes, great work can come out of time pressures. These silk scarves turned out so interesting. I think the participants in the workshops will have great fun with them. There were many color splits that occurred and that adds another element of interest to the silk.

There is still a good bit of packing to get done plus a load or two of laundry before I head out. I hope I can sleep tonight. I'm so looking forward to seeing my friends in Wisc. I hope that when I get home, there will be wonderful photos to share with you.

The bouquet is packed and ready to go. I am sharing one last photo, mostly because I am going to miss having her around the house. I'll probably never do another.

Happy felting and Shalom
Suzanne

Holly's Wedding Bouquet

Finally, here it is. I have to make a few tweaks, but for the most part, Holly's wedding bouquet is completed. My prayer is that she likes it and that their marriage is filled with loving and good memories.

Sister Pods!

Char and Sharon spent Thursday with me making felt pods. Char raises the most amazing Cormo sheep with incredible fleeces. They used the cormo for their first two layers, then began to apply the Llama and other fibers to the outer layers. I think their results are spectacular. What do you think?

Have a blessed weekend.
Shalom,
Suzanne

Mama Pod

My beloved mother returned home from her 6 month stay in sunny FLA. On her way home, she stopped here to spend three incredible days with me and Jim. It was a precious time together. We walked a lot, worked in the woods clearing dead wood, started a fire...that almost got out of control and made felt together. This is her first pod. It is made out of llama fiber. She is totally impressed with herself and I love what she did with the fibers! She is a "birder" too, so I'll be anxious to hear about who nests in her pod.
Yeah Mom! Nicely done.
Just thought I'd share it with you all here too.
Shalom,
Suzanne

Felting, Dyeing, Spinning,...OH MY!

What a day! Kelly (shown below with her new works of art) spent the day with me, felting, dyeing, eating, talking, laughing, and learning form each other.

I'd started the llama pod for an upcoming class that I'll be facilitating in Cedar Grove, WI the end of the month. I needed to make a couple of samples because the class will be using raw llama fibers. I'm accustom to raw wool, but llama does felt differently and I needed to practice. The llama felted bird pod is the finished results and will be sent off to Wisconsin Sunday. The birds were checking it out already this morning. I am concerned because the llama is such a soft felt even when felted hard. It is also not as water resistant as wool is. I may have to put a water resistant stiffener on the outside of the pod. Any thoughts on that? Got ideas?


I made this wrap this week and then decided to over dye it in hot fuchsia and purple. Love how the colors melded and played with each other. I was going to keep it for myself, but Kelly purchased it. She wears it well.








Kelly asked for private felting classes and this is the results of her wonderful labors. Love what she did.

Jone stopped by for a quick spinning lesson. I think she'll produce the lovely lumpy, bumpy yarns that she so wants to add to her incredible felts. She took my wheel home with her to practice. She is going to love spinning her own funky yarns.

Have to get ready for dinner plans and my mom arriving in town for an extended stay. It will be so good to have her here.

Happy felting and Shalom,
Suzanne

Color Morphing

While on my Felt Play Retreat with Pam MacGregor, she showed me how she pulls color from fiber. Trust me when I say I am not following her instructions well. I can however tell you what I did, and hopefully these photos will help explain as well.

#1:
First off, I'd made these fingerless mitts in lime green, then did an over dye with violet in a random wrapped form.


#2:
After that, I threw them into a dye pot of a raspberry colored dye and let them "cook" for about an hour.

#3
Rinsed them thoroughly and then did a fan fold on them in a rather random fashion, then bound them into place with heavy string.

#4:

Prepared un-dye bath with RIT Color Remover, very hot solution, one full packet. (I actually could have used less but wanted to be sure that it was going to work. I think this is something that I "get better" as I move along in the process.)

#5:
Placed bound mitts into hot bath and stay close by. Color can come out very fast, so it must be closely monitored. Have tongs close by to pull out of the dye bath when the color agrees with you.

#6:
Rinse thoroughly, untie and see what you got.


#7:
If you like it, great. Maybe you'll want to tie it up in a different fashion and place it back into the un-dye bath. Maybe you'll want to re-dye and start over.

