Lily Vessel

This project has kept me busy for a few days. The idea came to me one night and I had to make it. The wool for the inside of the flower was natural dyed with brazilwood, the outside with coreopsis. The petal portion was done with wet felting and the removable stamen and pistils were done with needle felting using alpaca fiber. The inside of the flower looks like a flame and it is 13" wide. The inspiration for this piece came from the luscious photography in the seed catalogs that I pour over this time of year. Come on spring!

Warm Wool

This odd looking pile is natural dyed wool drying on the coal stove. It actually got too hot so I had to move it over to the edge. It is a coarser wool than the type usually used for felting, but it is what I have available. I scoured it, dried it, carded it, cooked it in a mordant bath and then finally dyed it. I also dyed some red from Brazil wood and orange from coreopsis, but I couldn't stack any higher!

Last evening was 'Art Walk' in Bloomsburg, where artists are paired with downtown businesses and the public follows a map to visit everyone. I was a participating artist in a clothing store called Kricket Square. The weather was cold and blustery so the event was more lightly attended than in the past. We did have some wonderful visitors though, especially the BU art students who hung out for a while. Hi guys!

Today I am heading to NJ to investigate freelance designing of handbags, drop off my painting "Blue Moon"to it's new owner and go to a tea party with Alice at my former guild.

Fulled and Felted Handwoven Scarf

After spending a week working as a "freelance floral designer" for Valentine's Day, I am happy to be back in my studio. The bottom picture is the scarf as it came off the loom. The warp is natural dyed merino wool, the weft is natural dyed corriedale, nat dye handspun alpaca and a nat dye silk scarf that I ripped into strips. I carefully fulled it by hand so I wouldn't dislodge the silk scarf strips. Then I added bands of wool that I dyed with goldenrod to the selvedge areas to create a border, and help hold the silk in place. The colours are like warm sunshine and day lilies, they make me happy!

Alpaca Colours

These are the yummy new colours that resulted from plying the natural dyed skeins of alpaca together. They are sooo soft. I make them to sell but sometimes they are tough to part with!

Here is one of the colours on the spinning wheel.

On another note, yesterday I ended up doing the presentation at the Susquehanna Valley Spinners and Weavers Guild February meeting. Sunday morning around eleven o'clock I was getting ready to clean rabbit coops and the phone rang. It seems the scheduled speaker for the afternoon was down with the flu. I found my screen, my notes, borrowed my dad's projector and spoke to the group of (very tolerant!) members about art and fiber and myself. We all survived. I am glad I was able to help out.

The Hat

I actually wore the hat that I said would 'never' be worn. I should never say never! I needle felted fiber to the inside to cover up the thin spots, then added natural dyed fiber and yarn design elements. At my mom's nudging I sewed a grossgrain ribbon inside to create a hat band or sweat band or whatever it's called. The search for ribbon was hampered by the latest snowstorm but finally mission accomplished. The very first person that saw it said "I like your hat" (I, of course, was thrilled to pieces) and I got to say "thanks, I made it!"

Pink Alpaca

Here are some of the colours I have been natural dyeing this week. The yarn is from white alpaca that I spun. I washed the fiber several times before I spun it and washed again afterwards. Then I simmered it in an alum and cream of tartar mordant bath. This helps the dye adhere to the fiber. The yarn pictured (top left) was dyed with madder. The lovely green came from goldenrod with an indigo overdye. I extracted the goldenrod in the fall, and stored the dye in plastic milk jugs. The pink is from cochineal. There is purple someplace too, from overdyeing the pink with blue. After the yarns dry I will put them back through the spinning wheel to ply them together to make unusual multi colour yarns.

A special thank you to the lovely Lucy Lane who, through her kind words, has encouraged me to perservere with my hat. It is looking better. More to come on that next week! In the meantime I made two more alpaca felt hats but broke my plastic bucket while doing the last one. That is the end of hats until I can find another form to work on. The two new ones are much thicker, sturdier and 'hat like'. Now the real fun begins, decorating them!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter

I spun a spool of Catawissa's lovely brown fiber and then carded some together with fawn alpaca. I just finished plying the two singles together and the colour looks so much like a peanut butter cup that it is making hungry! I will ply the second spool now. I am working next to the coal stove where it is wonderfully warm. We managed to keep the fire going all night, more than 24 hours at this point. The temperature was in single digits again last night with a light coating of fresh snow.