Module 4 Chapters 10 and 11 - Work in progress

 The end of this module is in sight at last - I have been beavering away at it over the last few weeks in between dressmaking and kides coming and going, so I got a bit behind with writing it up (and that is why the sketchbook entries suddenly stopped).  I am hoping that typing up a blog post will sort it all out in my head!  These two chapters are all about feltmaking, leading to resolved samples using felt as a background to stitch.  I decided to base my colour scheme and resolved samples on this colour study from module 1, which was developed from a picture of a vintage car radiator taken in Bristol Industrial Museum.  I thought that the rather out of focus photo related well to the softness of felt and I could use some pieces of the fabrics I had already dyed together with wool tops bought in similar colours.

Pages from module 1 work

Dyed scraps

First up are some trial pieces of wet felting that can be cut up and played with further.

Photo 1

 Photo 1
 These are quite thick pieces - the blue is very chunky, double sided with sandy yellow on the back, the purple is thinner and uses 3 or 4 colours mixed together.  The sand/gold is one colour with a sprinkling of silk waste felted in, which doesn't show as much as I thought it would.  I also made a piece of thick double-sided felt in the green/pink combination from chapter 9 to explore those shapes further, but didn't get a photo before I cut it up.

Photo 2

Photo 2
Top left is just plain blue, bottom left has fragments of scrim and silk embedded in the top layer.  The sand coloured sample has been deliberately felted less to keep it softer and more flexible, and I embedded lots of metal shavings that a friend had given me, to keep the theme of machinery and add a contrast texture.  Top right  - I cut strips from the green/pink piece and felted them into the background.  The strips were thicker so they give bumps on both sides of this sample, which I like but the colour contrast has been lost.

Photo 3

Photo 3
A friend suggested I try making nuno felt and very kindly lent me a pair of carders so I could mix the wool colours more effectively and draw out thinner layers.  The top sample used a piece of my dyed scrim as the base which shows through as pinker patches, but I was a bit heavy handed with the wool and the felt is still quite stiff.  For the bottom sample, I used far less wool over white scrim (a different combination of colours on each side) and left it almost bare in places so that it pulled and crinkled as the wool shrank.  This piece is much more delicate; lovely and soft to handle.

Photo 4

Photo 4
The first resolved sample which uses the two pieces from photo 3.  I cut strips from the thinner piece of nuno felt and applied them as flaps to the background using an embellisher (needlefelting machine) letting them pleat slightly.  I arranged them to echo the fluted shapes in the photo of the car radiator and then added lots of cut up pieces of the same felt. I added knotted and couched threads and some little woven wheels.  I really like this sample, but it seems to have turned into an underwater scene when I wasn't looking.

Photo 5

Photo 5
This is the double sided thick piece of felt cut up into shapes from chapter 9 designs.  I have stitched on both sides and intend to combine them into a 3d sample.

Photo 6

Photo 6
Another work in progress - a second  version of the radiator shapes, using the piece of felt that has metal turnings embedded.  I used the embellisher to pleat the background and stitched in the smaller pieces.  Not quite sure how this will work out, but I am thinking of adding some larger metal scraps - some of them are like coiled beads.

Photo 7

Photo 8

Photo 9

 Photos 7,8 and 9
I had had enough of soap and water for the time being so moved on to needle felting with the embellisher.  I made a background using a piece of commercial pre-felt as a base and adding a layer of wool.  I then chopped up dyed scrim into very small pieces and felted them on top, mixing and changing colours as I went.  Working heavily with the machine broke the scraps down almost into individual threads and fixed them in place, giving a soft and light piece of felt with a really interesting surface.  I cut the background in two and then carefully cut shapes from one piece and added them to the other, again using designs from earlier work.  I filled the holes by inlaying some of my plain blue felt.  Giving me two more half-finished samples to work on.  I need to look again at the one in photo 7 as the edges of the cut out shapes show the pre-felt, so this needs sorting out.