The questions have been asked about what kind of dyes I use, so I'll address that. I use whatever I can get my hands on, sometimes food coloring, along with Jacquard, Country Classics, Dharma, truly, whatever I find. I also mix them together without much concern for how it turns out. This is play...the fun is the adventure of what will happen. I have no specific goal in mind other than discovery.

I hope this is helpful. I also hope that if you have questions about how I do something that you'll feel free to ask it. I write this blog to inspire others to try it, and to hopefully show you enough of my flops and successes to encourage new felters to keep trying, keep pushing yourself. I've been making felt for 10 + years and make mistakes all the time. I've learned to turn them into "design elements" or I've released them to someone else who can see something I cannot. It's the journey that is joyous.


Enjoy your journey.

Did this help?

Shalom,
Suzanne

Re-Dye, Over Dye, Un-dye

It is rewarding to discover and rediscover the dye pots. I'd been away from them for some time and decided to re-dye the piece I was playing with before. This piece was over dyed with olive and black, then wrapped, dye pulled out, then re-wrapped and more dye pulled out, then again, re-wrapped and more dye pulled out yet again. I think now I am very pleased with the results...and have many ideas bouncing around in my head because of it....but that is for another time.
The first photo is after the second dye over, the second photo is what I started with, which I'd played with previously.
Good Sabbath and Shalom,
Suzanne

Promises Kept

Through a series of unfortunate mishaps, Kim had taken a class several years ago, traveled long distances, paid good money, only to end up making her project out of SUPER WASH WOOL! Can we all understand her grief, sadness, disappointment, frustration? She came away with a glob of wool. I was there, not teaching, but still there to see it all happen. I cried with her and then offered to teach it to her whenever we could arrange to get together. Yesterday was that day.There was HUGE success. I am sorry that I don't have the final results to share with you just yet, but they are coming soon. Since I like small groups best, I invited Evelyn to come join us for the day. I think we all walked away at the end of the day feeling very blessed to have been in each others company and to have had such great success. I think that sometimes God has us wait for some things because there are greater rewards awaiting us somewhere in the future. How could Kim and I have known that God had prepared such a day as yesterday for us? What a blessing indeed.

Hope your day and your felting is a blessing to you and to others!
Shalom,
Suzanne

It is enough

So anxious to try out some of the things that I learned from Pam...I got a prefelt that was purple and nutmeg, applied some textures in the middle and felted it firmly. Then did a 'discharge" on the entire piece after I put the fabric into a fan fold. I like the result. My husband sees North American Indian pottery, Pam sees something oriental, I see a woman dancing and lifting her hands in praise. I would do things differently now that I see the results, but it is a learning thing, and I am looking forward to more adventures in the dye and un-dye pots!

I am pleased to announce that I've been asked to teach at the: Crooked River Fiber Fling Aug 4-7 2011. I'm not sure if all of the classes are up on the page yet, but it looks like it is going to be a wonderful event and venue. I hope that I'll get the chance to meet some of you while I am there. Others who are teaching are listed below. Nice bunch of talent.
The Fiber CAFE of the Peninsula Art Academy presents
https://fibercafe.org/Home_Page.html

Sharon Costello, Sally Melville, Suzanne Higgs, Carol Adams, Joan Brasaemle, Gerrie Hotton, Jennie Hutchings, Mary Kapenekas, Rosanna Ludwig, Cris Welch.

I hope to get a bunch of samples completed this week for the upcoming classes. My ADD is really bad right now...I do things I want to do, not the things I should. Got to work on getting my "get focused" and follow through. So hard sometimes, just so hard. But today I'll finish the scarf I laid out and then put things away so I can think better. Though I am in a state of scatter, I am so filled up with joy and peace, and that is good enough and far better than I deserve!

Happy felting and Shalom,
Suzanne

4 Days of WOW...

I've just come home from 4 incredible days with Jone Rakoski and Pam MacGregor at Pam's studio in Ohio. I am overwhelmed with the information shared. We did things like Goodwill shopping, looking at hardware, going out to lunch, going to garage sales, hypnotizing chickens, talking late into the night, and felting. There is no way I can share all of it---this entry would be a book, but I can share some.

