Knitted " rasymatto" Pillow

 I hadn't done any handcrafts for some time, but finally felt I was ready to tackle on a new project. I thought long and hard on what to create.  I wanted something easy and quick to make that would make my easing into crafts a satisfying and fun project.

I looked through my knitting  basket and found some yarn that had be given to me by my sister in law.  This yarn was not good for knitting socks or mitts ( since it had no wool in it) but I could use it to knit a pillow cover. 

Now, for the design of my pillow. I tried knitting a few different patterns, but none of them looked good. So, I looked through my knitting patterns to see if I could use one of those. I found a Marimekko pattern that was easy to do. So, I tried that.. and it looked perfect. 

 So, the pillow pattern I decided to knit for my pillow is a Marimekko " räsymatto" pattern. 

I am really happy with the colours and look of the pillow. It's simplicity works in our apartment. 

FELT ART

I have set a goal for myself, that I am going to try to make one new birch felt scene every week. 

To be honest, it is much harder to get into making these pictures than I thought. I can't figure out why it is becoming a challenge for me. I love making these pictures, but somehow I am not feeling very inspired right now, so that is what may be the problem. I am forcing myself to create and it is not working for me. So, here is my forced creation from this week. 

 

 

Please be honest, can you see a difference in this work, from previous pieces.

 

 I haven't done any " felt art" for a while. I have been so busy at school with other projects, that the thing I most love to do has been left untouched. Now that I think about it... it was a year ago was that I last felted anything.

 I have to say I  had to think for a moment of the steps  involved in felting. Once I started it quickly came back to me.

My subject matter is trees.. I absolutely love birch trees... There are many many varieties of birches, but the birches I wanted to felt today was the the birches I remember from my childhood.

 I grew up in northern Ontario, where I spent many happy hours with my sisters climbing trees, playing in the forest, cross country skiing, picking berries.. Then as a youth I would go into the forest to think in quiet solitude and sometimes pour out my woes and worries to my Maker above. When we moved to Finland, to the land of lakes and trees.. My heart rejoiced.

 I have spend many hours each day walking and hiking in the city where I live. The  patches of forests in our city, just amaze me. Here in Finland you don't have to go far, to be able to enjoy nature at its best.

So... without much further ado. (I just hope that I will do justice to these beautiful trees that have played such an important part of my childhood and youth.)

  

 On this birch scene I didn't realize my supply of green felts was in such dire straights. So, I did not have the colours I wanted for this, but in the end... I rather like this picture.

 

 This is the reason I went back to school to get my " artisan papers". I wanted to learn more felting tricks,and techniques. My hope and dream is to continue making and selling my " felt art" pictures. 

 

 I made this felted picture last summer. I had posted some of my work on facebook, in a group that I belong to. I got so many requests to purchase it that I sold it, and the customer asked for a matching picture to go with it.

 

Here is the matching picture I made for the customer. I really like the way they turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is a birch scene I made in the summer of 2019. I am getting better at getting depth into my pictures.

This piece was made for a customer, they had asked me to make a picture of their island where their summer cottage is. I took some liberties in this picture, I did make some other felted pictures that were more inline to the customer's taste.

 

                                                        

 

 

 

 

 This particular piece I made when we had a one day workshop at a small craft boutique in Petäjävesi. We spent the day learning about what it is like to run a business, and all it entails. It was a wonderful day.  The bonus was that we got to use all kinds of wonderful felt materials to make what ever we wished. 

Of course I had to make one of my birch theme felted pictures. I am usually not a blue fan, and don't use it often. But the blue metalic materials she made available to us was so interesting, that I decided to make a blue forest scene.  I really like this particular piece..                                                          

 

                                                             

 I love doing this type of felting. Yes, the felted slippers and felted pillows were fun to do, and I learned alot of different felting techniques while doing these projects. It's is these below pictures that I love doing, and hope to continue and learn to perfect this form of Art. 

