Felted Serendipity

Another photo of the mermaid, on display for a few days at a fibre exhibition held by the Coffs Harbour spinners and weavers, at the botanical gardens in Coffs Harbour.
The middle photo is a nuno shawl I made using hand dyed silk chiffon and hand dyed merino roving. The last photo is a piece of silk chiffon that I dyed. When I went to lay it out for felting I noticed the middle section looked like Australia, minus Tasmania. Sorry about that, Taswegians. But it was completely serendipitous.

Rebirth, or how we changed directions

If anyone remembers, or cares to search previous posts they will find a large felted mermaid I started making a few years ago. Now I did quite a lot of work on her and she was progressing quite nicely, but then I had a bit of a crisis of creative faith and life got in the way. So she was on the back burner for a long time.
Well, I have rescued her from the stagnant pool of lost interest and she has been reborn. I have fixed her face up and am now working on her hands. So far I have remade her hands twice. When I first started her I didn't have much of any idea of how I actually wanted her to look, so she was all blue eyes and pink cheeks. Now I feel more confident in my vision of what she needs to be, so she has green eyes and at the moment her lips have no colour because I have not been able to find the right colour. I may have to dye some wool for that.

The first photo is how I think her hair may look but she still has blue eyes. The middle photo is how she originally looked, not quite right. The last photo is on track. The hair is not done I am leaving that until last so it doesn't get tangled. I have been spinning various things together to get the right effect. It is coming along nicely.

Birdwatching and Sue Bleiweiss

On our trip to Victoria over Christmas we were also fortunate enough to visit the Melbourne Zoo. What a fantastic place!! We had a great day, the weather was kind, not too hot. I love the birds, these were taken in the enormous, walk through, bird aviary. The left photo is a pied heron, the middle picture is a wounded gannet, and the last is a blue billed duck. I am hoping to draw a couple of these in pastels. Or maybe watercolour, who knows.
Now the other thing I have done recently is signed up for one of Sue Bleiweiss' online classes. It starts January 23rd, I am hoping this will help inspire my creative will, which has slipped a bit lately. It is a class in making journals, I love paper, journals etc. They will make great presents.
I have been making some anyway, but I don't get the professional finish that Sue does.


These are three of the padfolios I have made. I was not unhappy with them, actually I quite liked them, but I need to learn more. Don't we all!! Then of course, I can make better ones. I am really looking forward to doing Sue's class. I am a subscriber to her Fibre & Stitch magazine, which I absolutely love. Her work is outstanding.
The above journals are made from hand dyed and handmade silk paper. I am keen to learn different surface techniques. Especially the brown paper bag surface.

Faraway in Yass

We travelled to Melbourne for Xmas, it was a long, hot drive. We drove from Sawtell to Yass, and stayed overnight. There were some beautiful buildings, the town hall with the clock. We went into an building that was a gift store and you could go upstairs for a look, the walls were missing plaster in some areas. In the days these buildings were erected the walls were plaster and lathe, as you can see this is what they looked like under the plaster. It was a wonder they were as smooth as they were. Lovely tiled patio, can't remember which building this was. It was a bit of a sad place. Many buildings were closed and boarded up. I can imagine in it's heyday it would have been a bustling, country town. But not anymore. Built on the sheep's back, I would imagine.

Another Year

Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies. My New Year's resolution, is to never make one again. No, that's not true. It is to keep up with this Blog. I love reading everyone else's and I do get easily distracted.
Have been doing some creative work. Mainly drawing and exploring different mediums, can't make up my mind if I like pastels or pencils the best. Haven't tried acrylic or oil paints yet, don't know that I should. The above is a partially completed pencil drawing of my youngest daughter. I have only recently started drawing, after developing an repetitive felting injury to my elbow and having to rest. Just hate that.
Made a nuno shawl this morning, in dark blue, with some brown and orange, it turned out quite well. Will make another one in the morning. The local spinners and weavers are having an exhibition next week. I have a table to fill. It is being held at the Coffs Harbour Botanical Gardens. Great venue, if you are in the area, do pop in and say hello. I will be there some days, but as it is the school holidays not too much.
The photo in the middle is just a bouquet I liked and the far right is a patch of yellow Kangaroo Paw. The red and green versions are the floral emblem for Western Australia.

