A Round Robin, Some dye work and a walk in the woods.

Ok, I'm tryng to catch up. This is only a fraction of what I have been doing lately but it's all I've got pictures of as yet.
This picture below, is a felt background which has been made as a base for a Round Robin that is taking place on my challenge site. The idea was to make a felt background based upon the theme of Landscape. Once we have made the background we will post it to the first person on the list. Eventually our background will make it's way back to us after everyone has added their own bit of stitching etc.. I am looking forward to seeing how this works, it is the first time I have held one of these, if it goes well we will probably repeat it on another theme.


This next picture shows, not very well because of the light, apologies, but this is the big bag of fleece I have been dying. This wool is all from local sheep, infact some of them are in the field behind my garden right now. You wouldn't guess the dye is from a drink powder, Koolaid. I experimented and mixed the colours,
The reason why the colours work so well is because of all the citric acid in the powder, it helps it to cling to the wool fibres. Sorry the picture doesn't do the colours justice, as it was taken in artificial light. I've still more to do, but I have some silk to spin first.

It's been a really funny time lately for our family, we had some wonderful things happening with my Grand daughter but we also had some pretty awful times too. This has made it all rather stressful and tiring so today I decided it was time to take some time out. I went for a short but beautiful walk in the woods.

The colour is just starting to turn here in the South of England.

The light through the trees was so beautiful.
I took loads of pictures, I haven't had the time to go through them all properly, but I am hoping to use some of them for inspiration on my landscape work. That'll be on the next blog. Bye for now Tricia

The Beauty of Silk

As well as all my landscape photography I have been working with some silk again. I spun and dyed some a little while ago. I just love the results that I get with this.. When you think that I start off with this:

Raw silk, It is actually a lovely pale cream/golden colour, it almost looks white until you look a little closer. The sheen on it is exquisite. As I say you start off with this and then after spinning and dyeing it you end up with this:

I wish the pictures were better. I love rainbow dyeing. I love working with colour in this way and it is true, silk does take dye ever so easily. These skeins were done in the microwave, a 3 minute zap and they are done.

Some of the photos seem to lose the brilliance of that shine, I don't know why.

The way I have been exploring colour with these skeins is through the use of the primaries. Difficult to beleive but I just have three colours, yes, red, blue and yellow. That way the colours that I am trying to find whilst experimenting are either the secondary: greens, purples and oranges. Also I mixed up some browns, in the picture below, I wanted to go from a warm chocolate brown to a tan, then a golden right through to a colder almost green/brown, it worked.

Here are the four skeins ready to use. I will be embroidering on to my felt with these. I love the contrast between the flat/matt colour of the felt against the shiny silk thread.

Miniature Art, buttons and brooches

The Image above shows the size of these brooches next to a £2 coin.

I've been working very hard due to the inspiration I have been given by Helen, it was something she said about my Celtic wallhangings which made me realise that an opportunity had been staring me in the face.

Well, to cut a long story short, I was about to make some of my felt buttons and then I decided to make some brooches too, the latter being with a Celtic theme/flavour. Some have got miniture landscape pictures in them, the others are purely decorative motifs that I have been studying for some time. There is a wealth of inspiration in Celtic Art.

I also decided to try some thread painting and this time I managed to do exactly what I wanted to do. I bought some little tubes of microwave dyes called Quick Colour. I only bought the primaries and it is so simple to get the effect. You don't need many drops to dye some thread so it works great to get the variegated thread that I have been trying to get for some time. Here are some of the examples: the picture does not do it justice but believe me the colour combination I acheived was just so rewarding.

Well back to the brooches:

I am obviously happier with some of these than others but each one is very different either in colour or design.

Here are a few of the other more decorative brooches:

I am now sewing a backing on to each of these brooches with a brooch pin included like this:

The last of the pictures I am placing on here today show my felt buttons, these are great fun as you can see and are useful for knitted jackets but can also be used as an ornament to a textile piece of any description. They often remind me of sweets, depending on the colours I use. Each button is secured with an embroidery method I invented myself based upon a minute cord made on the fingers which is attached to the back so that attaching them to the textile piece is made simpler.

I will probably be putting some of these items for sale on etsy once I have finished them all. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at these as much as I have making them.