Plenty of room

After ruining my etching plate - and yes, it is completely cactus and so sad that I can't even bring myself to photograph the state it's in - I have found it hard to do any printmaking. However, plans are afoot to start a collograph plate tomorrow.

In the meantime I consoled myself with a second bag for my mini-laptop: I made one with Elaine on Thursday but in a vile shade of yellow! I can't think what possessed me, but I found myself at her house with a bag full of inappropriately coloured wool skeins and no way of changing my selection so had to make the best of it... hopefully there will be someone out there who LOVES pale lemon yellow with turquoise, pink and burnt orange stripes, in which case I will be delighted to let them have the bag for a small fee. Today I redeemed myself. I dutifully made 'pre-felt' (very thin felt in lovely colours, made to be cut up and incorporated into a piece of wet felt), cut it into circles large and small and then managed to use them on a bag that is predominantly a dark raspberry colour. Yum.




















Here's what it looked like when I'd just laid out the pre-felt circles. The finished bag is a bit pinker and less purple but I haven't photographed it yet as the light's gone and it's wet...

I've been thinking about the whole Etsy thing and how great it is that there's lots of room for people to set up their virtual shops and sell around the world. When I first thought of setting up shop I was concerned that my friend Jan might feel a little crowded by another book maker/seller in the same town. Amanda's been worrying about it too, as she considers setting up an Etsy shop, and I'm very sympathetic! But no need to worry, I think: we're all selling to different people. The person who likes Jan's gorgeous Gocco printed moleskines and assembled book works won't be debating whether to spend their money on one of her pieces OR one of mine. They'll like one or the other, or they won't know we're both out there anyway, or they might buy a piece of Jan's work on one occasion, and mine on another. In the meantime, hopefully more people putting up quality work raises the bar for everyone which gives us all a certain legitimacy in our efforts and promotes handmade items, which can only be a good thing.

Hatmaking with dinner plates

Last week I made two hats for darling daughter. The first was a lovely little purple Fedora which I stupidly spun (NOT rinsed!) using the spin cycle on my washing machine - which shrank it beautifully (sob). So I had to make number two and remember to let it dry unaided, which took several days.

This week I thought I deserved a hat for myself and so my lesson with Eileen on Wednesday was all about using a stack of plates to make a hat!



First, make the usual 'bucket' shape as the base. Then tie three or four plates of different sizes into the 'bucket' and work them with soap and water!



The felt will shrink around the plates and take on their shape



Twist the top around





















Dry the hat... et voila!





















It's surprisingly difficult taking photos of yourself with something on your head - my arms aren't long enough!


This is daughter's hat, version 2, complete with flower garland as a hat band

Fun with felt

I may have mentioned a slight obsession (can you be slightly obsessed or only completely obsessed, I wonder?) with felt, having been introduced to felt making at our daughter's Steiner primary school where the children create lots of things that they need out of felt that they've made. Felt making, and creating small items from the felt that we've made, consumes a large part of the energies of the small Tuesday morning craft group I belong to at the school and slowly my technique is becoming more refined. One of the women who sometimes comes to the group has found a 'Master Feltmaker' in Bellingen and begged classes, and I've been a bit jealous of the people who have gone off to learn feltmaking in the redoubtable Eileen's garage. For the next few weeks, however, I have the opportunity to join in because one of her regular students is going away for a month or so and Eileen has kindly agreed that I can take her place.





Two cute slippers, soon to be adorned with a flower each!








I have to say I felt a bit nervous turning up yesterday to who-knows-what! But Eileen is a real character: she must have been making felt and felt things by hand for about forty years, and what she doesn't know about the process probably isn't worth knowing. Have deconstructed the samples I took with me (she managed to be only slightly scathing...) she allowed me to jump a couple of lessons and start by making some slippers for my darling daughter. If you're familiar with feltmaking techniques you'll probably know that making these lovely little slippers involved laying out wool tops over an oval plastic resist, turning the whole assemblage over, wrapping the edges around the other side of the resist and laying more layers of fleece over the top and then felting the whole thing together. A small slit is then cut in the resulting envelope of gradually felting wool, the resist is removed and hand-shaping turns the slit into an opening for the slippers and shapes the toe, heel, sole and instep.






















You can see where the inner and the sole are different colours

I'd only read about the technique in books and so, being very careful with my laying-out technique under Eileen's watchful eyes, it took me about 3 hours to make these slippers. 2 hours' work got me to the stage where I could bring them home, and I finished them off this afternoon.

I'm supposed to practice by making another pair as 'homework' this week but frankly I don't want felt slippers, so I'm cheating: our builder's 18 month old daughter would, apparently, love a pair and if he can get me the pattern in time I might be able to make up a pair of toddler bootees in time for my next lesson with Eileen!

These may look too flimsy to be worn regularly, but in fact there are four layers of fleece in the felt and they are surprisingly sturdy.






















A wine-red flower, a bit like a Dahlia, with gold beads in the centre

Eileen wanted to see samples of my work so I took along some pieces of flat felt plus these two flowers which I worked out over the long weekend. They are a development of the small flower and bird brooches I was doing before Christmas, and I was deliberately trying to make something bigger.

Unfortunately Eileen was a bit bemused by them: why, she wondered, did I go to the trouble of cutting out all those petals, and why are the petals so narrow? I didn't really catch her meaning until she brought out her own box of flowers-in-progress and I saw the light. Her flowers have fewer petals, but they are bigger and she works the individual petals, stretching them and making them warp a bit so that they look very realistic. She showed me gorgeous orchids and roses, carefully shaped and then painted on both sides with dilute PVA glue to strengthen and stiffen them. Once dry, she then assembles layers of petals and beads/embroiders a centre before sewing them to a brooch pin.

I still like my flowers and I want to try making bigger corsages too, but I must say that her flowers are just beautiful and I will try a modification of her pattern and see what I come up with. When I have a spare moment.






















The centre of this flower is an antique button