Machine needle-felting is a new thing for me, but I can see great potential for working this technique into art quilts, especially landscapes. Thanks to Janome-America, I have an Xpression (FM-725) needle-felter to test and try out. Thanks to being busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger this year, I haven’t had much time to play with it. I finally pulled it out for these three pieces. When this machine first came out, you had to replace the entire needle-head of five barbed needles; they’ve now come out with an alternate needle housing so you can replace a needle if it breaks without replacing the entire head…hoooray! The price is also modest …somewhere around $300 I think.

The two larger pieces, in blues, are made from a base of hand-dyed wool from Wild Thymes Pattern Co. and a former knit hat that I made which ended up being too itchy. I tossed the hat in the washer for two full cycles to felt it, then cut it up. (An aside: I’m not big on wool quilts or someone else’s patterns, but Barb Cribb’s patterns, wool and kits are enough to make me double back and look again… I love her stuff, so please check out the link. I’ve only met her once, at either Market or Festival years ago, so I’m not affiliated…just love the designs!)

Anyway, the piece above is mounted on an 8×8 inch canvas hung on point, while the one below is 10×10 inches. Both are the deep-profile gallery-wrap canvas. Clearly, I did not have my lighting set up properly…the one above the yellow is more washed out in the photo than in real life (see the last “mocha” for a better rendition of the yellow), and in the next one I think I actually managed to make wool (as in light-absorbing wool) glare! I didn’t think that was possible…sigh.

Here is the one I think of as Mocha, a little piece just 3 1/2″ square mounted on a deep coffee (or is it chocolate) 6×6 inch deep-profile canvas. I felted various yarns onto the wool base for this one, then added the buttons and coordinating heavy threads.

All the pieces are for sale; prices are $30, 40 and 50 and do not include shipping.

I love the way the different cool folks who work at Zoot swirl the lattes and cappucinos, making that wonderful play of mocha and white foam on the top of the cup or glass. So, I decided to make a trio of pieces (for sale individually or maybe I’ll get lucky and someone will want all three) that are a bird’s eye view of a latte cup on a saucer. These three pieces could hang vertically, horizontally, or each on their own, and share the same fabrics and paints. The largest is Cappuccino Swirls 1, and is 8 x 8 inches, hangs on point, and is on a “deep-profile” (1 3/4″ deep) gallery wrap canvas. That means the staples are on the back, so you can paint the sides and not frame the piece.

Cappuccino Swirls 2 is a companion, smaller cup in aqua, while Cappuccino Swirls 3 shares the peach cup of #1. Both of these pieces are 6 x 6 inches square, and the central fabric / quilted portion is 3 1/2 inches square.

If you scroll down to the October 3 post, these three pieces are hung vertically near the left of the picture of the left wall in Zoot.  I feel a tad tacky saying this here, but these pieces are for sale… $40 for the smaller ones, $50 for the larger piece, plus shipping.   Anyway, they are fun, and using the painted canvases gives the little pieces a bit more “presence”–as in they don’t get lost on the wall.

I probably shouldn’t start with my favorite of the new pieces, but I will —ggggrin!

Tea began in a class with Teri (Esterita) Austin in the summer of 2006. As usual, I wanted to do my own composition rather than a set-piece by the teacher (Teri is used to me, and actually likes it when students do this sort of thing! plus, I made sure it was OK first). This is the picture which I set up for the still life:

Unlike Teri’s technique, which perhaps uses more segmented color work, using multi-colored pieces of cloth for each piece, I wanted to keep the elements more disparate by having a single “color” for each piece. But, I used her painting and shading techniques (in other words, I listened to her teach, absorbed what she said, and did my own thing) on the pieces. I had hoped to have the quiltlet done for our Frayed Edges show at the Library in August (see the August archives for pictures) but with Joshua’s accident and all it didn’t get done (or even started on the quilting). I used the Hobbs black 80/20 mostly cotton fusible batting, and REALLY liked it. I would use it again in another dark piece for sure.

I wasn’t sure what to leave unquilted, and wanted to get it done in time for the show at Zoot (see the post for October 3rd for directions and hours) coffee house here in Camden, so I just went at it with gusto….and a LOT of thread, all Superior 40-wt. trilobal (which in effect means it shines!) polyester. No snarls, no fuss, no muss, just glorious color! Here’s a detail of the quilting… I used four colors of blue on the bowl, and at least 3 or 4 on each individual piece, plus a dark brown to do the wood grain on the table and a stormy sky blue for the texturing on the wall. In the end, I left NONE of it unquilted.

This piece is available for sale for $295. It measures 16×19. I hope you like it!

Just a quick “business-y” note:

I’ll be…yippeeee!!!!!….. heading off to a workshop at ProChem in Fall River, Mass., next week. I’m taking the second week of Color Mixing for Dyers with Carol Soderlund. I head down on Monday (and hope to stop at the new Ikea near Boston en route), about a 6 hour drive if I were to go non-stop (not!). I have blogposts set to publish while I’m gone….

The next set of posts will be closeups of the pieces at Zoot Coffee House (see earlier post dated October 3rd). If anyone is interested in purchasing one, just drop me an e-mail either through a comment here or via the contact me link on my website (look up at the top menu bar for the hotlink). I’m not sure if I’ll have internet while in Fall River, so if you don’t hear from me until I get home next weekend, it means no Wi-Fi!

Finally, Dianne in Annapolis had a great question: how exactly do I mount those pieces on the canvas? Perfect for a tutorial. PLUS, I had mounted the pieces I made for the two “On the Edge” articles in Quilting Arts Magazine (about finishing the edges of quilts) and wanted to blog about display alternatives. So, when I get back, I promise to show a couple of ways to do this. I really gotta convince a publisher to let me do edge finishes and display alternatives as a book, or else self-publish! Too many ideas, never enough time. Anyway, keep popping back in for more good stuff –with pictures– starting tomorrow!

My blog (a WordPress sort) has a “moderation” feature that is pretty cool: first time posts (as in from someone not previously approved) come to me for moderation, plus it also has a pretty good spam catcher. This time, a bit of spam got through to me for approval (not!). It’s a riot… especially if you have worked in a stressful office situation. Now, mind you, I am NOT advocating this for real… but how about Silly string instead of the real thing:

Here is most of the message (minus the URL), with a return e-mail address in Russia:

Want to start your private office arms race right now?

I just got my own USB rocket launcher 🙂 Awsome thing.

Plug into your computer and you got a remote controlled office missile launcher with 360 degrees horizontal and 45 degree vertival rotation with a range of more than 6 meters – which gives you a coverage of 113 square meters round your workplace.
You can get the gadget here:

End message.

I’m willing to bet the url was for some porn site, so didn’t click on it, but I still thought this was pretty hilarious…plug into your USB port on the computer and bombs away… maybe the USB rocket launcher could send Howlers, those screaming letters from Harry Potter…..

Hmmm…. think I’m punchy and maybe need some more sleep?