Wet Felted Handbag

 

     Well, here it is. No, I couldn't wait for my new supplies to come. It was calling to me and I had to answer. Actually, it wasn't a trial at all .. it went very smoothly ... only took a couple hours to make and all day to dry. I had already made the strap before as a rope project so that was ready to roll. The only thing I don't care for is the shape of my fringes .. looks like I cut them out of solid felt ... actually, I almost did .. the red solidifies very quickly and I should have teased them apart earlier than cutting them later. All in all, I rather pleased with this. The surface texture is really nice. 


     I had an email from Louet yesterday too. My order has been shipped but one of the colors is on back order and to follow in another couple of weeks. Hopefully the most of it will be here by next weekend, as well as the Angelina fiber from the states. I'm having my friend Lu out for part of the long weekend and she is interested in seeing how this is done.  That gives us something to do, besides our trip to Masstown in search of Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese.  We have both declared this to be the absolute bomb of blue cheeses. 

     It was quite late last evening but I still wasn't ready to retire for the night so I made this pretty piece of prefelt from some of my needle felting wool and the long stapled yellow which I have no idea what kind of wool it is. That turned out well and was a quick process as it's only half felted. It will be used to make cutouts for embellishments for future bags, etc.  I'm kind of thinking about making a pair of slippers too. I saw a couple of different ways to make the seamless ones, but I don't think I have any leather here for making the soles, so that might be a project for much later on. 


     So, I'm not sure what my projects will be this weekend. I think I'm going to make another bag. Can't decide on the color or style just yet. That decision is going to take another cup of coffee. Have a great weekend everyone ... the sun just came out here and it was supposed to be raining, so all is great in my world. 

Wet Felting Process

     Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have a wonderful day. That goes to my mom too, who I know will be reading this. Love you Mom. 


    I'm still playing with the wet felting ... holding off on the handbag project because I just am not yet skilled enough and I really want to make it nice. I'm learning quite a bit about the art just from making these bangles. I've already learned that not all wools like each other and have had a couple of disasters. The black and red number shown fell apart on me early in the wetting process, so after fighting with it for a little while, it wouldn't go the way I wanted it to, so I discarded it. 

     I've learned that the hotter the water is, the better this works. I'm starting to develop a feel for  the process, beginning to understand when to add water and when to add soap. I'm completely amazed by the process and how hard and smooth it becomes. I've been flaming the fuzzy hairs off the damp finished bracelets, before beading them because I love the look. The smell of burned wool disappears once they're dry. I can't find any instructions where this step is mentioned .... so it's not likely recommended. Remember, I don't have the luxury of an instructor. I'm trying to learn all this from internet resources. I can't afford to buy the books either. I've also been sharing this with my talented artist cousin, Deb, on the South Shore. She has made some very pretty unbeaded bangles and has also become obsessed with the process. 

     The ones shown in this pic have just been flamed and I took them outside to brush the burned bits off. Notice how smooth they look. The more I make, the more I realize I need to learn. This is especially true when something doesn't work out and I then have a need to find out why. So many questions ... so much to learn .. but it wouldn't interest me if there was no challenge. 
I'm looking for a list or chart or something to tell me which types of wool work best for needle felting vs. wet felting vs. spinning. So far, I have found no such chart, but lots of info. It looks like I will have to make the list myself based on many different resources. Any helpful hints from my readers are gratefully appreciated. 

     There are volumes of things I want to know. Like all about wet felting with resists, and how to stick on pieces of prefelt and how to attach ropes for bag handles and the like. I now realize a beret with a resist was a silly thing to do for a beginner project and the fact I was able to save it with so little experience was a pure miracle. This is so much fun and at the same time so difficult. The learning curve will surely take years to master. I now understand so much more about the accomplished artists in this field, and have so much more respect for the time they invested to get to where they are. 

The Masks: Repairs and Additions

These masks belong to a friend of mine. During her move across this vast country, they met with the misfortune of being smashed to bits. Poor things .. they are made of paper clay and quite fragile. The big smash weakened them in places where they didn't actually fly apart, and my friend was devastated at the extent of the damage. They are hand made by some artist which I'm not familiar with, but they do have markings and numbers on the inside, if anyone knows who the original artist is. I would like to know. Well, my first instinct was to write them off as trash, but out of respect for the artwork, I agreed to try to save them. The black one had the most damage. Shards were collected from both sides of the face, but under the chin was mostly missing, so had to be rebuilt. I made wool cords, with multiple tails and glued them to cover holes, rebuild the jaw area and generally cover the cracks that showed after the glue up of the paper clay. The owner has seen the pictures and loves them. She's already making plans for where to put them up in her new place. I'm not sure where these were originally purchased, but if I have the story correct, it would have been at an arts and crafts show here in Nova Scotia say about 25 years ago. My friend has been all over Canada since then, and they had survived all the moves except this last one. 

