Hey, I am going to be on TV talking about felt making on March 8th 2010! If you are interested in the magic of working with wool to make felt, please tune in. The show is called "It's All About Arts" It is a one hour live interview style (BBN TV Channel 9) show dedicated to promoting and educating in the world of art. The show airs in Boston on Channel 9 from 6:00PM to 7:00 PM each Monday. It should be a lot of fun. You are welcome to call into the show as well and ask questions.
For the show, I have prepared a video demonstration on how to make felt. Rachel Worrall, my famously beautiful model, will be wearing some of my newest creations. I have posted some pictures on my site of the nuno felt dress "Earth", but now you can see the clothes worn live!
The hosts of "Its All About Arts" are Glenn Williams and Suzanne Shultz. This popular show is in its thirteenth season, so it is a real Boston institution.
I had the privilege of teaching five wonderful women. They call themselves the YaYas. They have been friends for over 20 years. They came together to celebrate a special birthday for one of their own, Gayle. Imagine, a whole weekend with your best buds. This, however is not a picture of Gail, but a picture of Suzanne, the organizer of this wonderful event. The event started with a Nuno Felt Scarf class taught by me at Bead + Fiber Gallery. We started at 11 am and everyone worked like mad till 2:30 when the scarves were finished .
What I love best about teaching these classes is the camaraderie that comes about while doing the work. With this class these feelings were amplified ten fold. The energy, caring and love that was in that room left me high the rest of the day.
When they were all finished I snapped this photo for my wet scarf club.Happy Birthday Gail, Gail is the women on the right side of the picture.
I love experimenting with new designs and materials, I just like to see if I can do it. These felted fingerless gloves are a perfect example. I wanted to try to create fingerless gloves that paid homage to Karl Lagerfelds' fall collection. In his fall show many of his models wore fingerless gloves in black with a touch of lace or ruffles. Mine are Merino wool with silk, tencel and lace inclusions. I love these fingerless gloves. They have both a feminine feel and a very tough urban feel.They were so much fun to make that I made three more pairs all different.
The green ones are made with Merino wool from my boutique, Algae and Yellow Curry . I also added wool eyelash yarn as an inclusion.These green pulse warmers have turned up cuffs and the opening around the fingers is turned and stitched down. I think they have a very collegial feel. I then decided to experiment with silk velvet. Which resulted in the purple Nuno felt pulse warmers, below..
I used cut silk velvet, Merino wool in Pansy from my boutique. I finished the gloves by hand stitching velvet ribbon around the cuffs and the finger openings. The palms have a vine pre-felt design with hand embroidery emphasizing the design. I can't seem to get a good picture of the palms the color difference between the pre-felt and the wool is very close. I think these have an Edwardian feel. Purple and velvet, I can just see the women wearing this stepping out of a horse drawn carriage in the 18th century.
In the last pair I finished, I wanted to create something a little bit wild. I really don't know how to describe them. They are a blend of all Merino wool from my boutique, Algae, Deep Water, Dirty Martini, and Hot Tamale. I know they have a reptilian feel but, they are a lot of fun to wear. You will definitely be noticed when you wear these felted pulse warmers.
All of these felted pulse warmers are for sale in my boutique.
SO why do I call these fingerless gloves pulse warmers. Well, there is always a gap between the end of the glove and the sleeve of your coat. In our cold New England weather, wind rushes up my sleeves and chills my wrists. When I set out to design these gloves I wanted to make them long enough to cover my wrists to prevent a cold pulse, hence pulse warmers.
It is still bitter cold here in Boston. I know what you are thinking it is winter, get over it, but the harsh winter days just keeping coming on, with spring a distant memory. By now, If you are like me, you are bored, Bored, BORED with your winter clothes. The quickest way to change a look is to accessorize. A new warm bright scarf is just what I needed to banish the gray all around me.
I have made many scarves, Nuno and felt, but I wanted to try something a little different. When I am selling my scarves, I am frequently asked, " How do I wear it?" The question always throws me off kilter, I thought it was intuitive, I couldn't have been more wrong. That was my challenge, to come up with a scarf, that didn't need directions.
Here are the things that people found challenging about wearing a scarf; "what do I do with the excess?", How do I keep the ends from trailing on the ground?", How do I tie it around my neck to stay?" All the questions are design problems and I added my own problem, the scarf would have to be, feminine, light and block the wind around my ears and be versatile.
The three scarves in the video are the result of this challenge. They are all 36" - 40" in length, no more dragging on the ground, and no more excess. They all have a slit near one end of the scarf through which you pull the tails from the other end ,Voila, no more wondering how to tie the scarf.
I created the scarves by using the resist method and by exploiting the felting process. Each felt scarf is double ruffled, the ruffles were created by placing a resist ( a piece of thin plastic) between the layers of each ruffle. Then, because of nature of felt is to contract more (shrink) when it is thicker than when it is thinner, I laid out the center of the scarf with three layers of woo roving, but the ruffles are only two layers of wool roving. This is what causes the ruffles, the center line, three layers thick, contracts, more than the ruffles, the outer edges. I also made each side of the scarf in contrasting colors, making them reversible and because of the sculptural quality of the felt, the ruffles can be made to stand up around my ears, keeping them nice and toasty. I am planning on retailing these fun flirty, felt scarves in my boutique.
