Wet felting Archives - Page 5 of 9 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Here is my new method to make better FELT

I am rusher, doing everything at high speed. Is this a problem? I walk, read and talk fast and I can wet felt fast. It is a great time saving skill ! So why have I come to the conclusion that when making felt - slower is better. AS a result of this conclusion I am working on a personnel slowness re-education program. I started on my journey at a workshop with Jeanette Appleton. She makes beautiful felt pieces very slowly and thoughtfully and I greatly admire her work. But it is not easy for us naturally born rushers to slow down. Here an example of my slowing down reeducation process in action. I love the vibrant orange silk embedded in this piece of flirty felt : the shadowy hidden depths below and the sea green spirals are like thought patterns. But and its a big but this felt screamed out at…

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30/10/2016

Eco Dyeing / Wet felting

How to construct a unique wet felting studio

Choose a location Where to build my wet felting studio? The location of my studio choose me! When the builders built my house, which was on a corner, they built the garage at an angle to the house. They built a small utility room to connect the house to the garage. This left a corner which 50 years later was the ideal corner to build my wet felting studio. Well actually it was the only corner ! If ou would like more information on why I choose to build here read A little corner Design the layout So what would you need in a wet felting studio ? Which also will be used for natural dyeing ! I would need a sink a water resistant floor Good lighting Felting tables A sewing table Lots of storage This was the felt studio vision !!! Building Great builders are hard to come by…

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23/10/2016

Wet felting

A little corner

I am a felt artist and have nowhere to felt. How has this happened ? In 2008 I moved to live in the Netherlands and shortly afterwards got introduced to the wonderful world of felting. Thanks to Els for that first introduction. As I became more and more addicted to felting , we converted an upstairs room in our Dutch house to a small felting and fitness room as my Christmas present in 2010. It was small and perfect . Here is my certificate of ownership. Thinking about moving back to the UK the question uppermost in my mind was not where to live , but where to felt. Quite crazy really. So when having decided to move back into our old family house, I needed to work out where to have a felting room. Upstairs , maybe enough space, but there are wooden floors so my kind of felting with…

3 Comments

02/10/2016

Knitting and Stitching show / shibori / Stitches / Wet felting

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.…

2 Comments

14/08/2016

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…

2 Comments

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…

6 Comments

24/07/2016

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

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

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

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…

4 Comments

02/05/2016