Garden

My hill garden, which is my main one, is looking like "Easter" colors right now.

I am a "lazy" gardener, and once planted I let God take over.  Most of the time it works.

 

Sew see you later,

Bette

Needle Felting

I've got to confess.  There are people who LOVE to needle felt, especially by machine.  I have not been one of those people.

Our program at Explorers (read yesterday's post) this month is on needle felting.  I said I would lead it if no one else came forth.  I adjusted my attitude toward needle felting, so here I am, ready to lead the program tomorrow.  Last week I went to a friends house to make my samples on her felting machine as I have not gotten one......yet.

It actually was the first time that I kind of had fun with it.  Maybe my attitude adjustment?
Below are pictures of my samples.

This is washed wool from a skirt I bought at Goodwill.  I used wool yarn to felt onto the wool fabric.

This is a piece of Nylon (or polyester) curtain fabric.  I tried to felt wool roving on it.
Polyester and Nylon do not felt well and fibers do not felt well on them.
Any sheer fabric that is used crinkles up like on the right side.  That could be a cool effect.

I've taken the same curtain fabric as above, but this time I put solve on the bottom, layered with the curtain fabric
then wool roving and wool yarn, and topped it with solvey.  I wanted to see if the solvey kept the fabric from crinkling up.  The part on the right has been washed, the part on the left is before washing the solvey out.  With the solvey, the sheer fabric did NOT crinkle up nearly as much, but because it is synthetic fabric the needle felting was not very successful.

This sample is done on burlap!  It worked really well.  This is the back side, and almost looks like a smiley face.

Turn the above sample over and here is the front.  I used cotton fabric, wool roving,
silk roving, silk ribbon, silk taffeta, wool yarn, and eyelash yarn.

This is wool roving on cotton velveteen.  It also was
a very successful sample.

This sample is done on acrylic felt.  On the left side I used a variety on yarns.  This could be cut up
and used as ATC's.  The one on the right includes some Angelina.  When you use something
like Angelina you need to needle some wool or silk roving on top to hold it down.

As close- up of the above.

The backing for this is cotton Home Dec fabric.  It also felted successfully.

This is the last piece I did.  I am going to make it into a cover for  one of my sketchbooks.

The pictures don't really do the samples justice.

Tomorrow at 1PM if you are in/near Lynchburg VA come to the program and play with us at Quilted Expressions on Old Forest Rd.

Sew see you later

Bette

Explorers Challenge

One of the groups I'm in is the Explorer's.  We challenge ourselves with experimenting with different techniques.

This year we are doing a monthly challenge.  It contains three parts, a color, a technique, and a subject. We all contributed to the words and put each group in separate jars.  Each month at our meeting we draw one word from each jar and then create a small quilt using and interpreting the three itmes.  The size of the quilts can be anywhere from 4"X6" up to 8"X12".

For April:  Our color was red-orange; the technique was multimedia; the subject was grief.

This was a challenge!

I took a white piece of fabric and started to paint, stencil, etc.
This is a part that I did not use.  I did three items.  Two using the painted fabric and one using
a framed canvas.

I started with a framed canvas that I had stuck a bunch of fabrics to and never liked
what I did.  So I took white gesso and covered it over.  Now it was lumpy bumpy.. good!  Then I painted
a light yellow red and kept adding layers to a darker red. Stenciled, screened etc.  Added a faint picture of my parents
and a very faint picture of my mom's obituary.  Kept adding sketched my face (at about age 40)  Then continued to add.

This is one of the fabric pieces.  I printed my mom's obituary and photo of my parents
on silk organza.  You iron silk organza to freezer paper and put it through your printer.
To stick the organza onto the fabric I used a gel medium.  

This is another fabric piece.  this time I printed the same items out on
silk haboti.  They are not as transparent.  I used the gel medium  to attach the
printed silk to the painted fabric.

Here on the organza embellished piece I've added a raw edge applique piece in silk.

I'm stitching it down as well as adding in some lines.

This is the completes one with the silk haboti.

Completed one on the canvas.

This is the completed one with the silk organza.

 I had started with a basic idea and it was going to be generic.  However, once I got going, the projects took on a life of their own.  I called them a "Tribute to my Mom".  

Sew see you later

Bette