Here is one of my favorite fashion quotes that inspires me in my creative process.
"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary" Cecil Beaton, English Photograph and Fashion Designer 1904-1980
Felt is one of oldest non-woven textiles. It is incredibly durable. It can be light weight and gossamer or as thick as saddle leather. It is 20 degrees fahrenheit in Boston today and as I sit in the store Bead + Fiber and watch the people scurry to their next warm destination, I think, they would be so much more comfortable if they were bundled up in felt. Among my many jobs to survive as an artist, I am the curator for a very unique gallery in Boston, MA, Bead + Fiber.
It is unique in that it sells the materials for bead and fiber artists, conducts classes and workshops in bead and fiber techniques and about every six weeks I change the windows and the gallery space with a new show. Presently, the show I have up now, "Handle With Care' is a group show of artists who use the handbags as as a means of expression,
The owner of the gallery and a bead artist, Andrea Garr is off visiting her girls in Colorado and then off to Tuscon for the biggest, baddest bead show in the US. SO I am gallery sitting for her today, and since it is so bloody freezing here in Boston, no one is coming into the store, I have decided to spend the day surfing the web looking for felt artists.
This image on the left is not an anthropological find. It is the phenomenal art of Stephanie Metz. Her art is an example of what a humble craft, can become in the hands of an artist. Stephanie creates her sculptures, by needle felting, yes, just one poke at a time, this sculpture is from "The Teddy Natural History" series . Her work is elegant, well executed and frightening. Her work makes me question the innocence of toys, evolutionary science, genetic engineering and parenthood. I love going back to her site repeatedly to see what has evolved out of her very fertile imagination.
On the right is " Super Suckler" from the series "Overbred Animals" . This series addresses genetic engineering for our betterment, bigger chicken breasts, more milk and the unintended consequences of these quests.
Her latest work is titled " Pelts " in her statement, she talks about the overwhelming feelings of becoming a parent and the all encompassing instinctual urges we all have to protect and care for our young. She goes on to say that after you strip away all our fancy gadgets, abilities, we are just mammals and the thing that all mammals have is hair. This image is titled "Pink Checkered Dress" it is felted wool over a found childs' dress. Stephanie lives in San Francisco. I hope to somday meet her and see her work in person, to let her know how deeply her work has affected me.
What an an absolutely marvelous time I had yesterday. I worked with Rachel Worrall, Carolyn Ross and her assistant Carmen at Wellesely College's greenhouse, producing photos of my seamless nuno felted creation, "Earth". I have always wanted to create something that evolved around the four elements, and though I paint and have made many paintings, which somtimes include one of the elements, as a series, I could never quite see my way to a complete narrative.
When I started imagining making seamless garments- envisioning the designs, colors and styles-that is when I found my narrative thread, (no pun intended). Fiber, wool, felt are all so elemental. I don't think it is a stretch to say that the four elements are involved in the creation of felt. There is the wool, from sheep who feed on and fertilize the earth. Water, a very necessary ingredient for creating firm solid felt. Air, well, anyone who has ever made felt, will tell you how much effort one exerts in the rolling and beating, stretching of the wool, all of which requires air. Lastly fire, in felt, hot water will speed the felting process along, and hot water, requires fire.
I am planning on creating four ensembles to represent the four elements. I started with "Earth" I used lots of different greens from my B. Felt palette, and some hot house flower colors. I think I was trying to escape, at least in my mind, the stark cold reality of winter in Boston.
Next I will get to work on water. I just purchased some spectacular hand painted blue silk chiffon from Gorgeous Fabrics. I am imagining a little cocktail dress with lots of flirty ruffles. Oh well we will see,. I begin by drawing, but then something happens when I actually start manipulating the fabric, It talks to me, directs me to its form and colors. As artists we should always pay attention to those voices. I know that if I try to force an idea instead of just grabbing it by the tail and allowing it to pull me along, I am inevitably disappointed..
Yes, another entry about felt flowers, I have two dozen made, but not quite finished yet. Last night, however I put three of them to use, creating a headpiece for Rachel to wear for today's photo shoot with Carolyn Ross at Wellesley Colleges' greenhouses. I was fooling around in my studio trying to attach the flowers to the felted green cording in the picture, (the cording was originally intended for the back of the Nuno felt dress) without much luck. Then inspiration struck, or maybe desperation since it was 5 PM and I knew I needed something by 8:30 AM today. Why not wrap the cord around an already existing headband? Of course, I didn't have one in my studio so it was off to CVS to buy my supplies and finish the felt headpiece at home. I also brought home, all my flowers, left over green cord from another project (has a little bit of glitz in it) pins, thread, sewing needles and glue.
I wrapped the felted cord tightly around the headband with glue along the back. Than I took the odd piece of felt cord and attached it to the felt cord, already glued down on the headband. I attached it by stitching it down, in such a way, to make the cord undulate across the headband.
