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Archive for the ‘Needle-felting’ Category

Winter Warmth

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

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.

Winter Warmth 1

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.

Winter Warmth 2

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.

Winter Warmth 3

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