Skip to main content

Felting and Fabric Cats

It's been a great start to the new year - a few days at the beautiful and peaceful Bodhi Glades in Wentworth Falls (Blue Mountains), lots of successful sales on ETSY, a visit from Riikka's mother and sister from Finland, a lovely "welcome to Australia' with friends (24 of us in total) on Monday night at our place, and the usual busy days with Dylan and Brandon, our older grandsons ... as well as some creative work, of course. I have been trying to get some samples prepared for my workshops with The Eclectic Studio in Sydney later in the year. I even had to write an artist bio - I felt a bit stange having to do that, but you can check it out on the studio's website : http://www.eclecticstudio.com.au/ and follow the prompts from "class and workshops" to "meet the teachers". While you're there, please check it all the great stuff and workshops Roz is offering this year.


Anyway, this week I did manage to complete a sample (pictured) - a kind of "sea" bracelet made of felted beads, embroidered with glass beads and accompanied by foil glass beads. Even if I say so myself, it looks quite spectacular when it is worn. I have also half -made a necklace in similar colours with an elongated focal felted bead perhaps a photo next week? The beads are needle felted, wet felted and then finally needle felted again to make them really firm - I am not sure if this is the usual technique other felters use, but I found it the best way to make beads as firm as a tennis ball, whatever the size. I remembered this time to weigh the wool roving before felting so each bead is the same size.


I have also been making fabric cats this week. I purchased some metres of Laurel Burch cat print fabric soon after she tragically died last year, as a sign of the great respect I have for this exuberant designer. I am not really a great lover of cats, but I do love the fabric. Like a lot of things in my stash, they stay there for ages until almost forgotten and suddenly, I do something about them. Late last year, I made quite a few of these cats for an exhibition at Lorne Gallery. Since then I have adapted the pattern, and finished these four yesterday... actually I made five,but Brandon wanted one of them which had a fabric depicting planets and stars, so only these four made it to my ETSY shop. 1. Carnelian Cat, 2 Chinese Fortune Cat, 3. Hydrangea Cat and 4. Valentine Cat For a better look and more detailed descriptions, please have a look at them listed in the ETSY shop http://www.empresswu.etsy.com/.

While I was in my workroom yesterday trying to finish some alterations to newly purchased clothing for my daughter , Brandon (grandson, nearly 5) also did some needle felting - I have a Clover needle felting tool which is excellent for small children as it has a safety cover around the needles and a locking mechanism. I also gave him some large biscuit cutters and egg rings and he placed the wool inside these shapes, and kept his fingers on the outside - safe felting! Here is a photo of his work in progress - a lot more was added throughout the day.

Hope you all have a creative week , Wilma

Comments

  1. Thanks for coming to visit! Your art is wonderful! Lisa :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, I want hidrangea cat and Valentina Cat...do you sell (and send)to Italy?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Lisa
    Thanks, Stef
    Unfortunately, Hydrangea Cat and Valentine Cat were sold in my ETSY shop yesterday. Each cat is unique but there will be more coming soon. I have emailed you.
    regards, Wilma

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the bracelet Wilma and the cats are wonderful too, like you I love Laurel Burch's work, but not a great cat lover :)
    I have two of her books that I pulled out just the other day and thinking about adapting one of the designs to include more fish (surprise surprise) and less flower and do as a whole cloth wall hanging.
    Do gum nutters start in Feb, trying to get to the meetings this year.
    Good luck with your classes too

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Christmas Countdown 25... Christmas Tree #1

Background : It has become a bit of a Christmas tradition for me to write an Advent blog - a series of posts leading into Christmas from 1 December . In the past,  I have featured Christmas characters by the alphabet, all you ever needed to know about Christmas cakes, Christmas Firsts  and  Christmas traditions.  I usually find myself on 30 November, thinking what  to do this year?  However, I've had  the idea of "crazy " Christmas trees in the back of my mind since last year.  So this year, it's about non- traditional, unusual, crazy, weird  Christmas trees.   There will also be a "handmade" element to my posts, so there may even be some links to tutorials or other ideas....  So here we go. Christmas Countdown 25 - 1 December.  Source : https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/455285843573622091 This is the image which started this line of thought....  a yarn bombed, crochet granny square Christmas tree.  I though...

Christmas Countdown 4: Turducken

I had always thought that 'turducken' was a very modern dish  - a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck, inside a deboned turkey.  The birds are stuffed inside the gastric cavities and spaces are filled with poultry stuffing. There appear to be a few different earlier versions of this dish . I n his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil ("roast without equal")—a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting and a garden warbler—although he states that, since similar roasts were produced by ancient Romans, the rôti sans pareil was not entirely novel. The final bird is very small but large enough to just hold an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. Gooducken is a goose stuffe...