In the first photo there are several items that might be of interest. The green scarf and book Pam gave to me, as well as "Bad Girls of the Bible", a battery operated dremmel and sea shells. I've long loved Pam's books made of felt. This one is made of some of the hand dyed merino silk that I'd given to Pam last spring. The scarf we did some discharge on to our happy delight.

Jone laughs at me because I drink instant coffee...life moves fast around here, so it's become convenient for me. She picked up this two cup coffee maker, some coffee, sweet sticks with lavender, and made the soda cover. I'm drinking "fresh ground coffee" as I write this. YES! She would be so proud of me...and that way I'll have it available when she is here.

Being with other felt makers is joyous. Being with these two incredible felt makers was fantastically joyous. I nearly cried when I left. It was I was filled to over flowing.

Are there those people in your life who fill you up? I hope so!

Happy Felting and Good Sabbath,
Suzanne

One thing leads to another

In August I acquired some cormo wool top. Oh my goodness, is that stuff soooo soft! I thought I'd try it out on some felt over silk gauze, and add some sari silk and silk roving. Initially, the whole project was done in white, except the sari silk. While I've used the sari silk a lot, I've never had the fabrics "run" before. This time it did, with gold bleeds and purple bleeds on the wool and silk...and so one thing leads to another. After the scarf was felted, I over-dyed all of it in s bold yellow for just a few minutes, then took it out, twisted it up randomly, put some blue in the dye bath and let it soak some of that dye up for a bit longer. Thought I would like the bold side best, but not so much. I like the muted, water color effect the best. Moreover, it is reversible with two completely different looks. I like that aspect a lot. After all the work to make sure the sari silk melded to the wool...I like the softer side better...go figure!

I leave Wednesday morning with jone to spend 4 wonderful days with the incredible Pam MacGreger, feltmaker, amazing and generous! If you want to see her amazingly spectacular works, do take a peek at her website listed below.
http://www.tarveycottagestudio.com/

Anytime you get the chance to take a class from Pam, don't even hesitate. She is an amazing artist, communicator, source of creative thought and design. Pam has been a teacher in her professional life, but from personal experience, Pam is a natural teacher in her personal life as well. I am so looking forward to spending the time with someone whose work I am totally in love with, and who is becoming a friend. We will have good felt talk, felt making, great food and wine, peaceful evenings on the porch. We've been planning this trip for months. I am so excited to spend the time with her.
Until next week, good felting adventures and Shalom,
Suzanne

Wrapped in Felt

For several months now I've wanted to make a wrap out of the prefelts that I've acquired from Jone Rakoski. With "Spring busting out all over" it doesn't seem like the right time to make the wrap, but when it calls to me, I have a hard time ignoring it. This is one that was dyed in olive greens, and while I adore that color a lot, I decided that I wanted some plumb overtones on the prefelt. It was dyed it in purple/plumb to give it some lovely hues of all of the colors. The silk was applied for contrast and movement and visual stimulation.

Working with prefelts (merino) usually provides at least a 30% shrinkage. I really didn't want to lose even that much of the width in the process. Before I started felting it, it was stretched in all directions and throughout the entire process, I continued to stretched it more than I normally would do. The drape turned out lovely. It is about 9 ounces of complete comfort.

The fiber from Bahr Creek Llama Studio came in on Thursday. I've got to do some experimenting with it before I teach the classes using their fiber. For the hat and nuno classes we will be using merino top, but for the bird pods, we will be using raw llama fibers. They have a colorful herd of 30 llamas. I've got to perfect it before I teach it. It is a different hand to llama and alpaca than to wool. Stepping out of my comfort zone...hope I don't stumble too much!

Some have questioned me about the lichen photos...will I translate to felt? It is a hope that I will. I've got some ideas...now to bring them to fruition. So many ideas, so little time and so little of me. I fatigue more easily now, so it all takes me a bit longer these days. Still, felt is patient with me and I with it. We will get there.

Side note to the felt coffins is this blog spot:

http://bellacouche.typepad.com/leafshrouds/

About 7 years ago my husband sent the link to me at my shop. I thought the ingenuity was spectacular, the thought, comforting. A body wrapped, rather than boxed, just sounds more loving to me. We wrap precious things, babies, gifts, heirlooms, fragile things, things we love. I like the idea of wrapping the remains of someone loved.

