Blog - Page 8 of 12 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Felting ready for dyeing

I have been preparing a couple of felts for dyeing. The inspiration is some rocks. Thinking through a plan in my note-book for the felts and fibres. And laying out ready for felting. The pieces all use Blue faced Leicester fibre. I laid out some dark and some light fibre on the back and felted the pieces. I stopped felting when the pieces where about 20% shrunk , to check them and to add some hand stitching. If you look very closely you can see stitching on the fabrics. After final felting., they were ready for some more hand stitching and some machine stitching. Here the stitching is more visible , with the lovely variation you get , when you combine all the different stitch techniques together. Ready now for the dye bath.

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25/05/2016

British wool fibres / Fibres / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Felt and dye fibre tests

I have had on my to do list for a long time to test soy, flax and jute. By test I mean , felt them and the dye the felt and see what happens. This week I eventually got round to some testing. I actually tested sisal,linen top, flax, jute yarn , cotton knitted yarn and nettle. I am not sure where the soy fibres have got to in the confusion resulting from my move. One day they will turn up. First I made prefelts with the fibres. Here is a sample cut from each prefelts which have been made with Blue faced Leicester fibres. At this stage the different fibres are quite hard to see , but I hoped that with dyeing they would become more visible. I decided to do my test with onion skins. Simple to do and I love the colour . Sisal and linen , still…

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22/05/2016

Artybird Carnforth / Printing

Printing

I have been trying out some Lino printing , firstly with a Christmas present kit and then at Artybird. I am not sure where I am going with this but it's good to have a play. I started simple , with shapes and black acrylic paint on paper . I was quite pleased with the effect. Last week at Artybird I tried again with inktensive blocks and a more complicated design , in fact two designs. The idea was to print onto felt. It is totally unintentional that they look like legless birds. Here I have tried printing on fabric with the inktensive blocks. Not very impressive. Worse was to follow as I tried to print on felt. What a disappointment , I think my shape was not well chosen and getting an even distribution of the colour medium to transfer to the felt seems very challenging. Back home I tried…

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15/05/2016

Natural dyeing / Textiellink / Wet felting

Worldwide colours of felt

I am delighted that a piece of mine will be appearing in Worldwide colours of felt which is due for publication in June by Textiellink. I am even more delighted that the piece that was chosen was dyed with madder. There are pictures of felt works from over 500 artists from 40 countries in the book. With this good news it seems an ideal opportunity to look back at how my piece was made. First I laid out white merino on a resist. Then used more resists to add wings and I also added cords. The finished vessel was difficult to dry and so I slung it in the garden used a foam roller, an old broom handle and lots of gaffer tape along with skewers to curls the cords. Here it is straight out of the dye pot . I had to tied it up , to make it fit…

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02/05/2016

Eco Dyeing / jewellery / machine stitching / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Eucalyptus

I have naturally dyed a number of large felt pieces but never tried dying jewellery until this week , it has also been my first experience of dyeing with eucalyptus as I was recently given some leaves. I have made lots of jewellery , mostly brooches , and I intend to dye them in matches in different colours. This time it was the turn of eucalyptus. Here is all the jewellery being made. A lot of circles cut out . Various fabrics stitching and resists added. The collection drying in the sunshine . A choose three to dye on this occasion , adding some cotton and silk machine stitching before dyeing. Looking good but without a lot of difference in the colours between the different fibres so I decided to modified the pieces with iron. The iron really changes the colours. The silk has become a lot more coppery , and the linen…

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24/04/2016

Prefelts / Stitches / Wet felting

Step by step

Following my resolution to take things more slowly , I have been gradually developing a piece , felting it and then letting it dry before felting some more. This gives more opportunities for adjustments along the way . My starting point , was a collection of prefelts , all covered in silk organza, one piece of which had been stitched. Here is the back , showing the prefelts pinned together , at the back , so the pins can be removed. After the first felting. Looking quite good , apart from end of stitching which needs to to threaded to the back and the edges that need a bit of straightening. A little more felting and thinking about bottom edge. Should it be straight? To add constrast I now removed some parts of the silk. Well I think its felted now , I just have to decide what to do with the…

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17/04/2016

Felt Workshop / IFA / Wet felting

Both sides now

It has been a good week of experimental felting at Skeeby Mill, guided by Jeanette Appleton and organized wonderfully by the IFA's region 10. In these circumstances there are lots of opportunities to try lots of ideas in one piece. I decided to try and make a two-sided piece. Here it is suspended temporarily in my conservatory. The both side-ness works as does the suspension and I am pleased with the effect of the old scarf I have incorporated. But I think maybe it's just all too much . Some lovely parts .But the whole thing , I am just not sure. Perhaps it needs some calming stitches. I am going to look at it over the next few weeks / months and decide. That in fact was my major learning in the whole workshop . Slow down !!!

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10/04/2016

Stitches / Wet felting

Simple straight stitches

I am not a natural hand stitcher, I am more comfortable with a sewing machine. As I prepared to attend a workshop by Jeanette Appleton on stitching and texture in felt I have been reflecting back at where I think my hand stitching has really worked and I feel happy with it. I think I was initially put off stitching by hand by the idea that it had to be complex embroidery. In fact sometimes the simpler the stitching the better. Random straight stitches adding more texture to some felted silk. Using straight stitches to connect elements of a piece together, and to show the contrast between the felt and the felted silk. A bit of glitter. Gold stitching drawing patterns across a piece. Using again just straight stitching combining different colours with running straight stitches in different directions. Following the curve but…

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03/04/2016

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Iron contamination

It is often importance to control the temperature of the dye bath. As I had broken my digital thermometer this week I bought a replacement . Just a simple sugar thermometer this time. I used it to keep the temperature of my onion bath at around 80 oC . This worked well . I was pleased. Then I left the thermometer standing in the pan whilst everything soaked for about 24 hours. Perhaps this was a mistake. Look at these spots . I can only think these are iron contamination. I have dyed many times with onions skins and never seen anything like this before. These are test pieces so it's not the end of the world , but it yet another reminder of the care that is needed when using natural dyes. Change nothing !! Easy to say , but really quite hard to do . On…

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20/03/2016

Wet felting

Anniversary give away

A year ago I was busy building my website and it went live on the 29th March 2015. I did not know if it was the right thing to do , but I felt it was a move I should make so I could showcase my work. I did not get someone to build it. I thought that after all my years of working with computers it could not be that difficult, in most respects I was right and I was pleased with the final outcome. But did it deliver me anything. That is an impossible question to answer. In the year I have written 42 blog posts , have had 900 visitors and 3000 views. Nothing drastic has happened , nothing has gone viral - never mind I never expected it too. The target I set myself was to grow my audience gradually over time and this is…

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13/03/2016