Blog - Page 4 of 12 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Walnuts are not just for eating

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be given some green walnuts. I had never used walnuts for dyeing before. It was a bit of a puzzle to me as to what part of the walnuts I should use for dyeing. Should I use them whole or chop them up.? I checked in Jenny Deans book Wild Colour and realised I should use the whole green walnut . So I just randomly chopped the green casing away from the walnuts shell and placed the chopped up mixture in the dye pot. I did not remove the nuts. After a short time of simmering the solution was a delicious brown colour. I kept it simple and only dyed wool fibres, silk thread and a small piece of silk fabric. The wool fibre , which was Wensleydale long wool , had been mordanted with Alum. The wool dyed brilliantly with the…

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23/09/2017

Natural dyeing / Wet felting / Woad

My exciting experiments with Woad

I am keen to use locally grown dyestuff in my work, either foraged or from my garden. So earlier this year I planted some woad seeds. I had obtained the seeds from natures rainbow. Woad has been used as a dye stuff in Britain for 100s of years and I found it remarkably easy to grow. What I did not research at the time of planting was anything about harvesting for dyeing. When I did was somewhat perplexed as to the complexity of the harvesting procedure - never mind the dyeing processes. It was clear that I needed to harvest the leaves in the first year of growth. But when , summer of autumn. Possibly that depends when you planted the the seeds. I have been looking at my plants now for a number of weeks , wondering is today the day to harvest. As I have a holiday planned shortly…

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17/09/2017

Too many distractions = no time for felting

Brown felted gladstone bag

Wet felting

Too many distractions = no time for felting

September always signals a new beginning for me. It's years since I left school I still always get that start of term feeling. This year however I am really struggling to deliver on that new term, new start feeling, as I have so many distractions. Distraction one : Produce in garden Our chaotic vegetable garden is producing an abundance of courgettes and green beans and not much else. This require picking on a regular basis and either eating , freeezing and giving away. The courgettes won't freeze so well. So I have made some soups and frozen that but now I have just resorted to giving them away. Distraction Two : Garden projects Since we renovated our house in 2016 , the area outside has reassembled a building site. Now my husband has retired he has embarked on…

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10/09/2017

art exhibition / From The Earth Textiles / Natural dyeing / Textile art / Wet felting

How I measure success at exhibiting textile art

In the last few years I have participated in a number of exhibitions. Exhibiting my very first time was my most successful in terms of sales. I sold out. A fluke ? I don't know ? As I think about my pieces for a exhibition in Leeds I wonder what defines exhibiting success . In 2012 I became aware that there would be an exhibition entitled "The dyeing of the Sun - a meditation on fire ". I had never put a piece in an exhibition before. I thought about the exhibition brief and my mind started to think about super novas and the wonderful pictures you see of them. They have crazy names like crab nebulae and pelican nebulae. These pictures are produced by assigning different wave lengths to the colours of the visible spectrum. How techy. Just my thing. I was hooked on this as a exhibiting subject. But how…

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20/08/2017

The benefits of integrated felt bag handles

Purple tweed

Wet felting

The benefits of integrated felt bag handles

As I lay out the fibres for my latest felt bag, I am reflecting on the options for felt bag handles. For me a bag of whatever kind has to have a handle. I just can't manage clutch bags and in truth I struggle to use any bag that can't hang comfortably on my shoulder. There are many methods to make a handle for a felt bag. The handle can be made from felt or an alternative material like canvas or leather. It can be integrated into the bag as part of the design , or it can be attached in a variety of ways. I am thinking of : Stitching Loops Ties Knots All of which I have tried at one time or another. These handles all work but what I really like are fully integrated felt bag handles. WHY ?…

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23/07/2017

Eco Dyeing / eco printing / Natural dyeing / Printing

Why I enjoy the excitement of Eco Printing

Eco printing is fun, exciting and for me a good change from natural dyeing and felting. Here in the UK now is the ideal time for eco printing. The flowers are blooming and the sap is rising as the spring turns in summer. I had a great experience with a workshop in 2016 with the wonderfully generous Fabienne Dorsman-Rey at Art Van Go . This year I have refreshed some of my Eco printing knowledge as I was lucky enough to win a free workshop with Kathy Hays. Their Eco Printing methods are not the same but are very complimentary and I would recommend them both. Looking back a year ago I am delighted with this eco printed and slow stitched cloth I made during and after Fabienne's workshop. I also incorporate Eco printed silk into felt pieces. Below you can see where I used the almost shibori dyed edge of…

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09/07/2017

Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing / Upcycling / Wet felting

Why am I building an unique scrap hoard?

I never thought I would be building a scrap hoard with all my thread scraps and felt scraps and then reusing them. When I first started natural dyeing, I stitched the felt before dyeing but I did not cut off all the loose ends. They were left until the piece was dyed and them tidied up. At this point I started saving the excess threads and sometimes adding an extra stitch or two with the small amounts of spare thread. This was not very satisfactory as I was so very limited in the amount of thread. So I quickly started making some extra dyed threads by adding small hanks of cotton and silk threads into the dye bath with my felt pieces. I saved these yarn scraps made during this process. This was the start of my scrap hoard. Early this year started dyeing separately all the constituent parts of my felt…

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10/06/2017

art exhibition / Wet felting

Hanging an art exhibition : 6 most important lessons I learnt

Do you ever walk around an amateur art exhibition and think fantastic I love it? Do you ever walk around an amateur art exhibition and think what a load of rubbish? What makes the difference between the two? Is it the art or is it the way it is all hung? I learnt many lessons in recently hanging an art exhibition. Hanging an art exhibition: my first lesson Think ahead. Think a very long time ahead. If you are going to invite other artists to participate ask them at least 6 months of more in advance. If you don't you will find them too busy to take part. Think about the artists and their work, before you ask them. Is your exhibition based on a theme or a technique? Make sure everyone is very clear what the theme of the exhibition means. The second lesson: Pricing problems Everything needs to be priced. …

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28/05/2017

British wool fibres / Natural dyeing

Should I dye with an aluminium or a brass pan ?

A few weeks ago I was lucky to come across this beautiful brass pan in a charity shop. Of course, I bought it. How could I not? So I now have two aluminium jam pans, one enamel pan, one teflon coated pan and my new brass pan. All either bought second hand or given to me. The question I want to answer is does the pan I use for dyeing make a difference to the final dye colours. Brass I understand from Wikipedia is made from copper and zinc. Copper acts as a mordant as does aluminium. I thought the only way to answer to my question was an experiment. The same dyestuff, the same fibres and the same dye process. Then I can see if the pan material makes a difference. I just happened to have quite a large quantity of hawthorn flowers. So the terms of my experiment could be…

9 Comments

21/05/2017

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

It’s May : Harvesting time for natural dye materials

Suddenly the weather in the North East of England has got sunny and reasonably warm. Of course, it is not forecast to last long! One of the challenges of making naturally dyed felt art is to keep sufficient stock of your natural dye materials. So while the sun is shining and the sap is rising I need to get out and harvest supplies of natural dye materials to store for the rest of the year. Nettles Abundantly available and easy to pick with some sharp scissors and some good gardening gloves. I am now drying my harvest, to use later. I have not dried nettles before so it will be interesting to see how the colour is affected by the drying process. Dock One of my favourites. as it dyes silk such a wonderful olive colour. I have used dock successfully as a dried natural dye material and so out…

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14/05/2017