Blog - Page 7 of 12 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Chaos at home : Now is the time to make stitched felt

Did you ever have a time when you needed to try something new ? Here are my ideas to be creative with stitched felt when my house is chaotic as it occupied by builders The renovation and building work we planned on our house before we moved back to the UK is now well under way. It will be wonderful when it's finished but currently there is total chaos in our house and not much opportunity for wet felting. But there is plenty of time for other things. Last weekend I went to the felting day with the IFA region 10 felters. The challenge for our stand at the knitting and stitching show at Harrogate in November is geometric man made forms. This challenge made me think of the wonderful stitched felt of Chung-Im Kim which I saw in the Netherlands in 2014. Beautiful delicate surface texture , with tiny tiny stitches.…

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14/08/2016

Alum / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Yorkshire

Just on my doorstep

Since I moved back to the UK I have been pondering a theme for a series of local felt pieces. I now live on the edge of the North York moors a really beautiful area with a fantastic coast line which has a really interesting industrial heritage. In the photo above you can see the costal town of Staithes with the Boulby cliffs in the background. My first thoughts on a theme were something related to the mining of ironstone in the area and the subsequent development of the steel industry, which has sadly recently closed. Whilst researching I came across another older industry that is far more directly related to my work. I discovered that during the reign of Henry VIII , a local source of Alum which was critical to the textile industry as a mordant was sought in order to break the papal monopoly. This was in the 16th…

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07/08/2016

Stitches / Wet felting

The bigger sister.

I slowly and carefully made this felt piece , trying to think about the outcome every step of the way . Well I liked it but it seemed like a part of a piece, not a piece in its own right. So I put it away for a while ........ and when I eventually got it out I thought maybe it needed a sister piece , a big sister piece. Maybe something like this. So eventually I made a sister felt piece using some of the same threads , but no silk. A serious but complimentary piece. Now how should they be connected ? Like this maybe ? Something like that anyway . Here is the final piece , far more of a finished composition I think and I do really like the combination of the flat felt and the felted silk organza. Strangely the sister piece has turned out nearly…

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31/07/2016

Felt Workshop / Teaching / Wet felting

Teaching

Discussing felting with some of my local friends recently I was asked " Don't you know enough about felting to teach it yet ?' Well I thought maybe I did so we organised a date for a small workshop, with two participants. I then had to think about what I was going to teach. I decided on making a small vessel around a balloon . I choose this because it really shows the power of felt as a structural medium, it allows lots of artistic expression and it's a bit of fun. As the building work was about to start at my house the workshop was held at one of the participants houses. So here is the one of the vessels being laid out . And the start of some very vibrant decoration. It was such a lovely day , so we moved to the beautiful garden and used lots of water…

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24/07/2016

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Uncategorized

My First solo attempt at Eco dyeing

Following on from the fantastic Ecodyeing workshop I went on , I decided I would try and put what I learnt into practise with plants from my own garden. First I made up a dye bath with Elderberry leaves and stems. I think it would have been better if I had not included the woody stems , as I felt they were just taking space and not really contributing. I made fours bundles, one silk noil, two from mordanted cotton and one from a piece of felt that had previously been dyed with alder. Here are three of them waiting to be untied. My results are not very fantastic , but it was only my first attempt. This is a cotton piece with a copper rod , quite bright greens , from the copper I think and lots of blotches from the onions pieces. Here the piece dried. One of the cotton…

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17/07/2016

Natural dyeing / Woolfest

Planting my dye garden

At woolfest in 2015 I bought three dye plants , Madder, Ladies Bedstraw and Rubekia from Fiery Felts. Here there are with all my other woolfest goodies. At the time I had nowhere to plant them so they stayed in their pots at my daughters. When I returned to the UK late 2015 and I looked for a spot in my garden where I could make a dye garden . I found a place which was nice and sheltered with a house wall at the back. The big snag was it was totally overtaken by vinca. This is a most dreadful invasive plant in my opinion , I have no idea why I ever planted it in the first place. So for the first few months of 2016 I attempted to kill the Vinca by covering it with some old carpets. I then dug it all out, well I tried hard to…

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10/07/2016

Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing / Wet felting / Woolfest

Dyeing and colour balance

A number of weeks ago I made two pieces of felt to dye and decided to use the last of the flowering hawthorn in my garden . The flowers are so delicate. After dyeing there was some nice colour variation across the pieces . It's not very dramatic and I thought more colour contrast was needed, so I modified some areas with copper. This is where the colour balance problems with my camera started to become obvious. The same pieces , changed orientation , looking completely different colours , when photographed on different backgrounds. The truth , in my opinion , not as yellow as the white background , but significantly darker than the wood background. Apart from this I thought further differentiation was still needed so I modified a part of each with iron. Now I felt I'd gone to far , but there is no turning back unfortunately . Finally…

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03/07/2016

Sheep / Uncategorized / Woolfest

Woolfest 2016

This is my fourth visit to woolfest and it's as vibrant and colourful as ever . I thought this year I'd try and focus on the sheep. They of course being the star attraction. There are the real sheep, see these beautiful herdwicks- my favourites. And then there are the knitted sheep. The printed sheep The sheep puppets. And me trying my hand at being a sheep puppeteer. I loved these puppets , which were from the production of a 'Shepherd 's Life', at the theatre by the lake in Keswick. Very interestingly the sheep puppets had no legs ! On a slightly smaller scale needled felted sheep. A crocheted colourful sheep. And finally to finish, a dark wendesleydale sheep, relaxing and showing off her curls. As you can tell I had a great time as usual and will sure to be returning next year.

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26/06/2016

Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing

Wonderful workshop

What a wonderful workshop I have had this week at Art van go with Eco-printer Fabienne Dorsman-Rey . Fabienne knowledge ,generosity and enthusiasm was exceptional. I went to explore how I could use Eco-printing in my felt making and have come away inspired to learn more about my local plants and their properties and to continue my voyage of discovery into natural dyeing incorporating Eco-printing. In very difficult to describe in words everything that happened during the workshop , but we learnt about wrapping a bundle, mordants and modifiers , the effects of metals and plants that can be used for printing. We also were shown some of Fabienne's beautiful work and the stories behind each piece. Just a taste of some of the beautiful prints made. My first bundles Some of Fabienne's beautiful work My favourite piece that I printed. A piece that I stitched before printing , nice but I think I…

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19/06/2016

Eco Dyeing / From The Earth Textiles / Uncategorized

Eco dyeing here I come

I am delighted to be taking part next week in a workshop with Fabienne Rey, organised by From the Earth Textiles at Art Van Go . So this week I have been getting organised. First I need lots of silk and wool fabrics . I made a couple of felts myself , and had the good luck to come across a silk shirt in a charity shop. It's also possible to eco dye mordanted cotton , and I have a number of different cotton fabrics mordanted with a variety of mordants , including alum and gall nuts. Then of course lots of cotton , linen and wool threads . I have had to scrounge among my friends for sufficient tin cans but I did have a nice collection of rusty iron, collected on my wanderings in the Lake District . These are complimented by a small length of copper pipe which…

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12/06/2016