I've Come Out of Hiding

It's been a while, but I have not disappeared nor have I quit creating. This year has been busy for me, with completing the last course for my Fibre Art certificate at the College, and I just haven't been able to spare a minute away from my course work to sit and write. As of last night, the course is officially finished, so now I can share what I've been up to.

The basic idea is that there was a small project given every week in class(of which I had to complete at least 1) and then I had to create 1 large piece of my own choice, that somehow related to what was learned in class. While there are many projects I just didn't get to, here are the one's I did attempt.

The first week we were given some dried cattail reeds, and told to weave with them. I made this reindeer, and the star. I had a plan for that star....

Next, we were each given a Barbie doll, some scraps of leathers and furs, and told to keep Barbie warm, with no machine stitching. Though I used a leather needle, it was not an easy task to sew this stuff. In the end, I think her clothing turned out well enough, using lots of simple shapes with wrapping and tying. I'm pretty pleased with her fur boots; they have leather soles. I'll use these boots again on one of my dolls some day.

There was a silk assignment, where we were given some pieces of silk and asked to turn them into something. I made this bag from the Noriko handbag pattern (after I altered it a little bit) which was found at http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=1920 (I see it's no longer available). I gave it a painted silk cocoon tassle with some beautiful Japanese Tensha beads. My button closure is a polymer clay button created using a cherry blossom cane I made. Though I'm not entirely happy with the cane-I think the yellow center is too large, the petals of my flowers too pointy, and I probably should have packed the cane with blue and not transparent (though I didn't because maybe I don't want to use the rest of the cane on blue!)-I am pleased with the finished button and really do like it on this bag.

Before this class, I have never much worked with silk, so I spent a lot of time playing with silk. I dyed some silk scarves, and accidentally burnt one. On the green one I did a lot of shibori stitching, and am still in awe of just how much time it takes to cover a scarf with a simple running stitch. I took a stab at silk paper, and have no desire to ever repeat this technique (why turn that beautiful silk fibre into plastic?). I know someone who says if you don't like it "cut it up", so that's what I did to the flat paper after I free motion stitched it with silk threads. I cut it up and turned my silk paper into silk paper beads. They're beautiful little beads, so I strung them on silk cord with dyed silk cocoons and sterling silver.

With cotton fabrics I was to make a landscape. I sketched a beautiful landscape, but never made it because in an

unrelated workshop I was asked to make a collage on Solvy. In an effort to combine both projects, I thought I could make a collaged landscape on the Solvy. Though it's not anywhere close to being finished, I think this has promise and will continue on this one. I like my trees. For someone who can't draw, those are pretty good trees if I do say so myself!

I took a stab at basket weaving, and spinning with a drop spindle. Spinning wasn't a successful endeavor for me, but I'm glad to have had the opportunity.

Finally, for the "large finished project", I wanted to take everything we had learned, and combine it into one doll. I made her body out of old crib bedding (we spent a week on "recycling") but Jessica Abbott never got any further than that. I got wrapped up in felt.

I love felt. I'm intrigued by felt. I like the magic of felt, the feel of felt, the simplicity in its creation and its versatility. I've been a happy needlefelter for some time, but haven't had much of an opportunity to experiment with wet felt. We had an introductory lesson to felt one class, and I decided then that I'd like to work more with felt, so I abandoned poor Jessica Abbbott to work on a felted vessel. Besides, the name of the course is Fibres to Fabrics, and what better way to turn loose fiber into a fabric than felt?! I had a beautiful batt of an alpaca, wool and silk blend and decided to felt a 3 dimensional vessel incorporating some skeletal leaves and wool locks.

I covered a wine bottle with the fibers and began the felting process, then realized that I had to get that bottle out somehow (without smashing it with a hammer and pouring the shattered glass out the hole in the top of the vessel. Pulling the fibers away from the bottom I felted, and felted, and felted, and....well, you get the picture. After 3 hours I wasn't even at the stage of prefelt and contacted the instructor to tell me what I was doing wrong. I learned that Alpaca is harder to felt that the sheep wools I'm used to, and I should try alternating between hot and cold water. I kept at it, the alternating of temperatures was effective and finally, it started to felt successfully. I took it off the bottle after it dried, and it collapsed in on itself. I didn't quite get it at first, though the problem seems obvious now-the inside of the vessel wasn't felted yet. Just as well it had no bottom-that made it easier to turn the vessel inside out to felt. After a few more hours of felting, I did some embroidery around the skeletal leaves, and felted some more, then rolled it and rubbing it on the washboard. After more embroidery, and some beautiful Delica beads were added, I sewed on a bottom that was felted separately. The finished vessel is quite sturdy and stands straight on its own, but I chose to insert a bottle (a beer bottle-just to give you an idea of how much shrinkage occurred during the felting process). I plan on using this piece to hold some pussy willow once I get some, but the bottle gives the option of filling it with water to hold fresh flowers. I really do like this finished piece, so I guess the hours of repetitive rubbing were worth the pain it caused my poor hands.