Fixated on Felting- for the Moment

I have been fooling around with fiber ever since I taught the workshops with the grade school students last month. I can't seem to get enough and I have so many ideas and techniques to explore!! This post is going to be a quick rundown for what I have been creating lately. This is a small felted collage stitched Journal that I have just listed in my Etsy shop. These journals are approximately 4 x6 to 5x7 inches in size and are left with their organic felted edge so they are not perfectly squared off. I have added a panel of sun printed ferns to the front of this woodsey blue/green journal and it is lined with stiff interfacing and a wonderful piece of hand dyed cotton from a women's fiber arts cooperative in Africa.

I have stitched in three signatures and each holds roughly 40 pages each. You can find all of the details here.

Here is another journal, this time displaying a blossom sun printing enhanced with tiny seed stitches.

This one also has three signatures and is lined with interfacing and a lovely purple and blue batik fabric.

You will find details about this journal spelled out here.

This piece was much more of an experiment. I used red and purple wool roving and wool curls and added some vintage doilies and lace bits to the collage and felted and fulled till all of the components were part of the piece. I thena went in with needle and thread and added little red glass seed beads and crystaline silver clear beads to add more interst and sparkle. The beads do not photograph well in this picture, I need tog et some better phtots that capture the details before I list it in my shop. Sometimes the hardest part of this whole process is getting photos that adequately represent the work and details included in your work!

My friend Leslie gave me the wonderful brass stamping to add to the front to continue the circular lace look theme. I am pleased with how this piece works, if I can only get some good shots of the bead work!!!

I am also quite pleased with the circular motif in this fabulous ruby red batik. I already had this fabric in my stash! Imagine that!!!!

I have also created several wool cuff bracelets made from fulled wool sweater parts. As I was taking apart a fulled sweater I cut off the front button placket. You know, the band that has the button holes on the front of a cardigan sweater. I started to think about using the button holes as a means of connecting and I came up with these fried egg flower embellished cuffs.

So the cuff base is the placket and the button hole closes the cuf by looping over the green button. These are such fun to wear , they are very soft and they keep my wrist nice and warm. i will be listing several in my shop very soon!!

Next came some fun little flower felted pincushions. They are super simple to whip up and consist of a felted ball of wool yarn sitting atop a petal shaped piece of fulled sweater . that all sits atop a vintage wooden thread pool that has been covered with a strip of fulled cashmere! I added a few bead embellishments to further the flower effect. These are also listed in my Etsy Shop.

I carried on with the rolled wool yarn balls and created some fun little beaded felt yarn ball earrings.

As you can see I was into rolling and felting balls! This time I went to a larger size, added some ribbons and metalic mesh bits, lace and silk fibers and will complete these with beadwork.

They will all become beaded felted tree ornaments. The cool thing about these sparkly beauties is one does not have to worry about shattered glass ornaments should your favorite feline take to climbing your tree, or your toddling two year old grab on to have a closer look!!! Soft and unbreakable fiber art to the rescue!!!

I have already delivered the earrings and the Ornaments to Liberty Town and they seem to be catching the attention of a few customers. Always a good thing!!!!

I hope that you are all finding a few moments to explore your creative ideas these days and can get some art time in for yourselves as the busiest time of year is right around the corner. I'll be back soon!! Happy November!!