FELT ART PROJECT FOR CUSTOMER

For this course we had to have a customer and make some craft for them. 

One of my classmates had earlier on in the year requested that I make some "felt art" pictures for her of their cottage surroundings.This was the perfect opportunity to now do these pictures.

 She gave me pictures of her cottage and its surroundings, and I started from that. In the pictures below is the a few pictures of the process I went through.

 Above are the original pictures of the landscape that she had wanted for the felted pictures.

                                                                       

This is a sample drawing that I did for her to chose from. Below is another sample for her to chose from.

In this picture I am starting the process of putting my colours of the ground down.

Here I have nearly finished the picture of the cottage surroundings. I really struggle with making rocks and shorelines. It is something that I definitely have to practice more.

I made another picture showing the view from land looking onto the water.

Another felted picture of the cottage area. All of these pictures are not my typical style, but this was what the customer wanted and requested. the customer is always right.

LOOM WEAVING TECHNIQUES

In this course we were taught different loom weaving techniques. I chose the techniques of  Punapoininta, pitsipoiminta, helmipoiminta, kuvakudos.

 This picture is of helmipoininta. I am not sure what that is in english.

This was an easy technique to do, and it was a lot of fun.

This technique was called " punapoiminta". It was more challenging and needed more thought and planning to go into making this technique. But the end result was very pleasing to the eye.

As you can see as I weave this runner, the pattern is coming out beautifully. I had never woven something like this, so it was a good opportunity to learn this.

This is the sample of "punapoiminta" completed. I really want to try making something like this again.

In this next loom technique it is called "sidontaa"

I enjoyed doing a ryijy on the loom. I found it quick and easy, it just the setting up of the loom that takes a long time.

This sample is now completed. It was easy and fun to make this sample ryijy. 

I have loved learning these different techniques. Hopefully someday I will have a small loom that I can make beautiful linen runners.

HAND LOOM WEAVING

 
In this last set of loom techniques I chose to do my "Kuvadudos" by using a small hand loom. The picture I chose for this was Little Red riding hood and the big bad wolf. We had instructed by our teachers to make a picture of a "fairy tale". We had an event coming up this fall in Jyväskylä called  "valonkaupunki" in which our school is participating. The theme of this event is going to be fairy tales. So, this picture is going to be shown in this event.

 

 

 

My weaving of Little red riding hood is progressing well.

Now that the picture is complete, I need to add in the birch trees.

I tried a few different methods to add the birch trees, the above picture did not look the way I wanted, so I tried painting trees on fabric, and then sewing them onto the picture. This turned out much better. I love this picture, its scary, but not.

 

 

This spring 2021 I was asked by a family member to make a woven wall hanging for them. They told me the colours they want in this wall hanging, and I got to chose the design. In hind sight I should have chosen a richer green colour. In this picture it looks more grey than green.

SEWING

When I started this course, I told the teacher that I have sew so much in my life, that I am finally at the stage where I absolutely HATE sewing . She  took that as a challenge.  During the week we were taught handy tips that make sewing more easy and fun.

 

Well.... by the end of the week, I had to admit to the teacher that I actually enjoyed myself. 

The school sewing machines are wonderful to sew on. I just needed a crash course on how to use them.

  I the    pictures above you can see the process of sewing the bag.

Here I am sewing a little shoulder purse for myself. I chose a Marimekko material for my bag. ( I just love the birch look of the fabric)

I sewed a separate pocket for my cell phone,which makes it much more accessible.

My finish Marimekko shoulder bag.

I walk around proudly with the shoulder bag that I made. It turned out fabulous.

 

 

OTHER SEWING PROJECTS 

 

Every Christmas when I put up our Advent Calendar my husband complains that the pockets were not big enough to put " goodies" in them. 

 So, last christmas I decided to make a larger Advent calendar..

The pockets are perfect now. Lots of "goodies" can go in each pocket. Now I just need to decorate the front of the pockets. This will be my evening project this fall.

 

 

WOOL DYING ( CHEMICAL AND NATURAL)

CHEMICAL DYING

 

This course used alot of mathematical equations to figure out the weight of the materials, and how much dyes you need for the material. Also, there is alot of time spent just sitting and stirring the wood pot, and waiting for the next step to commence. I found out that chemical dying was not my thing. 

Here I used a chemical dye to dye this grey wool.

I used a SUPRALAN RED to get this colour. I accidentlly used the wrong amount of ingredients but the end result was good.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Here I am in the boiling process of the red wood      

 

 

 

             In this photo the  wool is drying. If you notice the bottom far right hand wool has felted in the process.     