Then I went all out wrapping and stitching cord and finally
I stitched the the felt flowers. I also had made some free, form felt leaves. the leaves were made from pre-felt. The felt leave were used judiciously on cords that hang from the headpiece and I also attached them on the end of the band.
I took this picture at 11:45 PM last night. I went to bed convinced that I had failed. I just couldn't tell if it was going to work. I tried it on and well, lets just say mother nature would be ban me from the garden. Doubts, Doubts and more Doubts which are all part of the artists dilemma. I decided to ignore the left brain critic and brought the felted headpiece to the shoot anyway. What did I have to loose? It wouldn't be the first time something that I had made ended up in the circular file. BUT not this time, the shoot at the greenhouse went better than I could have hoped and I will post pictures and videos tomorrow. When I placed the felted headpiece on Rachel, it tied the whole Nuno felted jacket and Nuno felt dress together. On Rachel, the headpiece comes alive and the scale is perfect. I love this picture of her. Thank you Rachel and Carolyn Ross for the beautiful photograph.
What a dreary day in Boston, rain, rain and more rain, but at least you don't have to shovel rain. It was perfect day to be felting in my studio. I worked on finishing the felt flowers that my model Rachel will wear in her hair for the photo shoot on Wednesday. I am still uncertain as to whether I should bead the flowers. Here is my dilemma, on the left is the felt flower in all its glorious "feltedness"
On the right, is the felt flower I beaded as a gift for my ex-assistant Oa. I think the beads make it look spectacular, but it takes me two and half hours to bead!!! As beautiful as they are, I can't charge enough to make up for my time. What to do.? I retail my simple felted flowers for $30. I would have to charge at least $50 in order to make the embellishments worth my time. I suppose I can make a few and see what the market says.
I love the color of this felt flower. I blended three different colors of my merino wool roving. Rubrum Lily ,
La Sunrise
Black Raspberry Three very luscious hot colors. Just the medicine for a miserable winter day. All these colors and more are available in my boutique .
Sunday was the going away party for Oa and I gave her the felted flower broach. Doesn't she look beautiful wearing it?
I think a lot about felting and cooking, because they are alike in a great many
ways. Let's say, I am going to make a salad.I start off with a basic recipe, and then along the way, some other
ingredient catches my fancy and I decide to add it to the mix. When I make a scarf I go through the same thought process. Will the scarf, be solid wool felt, nuno felt or a combination of the two. In making the scarf below, I wanted something warm, but light, Nuno felt (laminate felt) was the solution. A nuno scarf always starts with wool and a lightweight,
transparent fabric ( I prefer silk). How I combine the two, how much
wool I use, will I use other inclusions, will I place the design on
both sides, how much I agitate.... these can all be impromptu, or well
planned decisions, depending on my mood. It is just like making a salad.
I mentioned making salad, because yesterday I went to a dinner party at my good friends' and studio mates' home, Lisa Houck. She is a wonderful artist and a fabulous cook. My contribution to the meal of wheat berry soup, artichokes and salmon steaks was a humble salad. A winter salad came to mind, something with hearty greens and beets. I love beets, especially their incredible purple, with ruby undertones color. The color reminds me of one of my new wools in my B.Felt boutique, an exquisite,violet, merino wool roving. Well, I digress, as in the making of my Orange Crush scarf, my salad started with two ingredients, hearty greens -a combination of spinach and arugula-and oven roasted beets. To this, I added shaved fennel, toasted walnuts, lemon flavored goat cheese, parsley, scallions and tossed with a pomegranate vinaigrette dressing, resulting in a delicious and well composed salad and like my scarf equally as beautiful.
The temperature is dropping here in Boston and I miss my little garden in the city. I should call it what it really is a "yardette". But in the spring and summer right into the fall, I call it paradise. I love flowers in all their infinite variety. So today I decided to cure my craving by finishing the felt flowers my former assistant Oa had made for me. I usually finish the felt flowers with a lot of beading. I'm a big fan of the adage, "why do less when you can do more?" But this time, I'm not so sure. These felt flowers were created a little differently than my usual wool felt flowers. This time, I decided to do some freestyle embroidery first to help the felt flowers lay flat. I learned the embroidery technique in a workshop I took last year with Lisa Klakulak . By embroidering in the center of the felt flower, over and over, the wool is compressed making the center of the flower pop up. I love this technique. But I am in a quandary.
Do I embellish with beads or not? I love the way the felt flowers look without the beads. However, it goes against my nature to not gild the lilly, no pun intended. At least one of these felt flowers will be embellished and that is the flower I am giving to Oa at her going away party Sunday night. Maybe, when I see that flower finished I will know which way to go.
If any you have tried freestyle embroidery on wool felt you probably have a stash of machine needles just like I have. I think, I have tried every needle on the market and no matter what I do they break.
Now, I believe I have finally found the perfect needle. Schmetz, Microtex 80/12. I tried it all day yesterday and the same needle is still in the machine! I used all kinds of threads, cotton, rayon, Sulky all with equally good results. It makes me want to try some more embroidery on wool felt.