WINTER BERRIES

This picture I created was a celebration of the
colours of winter. Many people think that winter
can be so colourless. To me the colours are so beautiful, the red of the berries, the white birches, the many colours of green on the evergreens. This was the first of my felting projects in my felting class.

WINTER TIME

I love the quietness and beauty of the forests in winter. I will never tire of looking at them. When
I look at this picture, I just want to walk into the picture, and enjoy the stillness and quietness.
This picture was created in November 2019 in my felting course.

FALL IS COMING

TIME TO HARVEST

A COLD WINTERS DAY

SPRING IS COMING

BIRCHES

 T

A WALK IN THE FOREST

SOLITUDE

FALL.. MY FAVORITE TIME OF THE YEAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 















This was my first attempt at this form of felting. I had done felted pictures before, but this one I wanted it to look more like an oil painting or water colour. I feel that I had succeeded in this. The depth turned out well. You find your eye looking into the forest.

I have many more felted pictures that I have made. Here was just a few of them, to wet your whistle.

 

                                                                         FELTED ANIMALS

For some reason I have always loved reindeer. There is, something that draws me to them. Maybe it's the nomadic life they lead, or maybe it's because I am finnish and that they symbolize Finland. The reindeer wander the cold frozen tunturi ( mountain) of Lapland, northern Scandinavia, Russia roaming and searching for food.

The popularity of these animals has grown as people all over the world travel to Lapland to experience  Lapland, where Joulupukki (santa) lives. Tourists experience reindeer sleigh rides, and see them in their natural habitat, see the reindeer herders herding as well as seeing them dressed in their national costumes.

I have lived here in Finland for 6 years now, and to my dismay have not yet had the opportunity to visit Lapland. It is on my to-do list. I look forward to visit Lappi and hike the "tunturi"and hopefully see these beautiful animals. So, for now I will paint them in felt. 

This is my second attempt at felting animals. It is not something that I am very good at yet, but with practice I will get better. 

I first drew the reindeer and then started the " needle felting". This reindeer drawing was copied from a painting I saw a few years ago. I have changed it to suit my personal taste. 

I have completed the picture, but as always, I feel that there is something not right in it. This often happens to me, I make something that I think will work, and then once it is completed, I am not happy with it.

I decided to pull the grey felt out of the picture, and add a neutral sky. I added a black felt skyline which defines the seperation between the sky and earth. I find this much more pleasing to my eye. It is not busy or messy looking.

I feel this picture describes the nomadic wanderings of the reindeer and their herders. Out on the open tundra's wandering in search of food, which is mainly lichens.

"SCANDINAVIAN STYLE" ... SILK SCREENED WALL ART

This post will be very detailed in written discription, and pictures because it is part of my last assignment for school.

It's hard to believe but this is my last school project that I will do in my two years of study as a " artisan" at Gradia School. I thought long and hard on what I wanted to do for this final project.

When I couldn't come up with idea's I then asked around for idea's from my friends and family.  Our  son and his wife volunteered and asked if I could make them three pictures for their new home .. they wanted these pictures for their living room wall. 

Now that I had a customer, we had to decide what style they were looking at. After many many emails, and sending pictures collected off the internet I finally had a good idea of what they were looking for. The style they most liked was  " scandinavian folk art", as our son was finnish this only made sense. 

They sent me three pictures that they liked, and I went about redesigning these. I sent them four sample pictures for each picture. Once they chose the sample picture, we had to decided what technique they wanted these to be made in. They chose the Silk Screening process.  I had done this technique at school  but I had not used any colour other than black. So this was going to be a challenge for me. When using colours you have to have different screens for each colour design.

This is a drawn copy of the original picture that they chose. 

Flower # 1

 This is the drawn picture of the next print they decided they liked.

Picture # 2

This is the last picture that they chose to be in their collection of fabric printed pictures.