Sunrise

Now this is an early sunrise at the Jetty in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia. I took these photos in winter and it's about 6 am and freezing. But the sunrises at the beach are absolutely magnificent. Love the orange colour, I have tried to reproduce this in pastels without much success. But I was thinking of hand dyeing a piece of chiffon using the colours, or making a piece of silk fusion. I think that might just work.

Wow! Time has flown

It's been ages since I have posted. I didn't realise how long. Life has been busy as I am sure fellow crafters and artistes understand. I have been working in the real world more than usual after realising I really can't afford to make a living from craft. I haven't completely given up. I tried markets, made a little bit of money. But I did not like the pressure of having to make certain things and trying to work at the same time. At the moment I am finishing things and resting a "golfer's elbow". Do take care of yourself when creating, an injury is very frustrating.
This is a knitted shawl I designed. It is made from all my scraps and left over yarns that I couldn't bear to throw out. It is quite large and very dramatic. It was also the last thing I made before I went into convalescence mode. It's a bit gorgeous. I am itching to get back to creating.
I have also made 2 more of these shawls, one was creams and browns, the other was greens and blues with a bit of burgundy.
They both sold but were hard work as they do become quite heavy when knitting. But it was great to get rid of all the small amounts of yarn I had stashed.

I felt there was no time

Morning, as you can see didn't keep up again. I was going to post a photo of the completed laminated scarf, but I sold the thing, and then, Whoops! I'd forgotten the final photo. But I have made numerous others since then. I am now making them longer and wider, as it is getting cooler and the women that seem to buy them are voluptuous goddesses and they like to wrap them right around and half over again. So I have finally taken some photos, of other shawls I have laminated. They are all merino laminated on to silk chiffon, the blue one has silk tussah to add a bit of sheen. Difficult to see on the photos. The black, yellow and red is a remembrance of Australia's apology to the stolen generation.



The below material is some silk chiffon that I rainbow dyed using the electric frypan and just sprinkling the different coloured dyes over. It turned out beautifully and I was going to keep it for myself but someone really liked it and after it was laminated I sold it.

The other type of felting I like to do is needlefelting. This is a great way to make 3 dimensional sculptures. The needles are barbed and mesh the wool together. This is one of series of mermaids I am making. I needlefelted her using corriedale wool for the body, silk chiffon for the tail, and gold seed beads for embellishing. She also has glass eyes. The tail which is difficult to see is like a Japanese fighting fish. Her name is Ebony. Now that's original isn't it?
The next mermaid is gorgeous, she is similar, made out of the same materials, oh, and the hair is mohair curls. They are fantastic for hair. She sold very quickly at my market stall. Not the greatest photography. Sorry. These mermaids were inspired by a series of books my daughter (11 years) was reading. They were written by Helen Dunmore and the first one is Ingo, the second is The Deep and the third is The Tide Knot, she really enjoyed them and so did I. I have also made a beautiful dark purple mermaid with silver metallic thread hand embroidered up the sides of her body. Will post a picture soon.




This below is a wet felted seamless bag, it is great for A4 size documents and art books. I have a bright pink one that I carry all my drawing materials around in. They are so sturdy and make great conversation pieces. ALL THESE ITEMS ARE FOR SALE. JUST EMAIL FOR PRICES AND POSTAGE ETC. I accept paypal.


This one below is "soap in a coat", I have wrapped the soap in merino wool and needlefelted the flower. It is supposed to be a frangipani flower as the soap is frangipani. This one sold quickly too. Even though none of the other soaps have. People don't seem to know what to do with them. Doh!!! Wash!!! I have made others, one a lemon myrtle fragrance has a lemon needlefelted on it and another is mango scented. Yes, you guessed it. It has a mango needlefelted on the front.