machine stitching Archives - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

My exciting adventure marking fabric with pigments and sumi ink

Can I use pigments to mark fabrics permanently? I don't know ...... But, a few weeks ago I watched an interview with the textile artist Clare Benn where she talked about moving away from using acrylic paint on her textile art and using pigments for environmental reasons. She used soy milk to attach pigments to the fabric. I also came across soy milk as a binder at a workshop with Jorie Johnson She used soy milk to attach Sumi ink to fabrics and then felted them. Recently I joined the No rules textile society led by Jayne Emmerson. Every month there is a different textile-related prompt to explore. This month was paint and ink. These three stimuli made me curious to investigate what was possible with pigments on fabric. Of course, I had some pigments, I have had them so long I can't even remember when I bought them. So why not…

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19/06/2021

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

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

Armley Mill / machine stitching / Photography / Stitches / Textile art / Wet felting / Yorkshire

Why my love of textile machines is inspiring me.

In a dark mouldy area on the ground floor of Armley mill there are three fulling machines, textile machines, in a room that once housed many. The machines were driven by water and large hammers smashed the wet woven cloth , shrinking it and making it warmer and water resistant. On the more airy first floor of the mill amongst the warping, carding and spinning machines stand two jacquard head textile machines. These complex, intricate machines allowed the automation of the weaving process and were at the very start of the development of computers. Each machine contians hundreds of threads and beautiful cast levers, cogs and wheels. Two totally amazing and totally different textile machines both key to the development of the woollen textile industry. Armley Mill is the industrial museum of Leeds , containing not only textile machines, but a cinema and photography equipment exhibits. Plus lots of artefacts relating to…

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07/01/2018

British wool fibres / Eco Dyeing / machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Stitches / Wet felting

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

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

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

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

machine stitching / Wet felting

Ripples

I am fascinated by light and water and I am always taking photographs of streams. Here is one series that I took , a few miles walk up Far Easedale, in the Lake District , UK. I decided after numerous attempts to draw this photograph which were really unsuccessful to try felting using prefelts incorporating various fibres using just yellow and black merino . First step , so far so good , but it needed more Here I am testing the idea of couching some yellow wool onto the piece. I choose not to go down this route but to machine embroider with some variegated yellow thread and then hand stitch in black. Finally I added some orange highlights. To me the finished piece contains some elements of my sunny stream and I think looks great in a black IKEA frame but the glass is so reflective it does not make a…

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08/11/2015

Eco Dyeing / machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Textile art / Wet felting

Success

Well after last weeks disappearing yellow dye , I first rushed out to see if there was any hawthorn blossom left. I was in luck as the trees down by the river were still mostly in flower and I was able to easily pick some more. I do wonder if the colour comes from the petals , which are really beautiful , or for the tiny berry in the middle of the flower ? I also had a good look at my pans , and concluded they were not very clean. So I boiled them with washing soda solution which produced a ghastly pink scummy solution. I then scrubbed them with abrasive powder cleaner and finally rinsed and rinsed. In parallel with this I was making another vessel to dye . Trying Shetland fibre again. Looks a little hairy as it still here needs a shave and I am…

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06/06/2015