Wet felting Archives - Page 3 of 9 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

How I know my precious fabric will felt ?

Over the years I have collected lots of fabric. Completley randomly at one time, just because I loved them, but now always with an eye to felting or dyeing. But and its a big BUT I am not always sure that my precious fabrics will felt well. Of course I know chiffon and pongee and organza will felt . But what about an old heavy silk scarf from Thailand and silk fabric from a market in Rotterdam, or some embossed silk sari from India, or some recycle fabric from a charity shop. Knitters are always advised to knit a tension square. As a knitter I rarely do. I just know it will turn out all right.Mostly I am correct. You could take the same attitude with felting. With felting I am far less cavalier. Knitting can always be pulled…

4 Comments

25/02/2018

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

Wet felting

Excited by my garden dye material harvest

After a number of months being very busy with my family, I have managed finally to get into my studio this week. What a mess. There were flowers and leaves drying everywhere, such quite a bumper harvest from my garden this year. Coreopsis Harvest My coreopsis plant has really settled in , and I have cut blooms all summer long. The dried flowers are light as a feather and I have just over 100g in storage. Adjacent to it my rudbeckia plant is not nearly so happy. The harvest of flowers is very poor less than 25g. I think I will probably dig it up and relocate it. ' French Marigold bumper harvest In the spring I was given some small French marigold plants, and they have done very well. They were not the same variety as I grew last year, so I hope they will be as successful at producing a…

2 Comments

26/11/2017

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Walnut / Wet felting

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…

4 Comments

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 / 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