The bone colored mask had much less damage and only one small hole. This was easily covered with wool ropes. 


The spring cleaning is still going on schedule. I'm almost up to the studio, which I'm leaving to last. If any of it is going to run over time, it's going to be the studio. So, I realize, now I'm procrastinating. Off I go with my cleaning supplies .......

Rings and Things

I'm running around here today trying to get a few things organized. A friend sent me the pattern for this pretty cocktail ring so I played with it last night for awhile. I came up with a couple of different looks for it. You'll have to excuse the old, dry wrinkled hand in this picture. It's the ring you're supposed to be looking at. The bands on these are beaded with 11/0 seed beads so they feel very nice on the finger. 

I just finished bathing the dog. She'll be going into the city with me this afternoon for a nice visit with my friend, Lu. I wanted to make sure she smelled pretty for the visit. She was due for a bath anyway. My next move is to have a shower myself and try to do something with my hair.  Then I'm off to the big city to spend the rest of the day. 

Marketing Study

These little Santas are cute. I have made a few to test the market, so to speak. I made quite a few needle felted lapel pins. I need the money really badly right now, so they're small, inexpensive and something I can place in local businesses with very little overhead. I'm also taking orders for these. Actually, I have made several kinds: poinsettias, hearts, lobsters and Santas. Some are seasonal and some are not. I made up rather clever little boxes to hold sets of the cards I have them mounted on. Very professional looking, if I do say so myself. I don't have much time to test out the Christmas stuff, and it's not my favorite theme either. I'd rather persue either humor or nature in my work, but Christmas sells, so I can pay for the supplies to make the cool stuff. Don is back to painting the huge civic number sign he made for the front of the property. He is doing the number and street name in reflective paint. Keep checking my blog for pics as it's almost to the stage to begin recording the assembly process. Very neat sign.

We were too late applying to get into the second craft fair in  Middle Musquodoboit. They were full. I'm going to be contacting some retailers in the south end of Halifax in the spring. I truely believe our work is nice enough to be in some of the places the tourists and cruise ships access. I'm going to be struggling this winter however, as I'd counted on doing a lot better at the Milford Craft Sale. Live and learn. It's starting to look like small stuff in quantity pays the bills and the occassional sale of a larger piece, or a commission is gravy. At least I'll be immersed in something I enjoy.

Another Mild, Wet Day

I'm learning to type all over again. My ergonomic keyboard kicked the bucket yesterday and I decided to retire it, rather than fix it again.
I was getting fed up with sticky keys and praying for the @ sign to work. I switched it out for a standard keyboard and find it so small. It's cut my speed in half for now but as time goes on I'm sure I'll learn to use it without so many mistakes.

It's another wet dark day but at least it's warm. It could stay like this all winter and I wouldn't complain too much. Maybe palm trees would sprout in the spring and we'll become the new Florida! Yeah ... nice to dream.. I'm off to check out a new bead supply place in a little while. I need some pin backs to sew onto some brooches I felted. I have a huge bag of red wool and hope to get some brooches sold for both Christmas and Valentines ... hearts are very fast to make. I did a small lobster to make a pin, but don't really care for it. It was harder to sculpt and although it turned out well, lobsters just aren't cute. I have to figure out some small stuff to sell as people just aren't spending big money right now. If the craft show was any indication of the state of the economy, everybody wants stuff for next to nothing and appreciation for the craft seems to have flown out the recession window. Keep trying ... I keep telling myself that perseverence will someday pay off.

I'm back now from what turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Before I left, I had searched out my destination on Google Earth. It clearly shows a road that runs parallel to the 102 and runs southeast of Miller Lake. Do you think we could find the end of it off the Aerotech Park exit? No Sir! We saw a one lane road with a gate ... no public road going that way. Then we spotted a sign pointing to the Old Guysborough Road ... aha! It took about 10 minutes of driving before we were both realized we weren't heading in the correct direction. I hauled the smart phone out and booted up the GPS ... sure enough, we were heading back home the long way. We turned around and went all the way back out to the highway and proceeded to Fall River and went in behind the lake, and had no trouble finding the place.

What a lovely couple! The online bead supply place is run by a wonderful young British couple and their platinum blonde, cuter than kittens, little boy. Brian and Hollie are so very nice and just a pleasure to talk to. Brian liked my dog too. Big brownie points there. They run a home based online beading supply company and carry quality products. By the way, they've informed me that road with the gate is the one we were looking for, but is impassable by vehicle anyway. The way we came is the only way to get there. So, all in all, it was more than worth the trip. Good luck Brian and Hollie. Check them out at http://www.thebeadingroom.com/ . From there you can access their blog which is also very interesting. So, now I have the pin backs I need for my felted pins and I had better get busy as they don't sew themselves to the felt.