"Dust you are, and dust you shall return"

Just seems to make the whole process more natural.

Pam MacGregor said she thought of putting her ashes in a cement ball, having it dropped to the ocean to start a new coral reef. How cool is that!

On a happier note...it's the weekend! I hope yours is filled with good things that inspire you, family and friends, and renewed wonder in the Creation God has given to us.
Shalom and Good Sabbath,
Suzanne

Rest in Fleece: Woolen Coffins Offer Green Goodbye

Rest in Fleece: Woolen Coffins Offer Green Goodbye

There is something comforting in this thought. How often have some of said we could just lay down in the wool and stay there? I have very often. I'll have to share this with my husband and friends. I've thought of making my own urn for ashes and this helps me in that process of creating such an urn. I've thought it "not fancy" just simply to hold the ashes to be buried in.

Recently one of my small chihuahuas died from a brain tumor. Her ashes are still here in the house until the frost left the ground. I think I will make one for her ashes.

Hope this post isn't too depressing, just interesting and thought provoking. I think a felt shroud would also be lovely... your thoughts?

Shalom,
Suzanne

GRRRRRRR and success as well

Pathetically, I am down to one hat! ONE HAT! Yikes. Of course, that means that sales have been good, but one hat, come on! I usually have about 40 on hand and am just simply out of them. So I did make one and here is the front and the top of it. It is double hooded and very warm. I love the color and texture play. I may have to keep this hat for myself....maybe.














A few months ago I received a pre-dyed silk scarf from a dear friend of mine. I decided to use it in a nuno felt. I worked and worked and still in the end, I am disappointed. I think that it is a tighter mm than I thought and the fibers did not migrate the way I had hoped. It is just about make it as a soft nuno but not one that I would sell. It just isn't up to my expectations of myself. Too bad too, because I really like the colors.













But that is part of the process, don't you think? Finding out what works and what doesn't work.
I hope that the efforts of today will be more successful.
I wish the same for you.
Shalom,
Suzanne

Lichen, Woods, Workshops Coming

Usually I walk a mile in the morning at one of several stores around town until the warm weather arrives here in Plainwell, Michigan. It was dark and raining this morning and I got a late start. I like walking very early before the stores get busy. When I arrived at my destination, they were already busy so I decided to go to the woods to "just look". What an excellent choice for the day! There was beautiful, spectacular lichen. I took some photos via my phone and most of them are up on my facebook page. I am struck by the subtle colors and incredible shapes lichen take on. The smell of the woods in the early spring is lovely too, very earthy, sweet, sometimes musky...and with the soft rain and overcast shies. It was a lovely time there. I love rainy days. ( You might want to click on this photo to see the detail. It is lovely to see the moss on the lichen!)

Over the past few days I've been trying to finalize three workshops I've been asked to teach in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin at Bahr Creek Llama Farm and Studio. I think we have done it. Bahr Creek Llama Studio is having sheering days on their very large herd of llama. They have a huge turn out for this annual event.
So here is the line up:
#1
Felt Bird Pods-Wednesday, May 25th, 9:30AM-2:30PM, cost 55.00 + 20.00 material fees.

#2
Nuno Felt-Thursday, May 26th, 9:30AM-2:30PM, cost 55.00 + 25.00 material fees.

#3
Sculptured Wool Felt Hat -Friday, May 27th, 9:30AM-2:30PM, cost 55.00 + 20.00 material fees.

For more information on these workshops, please contact Brigitte at Bahr Creek. She told me that the classes always fill very fast so if you are interested, I'll encourage you to act with haste.

WWW.bahrcreek.com

www.bahrcreekllamasfiber.blogspot.com

If the classes are over filled, I will stay one more day to teach.

The scarves below are the ones that I've dyed for the nuno felting workshop at Bahr Creek. The colors turned out so softly lovely. I am thinking I'll have a hard time letting go of these scarves.

I am also counting down the days until I get to go spend an extended time with Jone, the amazing, and Pam, the incredible. Looks like we're going to manage a felting get away. YES!!!!!


Well, off to go felting for the rest of the day.

Joy in the day and Shalom,
Suzanne