Little felted pod...

Once upon a time there was a little felted pod. He started off a lot bigger but got felted and pulled and shaped and felted.... again and again. And he began to shrink, just a little. At one point you couldn't even see the lovely colours on his surface there was so much soap. But he began to notice that he could keep his organic curves better now and he was kind of liking the deliberate lopsidedness of his shape.

When he was put beside the other stones in the garden, he thought he was the best dressed Pod in the neighbourhood :) He had lovely ochre yellows and grey/green contrasts with some nifty highlights in there too. And as if to prove that, he was now getting lots of attention from someone with a camera, obviously admiring his looks!

So he maganimously obliged and gave a few poses showing off all his lovely colours from many angles. Click, click... and a close-up? Of course, don't mind if you do..... did you catch that lovely orangey/yellow detail?... you did! Excellent :) Click, click......

And then.... it was over. Pod relaxed again, contentedly basking in the sun. It would be nice, he thought lazily, to have some other little pods to talk to. Stones weren't the greatest of conversationalists. Maybe he could persuade the pod maker to create him some company? Now there was a very good idea.......

......and then they could all live happily ever after :)

Felted pod - part one

Last night as I was finishing my blog post,  I had the notion of making a small felted pod, to get back into felt making again and explore 3D forms more. I just wanted to keep it a simple form so the colour and fleece qualities would stand out more.

I have lots of fleece in my stash but my favourites are the hand dyed ones I got from DT Craft & Design when I joined their Fibre adventure club a few years ago. Each month you got a dyed colourway with several types of fleece: roving, tops, silk tops, etc. Each bag was like a little treasure trove arriving each month :) I never got round to using it all so it's been sitting there waiting for the right project to come along - and for me to have enough energy to do some lovely felting again.

'Lovely lichen' -  Fibre adventure club december 2009

I must say I have sorely missed felting. I've really enjoyed my afternoon up to the elbows in fleece, soap suds and bubble wrap! I didn't realise how much satisfaction I get from playing with fibres and all that tactile yumminess!

I chose to work with 'Lovely lichen' as it had some gorgeously soft roving with contrasting delicate silk tops, and I was thinking these pod shapes would look interesting mimicking stones, or weathered dry stone walls - with lichen on them:)

The simple pod form uses a resist technique. In this case, I used a plastic circle inside and wrapped fleece around the form, alternating each flat side as I went, building up colour and tonal values. The detail and decoration went on as the last layer.

I've wrapped the layers and started fixing the top detailing in place here. The silk tops was a bit slippy and didn't want to bond with the roving much. I gave it extra rolls and more pressure with the bamboo mat and it mostly fused. I'll have to remember that next time I use it so I can open up the silk fibres more to get a better grip.

This was as far as I got today before my energy ran out. But I'm pleased with how far I managed. I haven't been able to do any felting since I got chronic fatigue so this is a huge step forward for me. I love felting but it is one of the most demanding techniques energy-wise. So today was also a test to see if I could manage - and I have a nearly finished pod -YES! :))) It has definitely taken me much longer than before but that doesn't matter - as long as I can felt again!

So what needs to be done to finish? I've got to the stage where I can now cut an opening for the pod and take out the plastic. The felted circle has now shrunk enough to be smaller than the plastic disk so it needs to come out, and the fleece - and the silk - is all well anchored in place. So next I have to felt the cut edge, smooth out the side seams, then start shaping the pod. So not much left to do, and then some photos. Felt can reflect the light and bleach out the colours, so capturing the true colours could take a while. It would look lovely on a stony beach, wouldn't it? :)

Well, I'm off  to bed now, to recharge my energy batteries for tomorrow. There is a pod waiting to be finished:)

See you all soon!
elaine x

Vintage embroidery

I've been meaning to show you these hand stitched vintage textiles I picked up at a car boot a few weeks ago. (It's weird to call something vintage that is only about 50 years old!) There was loads of old style linen, quite a collection, and a few caught my eye because of the stitch detail. My favourite was this apron with hand stitched flowers in a variety of soft colours and a lovely cross fastening of the straps on the back.

Someone must have spent a lot of time sewing away on these pretty flowers and they have paid close attention to the placement of the colours too to get a good balance overall. I love the little dots and dashes that make up the flower heads! I've just noticed the flower on the left has a yellow stem when all the rest in this section are green. I wonder why?

