Category Archives: wall hanging

Exciting News!

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Yesterday I was offered a sales table at my work’s annual Xmas market / fair. I am so excited, this is the first time I have tried to sell my work face to face, I have been bouncing around like a child on Xmas eve! At first I was worried that I would not have enough items, but looking around I realise I have loads of very saleable felt and willow goods that I have made, it is just that most of them need final details or care labels. I spent most of last night stitching care labels onto toys, scarves and hats so I had about 20 items ready to go.

This morning I sprayed 5 willow sculptures with wood preservative, they will take a few days to dry but are also good to go. This afternoon I have been mounting textile art onto mountboards and canvases and putting the pieces on mountboard into cellophane envelopes, that’s another 20 pieces ready to go. I am amazed by my own nervous energy, there are things that have been sitting in “nearly finished” piles for months that are suddenly finding their way to the finished pile. It is amazingly cathartic to see so many pieces finally complete.

I also found time today to repeat the wet felting of my stags at sunset picture that I have been needle-felting recently, the black is much more black now and repeating the wet felting has removed the fuzziness and tiny holes you get from needle-felting. I just need to decide how to hang it now…

One of the pictures I mounted was the sea hollies wall hanging, I think it looks great mounted on a canvas slightly smaller than the felt, giving the impression that it is floating away from the wall.

And I even managed to finish felting a handbag:

Painting With Fibre Workshop

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In the first week of October I spent a wonderful week in the the southern end of the Lake District with Kate and June. It was so lovely just to spend a whole week dedicated to making felt and the creative processes behind it. I didn’t have any fixed ideas about what I wanted to achieve during the week but I knew I wanted to explore adding more texture to my work, so far I have been adding layers of prefelt and using yarns and silk fabrics to create surface texture but still felt most of my wall hangings were distinctly two-dimensional. I have great admiration for painters and illustrators but I have always been drawn to three-dimensional arts, initially paper crafts, then ceramics and more recently willow sculpture. I think it is a combination of the tactile nature of these crafts and the challenge of thinking from multiple angles and view points that attracts me.

Kate provided a beautiful flower arrangement for us to work from, I was immediately drawn to the spiky blue sea hollies. Even now I am uncertain of the Gerbera, although it does help to balance the final composition.

We spent a few hours carding merino top to blend the colours that we could see in the flower arrangement and an afternoon sketching with paints and pencils, thinking about colours and composition. As you can see it has been a few years since I last tried to paint / draw. I think I should stick to textiles and sculpture!

We took photos as the pieces were developing. Here I was rearranging pieces of prefelt to find a pleasing combination for the background. At this stage I was far from convinced that I would like the finished piece.

This is what my piece looked like at the end of the week, just needs a few final tweaks…

I have since added some pink wire to support the Gerbera petals and some needle felting and now just need to figure out how to hang / mount it. I am thinking of using an artist’s canvas but should it be larger or smaller than the felt? I like the idea of the piece appearing to float away from the wall.

I love the way the finished piece looks so different as you move around the room, unlike a conventional painting, the shapes and colours change as you view it from different angles.

Kate also introduced us to the clover needle felting tool, I had seen these before but couldn’t see any advantage over the wooden needle handle I already had. Then I tried it, and my needle-felting world changed forever! It is amazing, I can’t explain how, but it makes needle felting larger areas a breeze, somehow the sprung needle-guard makes you bounce up and down vertically on the felt. It is now my favourite felting tool! If you are thinking of venturing into needle-felting I highly recommend it.