Felt snail shells
23 May 2012 1 Comment
in felt Tags: felt, logarithmic spiral, prodder, shells, snails
Here’s my first attempt at making some felt snail shells.
The resist was based on a logarithmic spiral cut from plastic, and I had to cut small holes in the back and poke my fingers in to open the inner coils. The coils in the centre were also not defined very well, so I added some stitching (paper string on the larger one and lambswool on the smaller one).
However, in the centre, the shrinkage of the felt has made it too tight, so I decided I needed to use a bigger resist. This time I stitched the coils, using wool, after prefelting and before fulling.
The difficulty with all these shells, however large, is getting access to the centre coils to open them up without cutting holes.
Yesterday my new prodder arrived from Niki and Niki, which may help in reaching some of the inner parts of the outer coils, but still won’t reach the centre. Ladies, can’t you make some kind of flexible prodder that will go around corners? 
Swiss iPad case
17 May 2012 4 Comments
in felt Tags: felt, iPad case, Swiss
After all the serious concentration of working on my V&A entry, a bit of fun.
My friend Diccon Bewes is a writer who lives in Switzerland. He’s written a book called Swiss Watching about the meaning of Swissness, and stayed with me recently when he came over to attend the London Book Fair.
As he’d just acquired a new iPad, he commissioned me to make a felt case in the Swiss colours of a white cross on a red background. He also wanted a closing strap to prevent the iPad from falling out.
So here it is, Diccon – I hope you like it!
And no – this is not the start of a new line in iPad cases with national flag designs! Though some Union flag cases might go down well for the jubilee celebrations…
Inspired by the V&A
11 May 2012 6 Comments
in dye, exhibitions, felt Tags: crochet, felt, gauze, indigo, muslin, sake bottle, shibori, silk, V&A, velvet, vessels
Every year the Victoria & Albert Museum holds an art competition, called “Inspired by” for people on part-time courses. Entrants have to create a piece inspired by work in the collections of the V&A or the Museum of Childhood. Selected works are displayed in the relevant museum in October.
I’m planning to enter some of the indigo felted vessels I’ve made. The pieces that have inspired me are a stoneware sake set by Yamada Hikaru made around 1979, and a 17th-century blue and white porcelain sake bottle, maker unknown.
I love the organic simplicity of the forms of the vessels in the sake set, and I thought I would use indigo dye and shibori, both traditional Japanese techniques, to add the blue and white element.
You’ve already seen some of these, but here’s a photo of the final set. The two larger felt vessels are ombre dyed with indigo, while the five smaller ones are nuno felted with a different yarn or fabric, also dyed with indigo.
Larger felt vessel, ombre dyed with indigo
Smaller felt vessel, also ombre dyed with indigo
Nuno felt pot with silk velvet
Nuno felt pot with cotton muslin
Nuno felt pot with silk chiffon
Nuno felt pot with ombre-dyed crocheted lambswool
Nuno felt pot with cotton gauze
Just have to fill in the entry form now – probably the hardest part! ;-)
Indigo and felt
27 Apr 2012 6 Comments
in dye, felt Tags: felt, gauze, indigo, nuno, shell, shibori, vessel. pot
The rain stopped for a while yesterday afternoon, and the combined sunshine and wind finally gave me a chance to dry out some of the wetter items. The house still smells of damp carpet though.
The loss adjuster isn’t coming till next Wednesday, so I managed to find a quiet corner and escape from the chaos by working on some more samples, combining my two favourite techniques of felting and indigo.
First up I tried some ombre dyeing directly on one of the felt shell structures. This is not as subtle as it should have been – the wool takes up the indigo more easily than the cotton I’ve been using, and the depth of the shell is a bit shallow for a good gradient.
Then I made a couple of small nuno pots using cotton gauze and cotton muslin dyed using shibori techniques. The gauze in particular gives a lovely cobwebby effect.
I felt much better afterwards!
Frosty the snowman
17 Apr 2012 2 Comments
in felt Tags: felt, gourd, Morley College, nuno, velvet, vessels
Back to Morley College today – and time to start thinking about exhibition ideas.
I have a couple of ideas, based around the work I’ve been doing on textures in 3D felt and shells – but I need to hone them down more and focus. I won’t add any more at this stage – just show you what I worked on today.
The first was intended to be a gourd shape, though it looks more like Frosty the snowman! You can’t tell very easily from the picture, but the top sphere is smaller than the bottom sphere. The “waist” needs to be more elongated – so I’m going to try using a single resist next time (this was made with two different circular resists felted together).
The second was a small velvet nuno pot. I used the same technique as for the silk nuno pot – but should have used blue wool, as the white coming through is a bit intrusive. But it’s the first time I’ve successfully managed to felt with velvet, so two cheers for that at least!
Now I’m off to Italy for a few days – hopefully for some warmer weather and good food! Ciao bellas – see you all in a week or so!
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