Pine Needle Felt- Learning From Leiko Uchiyama

In April, I traveled down to California to the Tin Thimble to take a class from my friend Leiko Uchiyama.   I was finally able to get the time to download the photos from the workshop I took at this workshop.  I took the Pine Needle Samples workshop with her.  It was a terrific class and I really enjoyed seeing Leiko again.  We figured it had been almost ten years since we had seen each other!  

Here are Leiko and I with one of her pieces at an exhibit she was featured in.

I was having difficulty with the technique at first because I made my "needles" too thick, but I persisted and eventually got the technique correct. I then tried other fibers (the teal one below left is a silk/wool blend) and putting the lace into a shape (The red background with a circle of orange lace in the middle below right.)  I really felt good about these samples-like I accomplished something because I could get the lovely lace.  Eventually, it is this technique I used in my project.

Notice that the piece on the left is too thick, while the one one the right is correct. 

We worked another sample in her class as well.    Here is the front and back of that sample.

The project I did make is a shawl. After doing the samples, I was inspired to make a felt of a long ago memory- the memory of long pine needles falling into the water at a lake and gathering in a group like tumbled pick up sticks as the lake swells pushed them to shore. This is the resulting shawl, more lovely in real life than in the photo. I love the fine merino I used from Opulent Fibers in Portland, OR. Their colors are yummy and the photos don't do them justice. The photo on the right is closer to the colors than the one on the left.

I decided to make this shawl my project for the “Water” theme from Felt United’s International Day of Felt.  (October 5, 2013) It was a terrific theme, and it fit in well with my memory. 

I’m not sure when I will use these techniques again.  But I was quite pleased with the knowledge I gained from this class.  And, of course, getting to see Leiko again.

 

Textured Felts - "Cracked Mud"

The family went on vacation this last week.  I carried along my felting supplies and took advantage of the large dining room table and convenient access to a dryer in the condo to do some felting.  I made several laminated prefelts using the dryer so I can run the dye experiments I talked about a couple weeks ago. I need to figure out  what dyes I used in my original laminated prefelt resist dyed pieces and I need some felted fabrics to practice on.

But I was most excited about finally having time to try out some of the texture samples I wanted to make.  The first one I made created a look I think is reminiscent of dried, cracked mud.  I was inspired by the tutorial of Love Voronin (http://www.livemaster.ru/topic/61153-idei-iz-moej-kopilki-chast-2?)

Here is a picture of the finished sample: )

 

 To make this, I cut a grid out of resist material.  (I use the liner that goes under laminated floors from Ikea, (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00018076/)  

1. I laid down two thin, crisscrossing layers of 19 micron merino fiber in a ten inch square and wet the fiber down with soapy water.

2. At this point, I realized that the outside border on the resist grid was too wide so I cut it down to a smaller size and laid it on top of the wet fiber. 

3. I covered the grid lines with another layer of fiber.

4. I then covered the whole thing with two more crisscrossing layers of fiber.  The photo below shows the second layer in the process of being added.

5. I wet out the whole stack and felted it until it was a hard fabric.

6. Since it was easy to see the resist grid, I could cut down the middle of each grid line and around the outside edges, freeing the grid.

7. I removed the grid.

8. I then felted the fabric some more to harden the cut edges.

I think it was very successful.

Found Laminated Prefelts from Last Summer!

Yay!  I was moving things around in my living room and found the laminated prefelt samples I did in Pam de Groot's class last summer!  The bag of samples had fallen down behind a book case.  When I was unpacking from my teaching trip to Bellingham, I must have put the bag on top of the book case and it was somehow  knocked off behind.  I'm happy.  The only problem is, the colors are totally different than the ones I used in my new set of samples.  My new samples were dyed with Jacquard Acid dyes and the old ones were dyed with Landscape dyes.  I really couldn't remember what the original prefelt colors looked like exactly so I went with a totally different colorway in the new prefelts.

I am going to need to make more laminated prefelts to make the vest.  Now, hard decision, which colorway should I use?  I have ordered some Landscape dyes in what I think are the colors we used last summer.  I don't think I could replicate these colors using the Jacquards that I have and since the colors are mixed, I don't think I could mix them exactly either.  More experimentation!

 Dyed Laminated Prefelts I made in Pam de Groot's Class