Back to felting

I said I would post about the felt pieces I have been doing lately but my last post was too long to include them.  I was so enjoying making the small piece for the card swap for the guild meeting that I made a few more. Not sure yet what I will do with them. But first here is the card that was in the envelope that I am so happy I picked. It is a lovely sample piece done by Flo Rosenstock. Unlike me she does the smart thing and makes a sample before she makes the final piece. 

And here is Flo modeling the final product of her work. She is a very talented feltmaker!

I already posted a picture of the one I did for the swap so I won't add that here. Below are the other small pieces I've done since then.

The colors on this are brighter than they appear here.

With this one I'm not sure whether or not I should stitch some of the leaves too.

Dusting off the old embroidery skills. I don't think I have made french knots since I was a kid...I still love them!

This last one is not finished as I want to do some stitching and maybe some beading on it too. This one is almost big enough to be a pillow front.

Back to natural dyeing

At the end of my second post about natural dyeing last month I was about to use the pear bark dye and I had started some sumac bark soaking. Well, the pear bark worked out lovely. I still can't get over how different the colors of natural dye can be from the color of the dyestuffs. The pear bark was greenish yellow, the crab apple was burgundy, and the apple was such a dark red it looked black. Yet the pear bark gave me the least yellow dye. A wonderful peach.

The sumac was looking real good when I put the fibers and fabric in. The color was a strong yellow that the silk took immediately. Here is a photo of a chiffon scarf just minutes after going in the bath.

I thought this was going to be another winner. I really liked the smell of the sumac too, kind of like an herb tea with some cinnamon. However, as the pot heated up the color seemed to fade. I also had made a mistake in that I tried to get fancy and fold and clip this scarf. Unfortunately I did not notice that the clip I used had black paint on it. I also gave no thought as to what type of metal the clip was made of and how that would effect the dye. I ended up with this. Note the dark stain from the clip.

So these are the colors that I ended up with after my foray into dyeing with bark. They look so pretty together.

Next I decided to try some ground ivy. I had no idea if it would work but I figured I didn't have much to lose. There was so much of it in the lawn, it is a very pretty purple and the leaves have a lot of color too. My fingers turned purple from picking it.

 I put the plants in a pot with water and then threw in a small piece of silk. The next morning the silk was a really nice mauve color. I was so excited but when I started heating the pot the color changed, becoming greyer and greener the hotter it got. When I rinsed out the silk I had a very light grey-green tint. I didn't even bother with a picture it was so pale.

Since I was using weeds from the lawn Dad asked if I could use the nettles that he wants gone from near the garage. So they were the next experiment and sadly did not work out too well either. Undaunted I have started digging up dandelion roots to use. I think one of the things I like best about this natural dyeing is the hunting and gathering! I am also doing an experiment with the ground ivy by putting the flowers on a piece of silk and wrapping it up and putting it in a jar with water and letting it brew for a while.  Stay tuned...

Where Time Goes

The funny thing about using notes or a string around your finger or a blog to help you remember something is that you have to remember where you put the note or what the string or blog was for. I  forgot that the main reason I started this blog was to help me remember, at least in part, what I have been doing or thinking. I admit that my lack of writing is not all due to forgetfulness. It is also because I have been busy doing other things. Many of these things I was doing in order to avoid doing TAXES. I am good at making other things seem much more pressing when there is a task I just don't want to do. For example I just HAD to cut down the invasive multi-flora rose that has been spreading in the 'back 40' for years. REALLY spring IS the best time to hack away at it since 1. I need to be outside 2. there are fewer bugs 3. cooler weather means I can wear long sleeves to protect my arms 4. multi-flora rose is one of the first shrubs to leaf out making them easy to spot. See all that dead stuff by the drive? I must have cut about 15 large shrubs.

Then I found out that our town's yearly pick up of hazardous waste was on April 10th so of course getting those nasty chemicals out of the house was much more important than doing taxes. We had/have hazardous waste here from about 5 different households. Whenever someone moved or a grandparents house was sold we brought the stuff that we didn't know what to do with to this house. I collected enough 'stuff' (much of it was a mystery since the cans were rusty or unlabeled) to fill up the entire bed of our pickup truck. I forgot to take a picture of the full truck but here are pictures of the 'cleaned out' shelves and some of the things that did not make the cut.

In between these two projects I took care of the girls...and boy.

And in between these things I had to get ready for our guild meeting here in Connecticut on the weekend of the 17th. That involved cleaning, since I would be having my friend Joei come to visit (my first sleepover since I was a kid!) and I needed to make an art card for the swap that the guild has at the meetings.

Here is my card.

I also did a few more of these small pieces and more natural dyeing. But I will post about those things later...

IF I can remember. While all of this was going on I was sliding down the slippery slope to another bout of depression caused by a switch in meds to a generic brand and maybe some stress? I didn't really notice my mood slipping but my Dad did, though I should have known when none of this brought me the usual sense of satisfaction or joy, not even these.

By the way, I actually did get my taxes done...on time.

And got back on my old meds.

An insecure artist...

...or why some lessons need to be learned again and again.