But they are yellow on the pocket and yellow at the top so maybe it was to stop a total green band at the bottom to soften the feel. The pocket is a little damaged and it needs a wash too but it all adds to the charm of the piece! You can just see in the top left of the picture where the strap joins the apron with a button fixing.

A little close-up of the pocket stitching....

I found quite a few long runners I will show you later on but I wanted to show you this small sachet. It has been very prettily embroidered and it seems like it has been loved and cherished in its time. It's sad to think this was someone's collection of prized belongings that are now sitting in a car boot sale for any and everyone to rummage through the essence of their life. Any sentiment, meaning or memory is gone.

This is looking a bit worse for wear and it's yellowed along the top fold but it still suggests secrets safely hidden or maybe it was more prosaic and held tissues:-)

But still, someone spent time and effort making and decorating this and I shall keep it and start building new memories for it to hold.

Experimental Flowers

Being in the process of producing a report on a printing and dyeing workshop I attended last summer, I realised I hadn't shared any photos at all. I was limited to 4 photos for the report so I cheated a little and used the flickr toy link to make a mosaic. So 20 pics for the price of one! ( it also looks quite smart and peps up the presentation!) But since I'm not quite so limited here, I can give you some larger images to see.

Bleach paste printed through photographic stencil

It was a really interesting workshop that concentrated on photostencils for devore and discharge printing (bleaching out colour) - something I hadn't done a lot of. My main interest was to see if I could introduce this to my students without overwhelming them!

Seed heads - discharge printing (bleach)

The techniques were fun and the devore visually works best with the japanese rose pattern. The shine and two tone colour of the velvet is just lovely.

Each design had to be worked out as a repeat pattern for the design to follow across the fabric and the double dyeing of the fabrics was fun and very enjoyable - instant colour! I had forgotten just how much I love playing with colour and dyeing makes it so instantaneous. You can't see it well in the photos but some are dip dyed and overdyed to get just the right colours. Can you tell I had fun?

Since I was meant to be updating skills for my students to use as a resource, I kept a mini sketchbook of the design and techniques processes as I went. I must admit I was so busy trying to get the huge amount of printing done that I did neglect it a bit and had to add things later...

Working out repeat pattern for lace flower photostencil

As a teaching resource it was an excellent course and now looking back at it, it has sparked lots of new ideas for my own personal development in creative textiles. Hopefully I will have the time to experiment on mixing print and mixed media collage and see what happens.

I'll keep you posted!

Finished!

At last! The red apron is finished! Well, it was finished at 1am this morning but it was a bit too dark for photos! I'm really pleased with it and the colours are lovely. The red is a bit over bright in this photo but not by much!! I added the darker red stripes on each edge at the back and made the top band darker too. Now I'm thinking, maybe I should have put a dark border on the bottom to balance it out - give it a more finished feel? What do you think?

I'm thinking yes at the moment...

I also want to change the buttons as they don't stand out at all but I didn't have any funky ones to hand and wanted to try it out! Something with more definition - I did try white ones but they looked too tacky and cheap. Flower shaped ones would be good but quite hard to button through the crochet stitches I'd imagine! I'll have a look in the shops tomorrow and see what I can find. If not, I'll try ebay -you never know!

Now I've finished this one, I'll have to find another project to do. I have the ongoing ripple blanket - which has been neglected of late - but it is getting a bit heavy now and I like the feel of getting something made in a shorter time span! I'm thinking of a more fitted crochet top or a small 3/4 length sleeve knitted cardi/wrap/shrug - any ideas or links to patterns?

While I'm in town tomorrow, I'll have to get some rechargeable batteries for the MP3 player... yes, already! Too much listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack whilst crocheting, I think! (good motivator for fast crocheting!)

This week, I have to go back to work as the colleges are back for the new term. So, from wednesday, I will have to hoard my spare time for creative endeavours, whatever they will be. I'm intending to work on some new cards and do some sampling for new ideas - I'll let you know how I get on. But first I have to think of a taster session for my new textiles class on wednesday....

Back soon, hopefully with some new buttons and some cards to show you.

La Belle Helene

Hello, I'd like to introduce you to La Belle Helene - the place where I get to play with textiles and create lots of yummy things that I will hopefully sell on my up-and-coming website - http://www.labellehelene.co.uk/ . My intention is that this site becomes my online creative journal, exploring new ideas and techniques while encouraging me to become more structured in my making. But also giving me permission to play! So, here we go and thank you for joining me.