I Also tried different colours, pink, greens,aqua, dark green, olive green, rusts, light olive green, which you will see in the next picture below as well.

 

 

In this photo is a brownish blanket that I want to dye red.

We chose the largest pot possible to have the room for the blanket to easy move about, which helps it to absorb as much colour as possible.

The blanket was laid out to dry flat. The colour took really well. ( To be honest we where very sceptical that it would turn out)                                                                                               

NATURAL PLANT DYING 

 

 This course was much more interesting than the chemical dying. This is something that I can do at home as well.  I was really surprised on how well the natural plants gave such wonderful colours to the wool. I boiled yellow Tansy flowers to see what kind of natural dye I would get from them.

 

 

 Preparing Porcini mushrooms for dying

 

In the first left hand dyed wool, I used the mushroom colour to dye this. Then in the middle picture I had the Tansy flower ( the reason they are two different colours, are one ball was originally white, and the other was a grey). The right hand purple wool was dyed using Saskatoon berries. (these ones as well were dyed using a white wool on the second to last wool, and the last purple wool I used a grey wool).

 

This photo shows the dyed wool using a different lighting.In the middle section of this photo I used Madder root, to dye the orange. then I used the same dyed water and made a lighter orange, and then once more and got the yellowish colour. I was very happy with the end results.

Porcini mushrooms, Tansy, Madder root, and Saskatoon berries make up all these beautiful coloured wools.

WOVEN RUGS

 

 My first attempt at weaving on a loom, and boy do I wish my dear Äiti could see this, I know my Äiti would be so proud of me. When I was a child I remember watching my mother cutting and then rolling into a balls old sheets, old shirts, dresses etc. She would spend hour upon hour doing this on our balcony. Once she had a large pile of rolled  fabrics, she would then go to the "Matto Lady" who then would weave these into beautifully coloured carpets. As children it was so fun to see my old used cloths woven into our carpets.

So, when I had the chance to try this craft at my school I was so excited. Please do not zoom in too much on this picture. There are alot of mistakes, but hopefully with teaching and practice, I will learn this beautiful craft.
                                                        

                                                                     CHRISTMAS RUG

 In this course we had to make a weaving project of some sorts. Last fall I found this lovely red Table runner in a Kirppis ( used clothing store). I loved the pattern and colours. It was so very traditionally "Finnish". So, I decided that the project I wanted to weave was a red Christmas carpet with the same colours and designs.

In the above two pictures you can see the start of my carpet. It took along time to set up the loom, and figure out the pattern for my design.

 I struggled with making the carpet for the first day. I thought about it over the weekend, and wondered how can I make weaving this carpet easier for me. I went and redrew my pattern on a paper, and then put the right colours to the right peddles, so when I wove I knew exactly which colour I am doing next. When I started to weave on Tuesday morning, the weaving just became so easy and I suddenly was making the carpet much much faster.

 I constantly rechecked my work, to make sure I didn't miss any of the design etc. I did find a few mistakes as I wove, but the mistakes were so small that I decided to leave them. 

So, as you can see in the picture below, the carpet turned out great. I was really nervous taking it off the loom. Not sure what I would find, was my mistakes visible, was my carpet edges going all nice and straight. etc.etc. Anyways, I can't wait to put it on my kitchen floor for Christmas.

CUSTOM MADE BIRCH SAUNA BENCH TOWELS AND SAUNA PILLOW

Well I finally completed my first Silk Screening Assignment.We were to use one of the techniques we have learned and practiced in our Silk Screening class. I chose the Photo Emulsion Silk Screening.

 I first started off finding a design that I wanted to use for my project.Earlier on we had done some silk screening using a flour paste, which we spread on our fabric, and then let dry, one dry we crinkled it up to create a design, which we used as our stencil for the silk screening. I had found that the result that I got from this technique, created a really cool design which looked like a birch tree. Once I had found my design, I then took the fabric, photocopied it and then drew on the paper to make it look more birch tree like. We then enlarged this and the design was created. ( The first photo on your top left shows the fabric design from the flour paste, and then beside it is the photo copied picture with the drawing I added to it).

At school, with my photocopied design, we then did the process needed for the Photo Emulsion Silk Screening. Once this was done, I had to chose the fabric on which I wanted my design. I chose a pre sewn 100 % Linen fabric. I wanted to make a Sauna Bench towel, and Sauna Pillow.

I was very very happy with the final result. I also make two hand towels with the same print. The hand towels were 50% linen, and 50% cotton. 

 With all the extra sample pieces I had from making this pattern, I made a set of birch pillow covers for our living room.