I finally finished faux painting the bathroom and while I was putting on the third or fourth? layer I had an insight into how I have been feeling about felting and my art in general. It was not a new insight but apparently it is something that I need to keep reminding myself of.
Through this blog and facebook I have come to know so many very talented artists, especially those working with felt. It is wonderful to be able to see all these beautiful pieces and learn about these artists, but I also find it intimidating.  Because of my own insecurities when I look at the work of these artists I feel that my work sucks by comparison and therefore I should not even do it.
Now, this finding myself lacking applies to all areas of my life and it is something I work on fighting everyday. But when it comes to my abilities as an artist it really hits me.  My logical mind knows that life is not a contest, that there will always be someone who can do things better, that it is the 'doing' that matters not the outcome, that what makes someone an artist is the need to create; not the objects that are created, that art is subjective to begin with, etc.. The problem is that there is a disconnect between what I know logically and how I feel emotionally.
 There I was putting on one of the coats of glaze, thinking creatively about how the colors and patterns of each glaze work together with my mind excitedly thinking of other glazes I could try when the proverbial light-bulb went off. "What was I doing spending so much physical and creative energy on painting a bathroom that was supposed to be a quick project? How many times was I going to go over those same walls? Especially when each coat only made subtle changes! Did I really want to get so invested in learning to faux paint? Didn't I have enough creative hobbies already? What was I doing?"
What was happening was my inner artist, that need to create, was going to come out one way or another. That being the case wouldn't it be better if I was working on my felt? Creating in with a medium that I am more knowledgeable about and that I have an abundance of exciting ideas and materials for?
What I need to do now is get back to making felt for me. I need to lose my judgemental self and just get in there and play with some wool. I need remind myself what it is about the medium that I has held my attention for longer than any of the others that I have tried. I need to JUST DO IT!

But first here are some pictures of the faux painting layers in order.

And the finally finished bathroom.

Natural dyeing part two

The next bark I used came from our apple trees. I didn't forget that I had the bark soaking this time. After I had strained the dye I put in one of the pieces of silk that I had dyed with the crab apple and let it soak overnight. I then added some wool roving, silk, and some silk thread and boiled it. The over-dyed silk came out lovely.

Unfortunately I think this piece soaked up most of the pinkish hue from the apple dye.  The silk and roving that I added the next day was much greener. I liked the color of the roving and the silk yarn...

but I didn't like the silk so I threw the piece in a crock pot with some onion skins and...yum!

Here is the onion/apple silk on the left and the crabapple/apple on the right.

Next up is the pear bark. I crammed a piece of silk in with the bark tonight..

And tomorrow I will do some more cooking.

Meanwhile, I am soaking some stag horn sumac bark...it is a scary looking brew already...a blackish green after only 24 hrs.

 

Trying Natural Dyeing

Since friend Joei invited me to join her doing some natural dyeing, and we are going to India Flint's class in June, I thought I would try some on my own. I had a lot of prunings from our apple, pear, and crab apple trees so I decided to use the bark from each tree to see what I could come up with. I started with the crab apple trimmings and  since the diameter of the sticks was small I decided that I would just cut them in small pieces instead of trying to strip the bark off first. I soaked them for a long time because, as usual, I forgot that I had started this project. When I remembered the top of the liquid had some foam and things were getting a bit slimy. I decided I needed to cook it asap, before the swamp monster decided to move in, so to speed things along I boiled the whole lot without stripping the bark off the wood. The 'soup' in the pot smelled like cider and caramel to me...although when my sister came over she asked what smelled like rancid grease!

The liquid looked an awful lot like cider.

I strained the liquid through some handy cheese cloth I found here...I think it has been here since the 50's.  I love the box!

I put in some silk and some wool roving in the strained liquid and boiled it.

The reddish color changed to yellow, and the wool came out a darker shade than the silk. Not what I expected but I like the color.

 I still have plenty of sticks left so maybe I will try again after I play with the pear and apple bark.

When I boiled the cut up twigs most of the bark came off and I wound up with some smooth pinkish sticks that of course I had to keep, though I am not sure in what way or when I will use them.

Making Changes

I have been busy lately with painting our kitchen. I started weeks ago, taking one section at a time so we could still use the room. I was not sure how my Dad would feel about this change so I wanted to make sure that I was not inconveniencing him too much. I am always a bit anxious about changing things around here. Although I have been here for over two years and my Mom has been gone for over four, it is only within the last 6 months that I have realized two things. One is that I am no longer a temporary resident here, my being here seems to be working out well for both Dad and I. The second is that my mother is NOT going to need things to be where they were. This may seem obvious but as I was reorganising one day the thought occurred to me that I could actually get rid of one of her carts from the kitchen. This cart held a lot of her homemade cards, and the paper and envelopes to make them and was also a catch-all for an assortment of odd stuff. When I first moved in here I had cleaned and reorganized this cart. I re-stacked papers, removed obvious trash such as expired coupons, etc. so the cart looked better but the real problem was that the cart in the way. It was a 'light bulb moment' realizing that it would be OK for me to take the cart out of the kitchen altogether. I think that in a way keeping things as they were was a kind of denial. A denial of my right to make myself comfortable here and in a subtle way a denial of the fact of Mom's death. Although intellectually I knew that removing some of her 'stuff' is not disrespectful, the feeling I had was that my changes might be seen as my taking over. While certain objects do trigger memories they are not truly necessary to keep those memories alive. And keeping everything a loved one touched is just not good, period.

Below is a picture of the kitchen in progress. Part of the ceiling, trim, and base coat of yellow done on the right (the wall paper and border had been white! shows how long it has been up!).

Below is the look with all the painting and sponging done (the yellow is not quite right in either photo).

Now since that project went fairly well, I started the bathroom.  I peeled off the wallpaper and uh oh...

Needs a bit more than a paint job, so...

it is time for some demolition...

enter the hired hand, AKA my son Buddy who does this kind of stuff for a living...YEAH!!!