Blog - Page 9 of 12 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Frustrating week

Everything this week seems to have gone not quite right. Firstly I have finished framed and hung on the wall , nine felt pieces. These pieces originated from a felted jacket that did not fit too well. They are simply framed in wood box frames. I am very pleased with them but unfortunately I can photograph them in situ , due to reflections . Well I can but they don't look so good, Perhaps non reflective glass is the answer , but that's quite a bid deal to change them all. Here is the best I can do. So I have come up with a bit of a cheat. All individually photographed and then added here one by one. On my screen this is a square , not…

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04/03/2016

Drawing / Photography / Uncategorized / Wet felting

Rocks

I went to Australia last November and one of the things I became entranced by was the rocks. Of course the koalas, penguins and kangeroos were lovely , but nothing like the rocks. With moving house I have not had time to look back at all the rock photos I took until this week . They give me lots of ideas for felted , natural dyed pictures. Firstly at the coast , pounded by the South Pacific seas, I loved the strata and circular patterns, and the repeating nature of the marks . Moving inland to the Grampians I thought the scenery was stunning. And when you got up close so were the rocks I am inspired again. I hope I will have time soon for some drawing and felting based on these photos.

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28/02/2016

Textile art / Upcycling / Wet felting

Remnant

Remnant. I like this word. I like the sound and I like the meaning. A remnant is defined as a small part that is left over after the majority has been used. I have lots of remnants I have bought as bargains but most of my remnants are true left overs. Having made these felt squares from a long abandoned felt jacket , as you can imagine , I had lots of remnants. I thought perhaps they could be become part of another felt piece. Maybe combining then with some natural white Shetland would be an interesting experiment. I choose a selection of remnants , looking here a bit like tombstones. I laid out Shetland fibres. And a felted the two together. After drying the piece needed to be stitched. A choose to use the same collection of stitches I had used in my felt squares ,…

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21/02/2016

From The Earth Textiles / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Exciting News

I learned early this week that my piece "After the ice " has been accepted into the From the Earth exhibition in June. The exhibition is to celebrate natural and ethical textile practices and will take place in PA Arts Centre Datchworth, Herts. I am thrilled. I even get invited to the private viewing ! Here is the piece that will be on display. Other artists that I know are taking part at this moment are Jenny Leslie and Caroline Bell. This great news has made me revisit some of my other favorite naturally dyed felt pieces and I thought it was worth bringing them all together here. Autumn Storm I love the subtle shade changes in these pieces I hope you do too.

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14/02/2016

machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Side by side

Multicolored steenwol and Blue Faced Leicester. Two vessels in the making. One destined for the dye pot. The other just for fun. Exactly the same amount of fibre and exactly the same resist. If I make two vessels at the same time I find it saves a lot of time. I don't normally make such a contrasting pair. I am trying to get ahead and have lots of prepared felt for dyeing when the weather warms up, and I wanted to test out the Steenwol, as I love it's bouncy texture but I have not much experience in using it. I did wonder if I would get fibres from the Steenwol migrating into the natural vessel , but this did not happen. Once the resists have been removed the vessels need to be treated as individuals. The BFL vessel has been hand stitched in silk and cotton which should give a lovely…

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07/02/2016

Artybird Carnforth / Wet felting

Taking my time

I am coming to realize that it can take me a very long time to finished a felted piece. In July 2015 I made a piece based on some photographs I had taken in 2014. The inspiration was wet lichen covered rocks. Then I looked at this felted piece and thought what on earth will I do with this now ! For those of you who read this blog , might remember I eventually cut it up. A radical move , but I still could not finish it ! I loved the dark brown Masham surround and wanted to find away to bring it all together. So I took it to a master class with Artybird and asked ," what shall I do now". Various suggestions were made mostly involving bringing it together as a piece. I thought about this , alongside the original inspiration for the piece and suddenly…

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31/01/2016

Wet felting

New website and Blog is nearly ready

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19/01/2016

machine stitching / Wet felting

Finishing

I have had a good week , finishing, or at least seeing the way forward to finishing a number of pieces. I have got my sewing machine back in action and stitched these two brooches, they both remind me of ice . Out walking today there was lots of snow and ice at one of my favorite places Easedale tarn. I found some nice simple wooden frames in Hobbycraft which fit my stitched felt squares perfectly. I only bought two as a trial , but they are perfect , I will be back for more soon. I have also been hand stitching . This little beauty contains a vintage button and now has some lines of beads to finish it. All in all a good week , some wonderful walking and lots of felt finishing .

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17/01/2016

Artybird Carnforth / Wet felting

Alpaca

My use of alpaca to date has been as a yarn for texture. I like to do this as it takes up natural dyes slightly differently than wool adding both texture and shades simultaneously. You can see this in the madder dyed piece below , where the alpaca yarn is at the top and slightly lighter than the surrounding wool I was therefore interested to see how the fibre itself felted during a day this week at Artybird in Carnforth. The fibre I had to felt was one year old alpaca , the youngest and softest . It has less scales and less crimp than wool fibre. Perhaps it would be very hard to felt. With four thin layers laid out I just used my normal techniques and only cold water and found I could easily and quickly make a small sample. I had embellished the piece with…

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10/01/2016

Artybird Carnforth / Wet felting

How to restart ?

Well after a successful move back to the UK , followed by two weeks unpacking , and a family Christmas and New Year, I need to start felting again. In truth we are far from unpacked but the essentials are sorted and now is mostly just a question of time before some modifications to the house can be organized and its dry enough to tackle the jungle of the garden I have temporarily installed my sewing machine on a small table in the study and put a felting table in the conservatory so nothing is stopping me - except I am not sure what to do ! Before I left the Netherlands I put in my pop up felting studio, some jewellery making partial felt and some beads , but I am not inspired to make any jewellery right now. I have in my stash of fibres some beautiful fibres that…

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03/01/2016