Flower # 3

Now that I had an good idea of what the design is going to be like, I now have to go about changing and modifying the pictures to be more into the  " scandinavian folk art" design.

I made  four pictures for each of the three flowers they had chosen. After I had made all these pictures for them to chose from they finally chose the three pictures which they wanted me to make the Silk Screen Art pictures from.

In the picture to your right you can see the picture that they chose. They had chose the picture on the top of the picture, but in my mind it still was not the " scandinavian style that I wanted for them". I submitted the bottom picture to them, and they absolutely loved it. 

In this next picture, they chose the picture one the top of the left hand photo. Once again, I asked if I could make the picture more " scandinavian". They loved the bottom picture that I showed them.

In the right hand top picture you can see the design that they chose. I again changed it to be more in line to the "scandinavian folk art" style. ( which is called "seamless vector pattern" ). They were very pleased and happy with the changes I had made.

Here is another screen prepared for my next picture. 

There are many steps involved in making and planning the pictures, here are but a few of the steps.

If you look closely you can see that my picture of the flower is on three different stations of the carousel.

At this station of the carousel I am applying top paint. It is the black paint that defines the flower.

 

 

 

 

Here are first three final print pictures that I printed on my chosen fabric. I will have to chose the best one of the three.

After my print is finished printing, it needs to be heat treated to seal in the paints. At school we have a huge drying machine which we call the " drying tunnel". Here I am feeding my pictures in the tunnel, the temperature of heat is set at 350C and the fabrics go through 3 times.

In the picture above. The three pictures are completed. I sent these pictures to the customer to finalize and okay. The customer was very happy with the final draft of these.

Here is the completed the first print. I have ironed an interfacing on the back of it to make the fabric stronger, and stays flat. These will be shipped overseas laid flat in a package. ( Unfortunately I cannot frame them here in Finland.)

Print #2a is now completed. A interfacing has also been iron on the back of this picture.

Completed picture #2b . Ironed and interfaced.

Finally # 3 print is completed. Ironed and interfaced. 

I am so very happy with how this set of three printed pictures turned out. 

These three prints will be packaged and sent overseas for my customer to matte and frame. 

Now that this process is done, I am going to have some fun and try different pattern techniques with the designs I made.

To the right you can see that I used a repeated pattern technique for the pillow covers that I am going to send as an gift for my customer. I really like the way these turned out. I have sent pictures of these to my customer and she absolutely LOVED them. 

Here is the pattern repeated on the blue upholstery fabric. this pillow size will be 50cm x 50cm

Here is the pattern combination on the blue denim fabric.

This one is my very favorite picture. I am in love with the yellow and black print on this pillow. I wish I could keep it.

 

Then the fun job of making the pillows. Here you can see the pile I had stacked up of pillows to sew or have been sewed. 

The sewed and stuffed pillows are now displayed on our couch. The customer was absolutely thrilled when I sent her pictures of these. She loved them.

I also made a smaller neck rest pillow from leftover fabric print.

This pillow to your right is one of my sample pieces on sheet material. It looked so good, that I decided to make a pillow for myself out of this one.

This is the reverse side of the white pillow from the above picture. These are the sample prints that I have used. I still love the pattern and colour, so I decided that it was good enough for me.

I found more sample pieces in my piles of work, so I decided to make a tote bag with the design on it. You always need tote bags. I think it turned out great. 

Above are my four silk screen printed and framed " scandinavian Folk art " pictures. 

 

With this done, I have completed my final project for my school. It has been an interesting journey. I have cried, I have raged, I have rejoiced, I have laughed.  I have met and made wonderful new friends that will last a lifetime. I have grown in confidence as a "Artisan". I have tried many new and wonderful crafts that I would love to pursue in the future.

Where will this all take me?  Only God know.... but no matter where it is, I know that I will be more knowledgeable, and confident in my work and in myself. 

Please keep following me on this blog... I will be continue posting on what is going on in my life, and where all my schooling has taken me.