The Queen's a Bag

OOPS! Meant to say "The Queen's Bag", not "The Queen's a Bag". (Hee hee... Q's gonna kill me!)

Anyway, here it is. (According to Q, the big gold crown ornament isn't gaudy.)

Here's a shot of the "must have" lining.

And Q with her bag.

I know it's hard to tell, but Q's pretty happy with it.

Digging thru the archives...

Well, everything I'm working on lately is for the round robin or a swap and can't be shown yet. So I thought I'd post some pics of felt pieces I'd made earlier. These are a couple of wet felted clutches.

And here's a wet felted peace doll.

Hmm. Looks like I was into green and orange at the time...

Shrunked!

It's shrunked! Here's the semi-final product.

It'll probably get cut to size and then a bit of machine and hand stitching to finish it. But first I have to make a doll to wear it.
The next 2 pics show the difference between the pre-shrunk felt and the shrunk felt. I shrank it down from 12" x 18" to about 9" x 13". It could be shrunken more, but I like it here. After wet felting and shrinking, the texture is similar to a felted area rug. Everything is melded together like a cohesive textile.

Before:
After:
The edges are wonky because I shrank it without using a bamboo mat to roll it. Using a bamboo mat (like a bamboo placemat or a bamboo blind), you can maintain the squareness better. But since I'll be cutting it to size (and I happen to like wonky edges), I often don't bother with the rolling mat.

Ready to Shrink!!

Here it is all ready to shrink!


And here's my kitchen table by this time. :)

More Progress!

It'll soon be ready for shrinkin'!!

Here's what I looks like when I's stitching. I tell everybody I don't need bifocals, yet. :)

Felting Pattern Progress

Felting Doll Textiles continued...

I've started felting and stitching my pattern into the felt piece.
Some of the design is needle felted roving and some is stitched and embroidered wool thread and yarn.
I got this vintage wool mending thread at a thrift store a while back for 10 cents a package.

At the time, I thought that was kindof a high price for some old packs of wool thread. Then the other day I went online to look for more. Boy was I surprised! These little packets of wool mending thread, that contain 24 - 30 yards of thread, are selling for $1.70 average on ebay! So guess I got a deal...
Too stiff for me, so I went looking for new wool thread and found these skeins of crewel wool for $1.60 per. Each skein contains 80 - 100 yards of yarn. Still not cheap, but at least I got a bit more for my $$.

I've progressed further on my felted piece than shown here, but I haven't gotten more pics yet. I enjoy felting and stitching the pattern in, but about midway thru I start getting antsy to wet felt and shrink the piece - that's the best part!

Felting for doll attire

One of the main reasons I got interested in making art dolls is the variety of media and techniques that can be utilized in creating three dimensional figures. Stitching, beading, embroidery, clay sculpting, paper mache, felting, etc... It can all be incorporated into creating one art doll. I get bored with always doing the same craft (as is evident in the fact that my one and only full size quilt isn't completed after 5 years...).
So recently, since Yvonne made Susan's doll Peruvian, I've been looking at Peruvian textiles online. Decided to try felting some patterned wrapping blankets for my dolls. For once I've remembered to get some in-progress shots.

Here I had laid out and lightly needle felted some wool roving for the background. I forget what kind of wool this is, but it's scratchy. Not great for wearables, but it really felts nicely - both needle and wet felting. And I like the blah, neutral color against brighter colors.

Meanwhile, I brushed one side of my dog, Gussie Sue, and got all this.

She gets a real thick undercoat and she's going thru her big annual shed right now. Her undercoat is really soft and silky - like angora almost. I often throw it outside so the birds can line their nests with it. And sometimes I scatter it around the chicken coop to scare predators off. Well, since it was handy, I decided to felt some of it into my background.

Here's Gussie Sue vegging with Angel - a very rare occurrence as these are my two "no snuggling allowed" pets.

Mayberry said it felt much softer and cushier after some of Gussie's fur was added.

Next I wet felted the wool to mesh things together more. I soft felted without shrinking.

Then it was time to lay in some stripes of color. This is pre-dyed merino roving needle felted into the background wool.

I wanted a more muted, heathery affect, so I needle felted more of the back ground wool onto the back. The fibers get poked up thru the front colors to give it that heathery affect.


Okay, so that was the boring part of making the felted textile. Now I get to start adding pattern. I'll be felting and stitching in some simple patterns using more roving, wool yarn, and wool thread. Tune in later for more progress.