Blog - Page 2 of 12 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

It’s time to organise my white fabric stash

Both natural dyeing and eco printing require white fabric and I have been building a disorganised stash. I bought a lot of old tablecloths from the local charity shop during 2019 and early 2020 and mordanted most of it. I even have a stash inventory from about a year ago. Meaningless really as I have not updated it. I stored my stash in numerous plastic blags and in an old blanket chest I got from my mother. Last year in the first lockdown I sewed scrubs for the local hospital and I volunteered to take all the white sheeting we were given, as it wasn’t suitable for making scrubs. This has added to the significantly to the stash. And of course, I have bought lengths of fabric to supplement the recycled material. I have kept my small quantity of silk fabric separate from the rest, and for now, I am not sorting…

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28/02/2021

Fibres / Natural dyeing / Prefelts / Wet felting

My first experiments testing fine wetfelt samples.

I want to make some fine wet felt samples. I have successfully made two large fine merino and silk wet felted wraps, but I am not sure that they have the optimum felt thickness. This is why I am doing these experiments. I am going to make white samples. As I think about this I am reminded of the first blog I wrote ' White out ' I was just starting on an online felting course and I wanted to record my adventures. I was a novice felter and blogger and I lost my white felt in a sea of soap on my white table. You can read it here I have a grey table now so that problem will not reoccur! My large wraps were made with wool layout densities of 4 and 5 mg/cm2. Beautifully thin but hard to layout and prone to thin spots. My new samples will be…

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21/02/2021

Eco Dyeing / eco printing / Fabric / garments / machine stitching / Natural dyeing / sewing

My challenge: Sewing garments with ecoprinted fabric.

I have sewn garments for years but only made garments with eco-printed fabrics for about a year. Eco printed fabric gives me a new challenge: the width of the fabric. I printed eco-fabric that was 42cm wide. Garments normally use 115cm wide fabric. 42cm was limited by my longest pole and the length of my fish kettle. With my new larger fish kettle this has gone up to about 54cm. I looked for interesting garment patterns that could be accommodated by this restriction. I choose a Marcy Tilton jacket pattern My fabric was an old linen table cloth. I cut out the pattern pieces before printing to get round the width limitations. Then I printed the pieces individually using walnut, rose, silverweed and Cornus leaves, and a tannin blanket. Work in progress. Finished jacket The trouser pattern was made up of narrow pieces. I simply sewed my fabric pieces together to get…

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14/02/2021

madder / Natural dyeing / Wool / Woolfest

Can I extract the true red from madder roots ?

For a number of years, I have grown my own madder from a plant that I bought at woolfest from fiery felts. I have tended the plants carefully and as they matured started to harvest the roots. Here is my madder bed looking a bit weedy in the snow. So far using these madder roots I have only been able to achieve peachy reds which I find a bit frustrating. I thought I’d try again. First I read up about the factors which affect the colour extraction process for madder. I reread "Wild Color" by Jenny Dean along with the pages about madder on the website of the wild colours company. I also checked the history of dyeing with madder in the wonderful book "Natural Dye" by Dominique Cardon. What a lot of options there are. True red was the desired red colour to be obtained from madder…

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07/02/2021

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

So how thin can I make a beautiful piece of felt ?

Many years ago I went to a workshop by Lisa Klakulak. The big take away for me was how the thin or thick fibre layout affects the quality of the final felt. In my mind, this is called layout density. The thinner felt layout shrinks more and is stronger hence the name of Lisa's website - Strongfelt. So what you are thinking. Well, I want to make thin felt. In fact, thin white felt. I want to make thin but cosy , light and comfortable wraps. The white felt will act as a foil for my naturally dyed fabrics. This thinking process reminds me of the great care Lisa took in the starting thickness of the felt she was making. I started with 4mg of fibre/ cm2. My wrap size is big so this means a total of 60g of fibre. At this density, it’s very hard for me to lay out…

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28/01/2021

IFA / website / Wet felting

What can a felter do when they break their elbow ?

Cry ? Well it might come to that yet. Last Friday it was a beautiful day , cold and sunny. The first day when there hadn’t been snow, lashing rain or ice for three weeks. So we decided to go cycling. A big big mistake. Less than 5 km from home I gently slid to the ground on a patch of black ice. Was I OK? I wasn’t sure. Certainly, my face and my arm hurt. I gingerly cycled home and contemplated my injuries. Did I need an X-ray? …. or just ice packs and rest. Eventually, we decided I needed an X-ray, and I was driven to our local urgent care centre. With all COVID precautions in place, and no other patients, I was quickly diagnosed with a fracture to the head of my radius. Treatment sling for 4 - 6weeks. Well, it could have been worse it could have been…

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23/01/2021

Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Why did it all start with dandelions ?

I was reminded last week, whilst walking on the cliffs in Northumberland, how my passion for natural dyeing all started with dandelions. It was a sunny Sunday in mid-May 2014. I was living in the Netherlands and along with the rest of the Netherlands, I spent my afternoon cycling on the local cycle paths. While I was out I noticed a huge patch of dandelions. Something switched in my brain and I thought I will come back and pick them and try out some natural dyeing. Naeve, I know! But I was very enthusiastic and there was such a lot to pick. It wasn’t the most successful experiment I have done as I was woefully underprepared. Here is a link to the blog I wrote at the time. The dandelions I picked. What a glorious colour ! My pale shade of dandelion on wool, cotton, and silk. Not so glorious. I had…

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12/05/2019

Wet felting

Why am I telling the story of my felt figures now ?

In the autumn of 2017, I visited France and spent some time walking in the Vercors. It was here I got the inspiration for my felt figures. As is often the way inspiration comes when you least expect it. These fabric and wire figures were on display in the window in the local boulangerie. They attracted my attention and I thought maybe they would translate to being made from felt. Unfortunately, the boulangerie was not open every day and so I was not able to buy one. I had a lovely chat with the owner about how much I liked them, but as she was shut she would not sell me one. Once home, I set about trying to make some felt figures, based just on the photos I had taken. It would have been a lot easier if I had managed to buy one of the figures. With a little experimental…

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03/03/2019

Wet felting

I think it is time to risk changing my process

It was in 2017 that I last changed my dyeing and felting process. The influencing factor then was my reflections following a brilliant online course, creative strength training, with Jane Dunnewold. Here is a link to the blog I wrote about that change. This week I have been assessing the naturally dyed felting materials I have and concluded I need lots more greens! This is all have left. My process to date has been mordant my fibres, dye my fibres, make prefelts, sometimes modify them, and then felt my prefelts. Complicated! It also has one drawback. Once mordanted and dyed the wool fibres are quite sticky. This makes laying out the fibres difficult and time-consuming and I am never happy that I have made a nice even prefelts. As I started to weigh out alum and fibre last week I suddenly had a thought. Why is my process in this order? Why not,…

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11/02/2019

machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Textile art / Wet felting / Wool

Why did I get inspiration from painted fields ?

I have always loved to stand on the top of a hill or a ridge and look down at the patterns formed by the fields in the valley. So it’s not surprising that when I visited The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle I found inspiration in the pictures that were being exhibited by Rob van Hoek. His pictures reminded me of the landscape in the Netherlands where I used to live. They also made me think of standing on a hill looking down on the field patterns in the UK. I loved the lines he had scrapped out of the paint to mark out the different fields. I wondered two things. First could I make a similar piece with my naturally dyed wool. And secondly, could I find similar inspiration for pieces in the North York’s Moors where I live. One step at a time. It is the depth of winter here and…

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27/01/2019