Nuno Felting: Part 1

I'll be leading our next SpirARTuality group in Nuno Felting. Since none of us had ever done it before, I had to practice.
We bought our wonderful kits from Suzanne Morgan, here. She's got very complete written directions for nuno felting here, (and a link to my friend Deborah's blog which give me the idea originally). So here's my simplified photo version of How To Nuno Felt.

Here are the supplies you'll need:
-a hard, flat surface that can get wet (I used a big broiling pan)
-a towel to soak up excess water
-bubble wrap or a bamboo mat
-net or tulle
-scissors
-old pantyhose or rubberbands (something to secure your rolled bundle)
-rolling pin, PVC pipe, dowel rod, or something similar
-The contents of a Nuno Felting Starter Kit, or: a prefelt base (or you may build yourself with alternating layers of wool), loose weave silk or other natural fibers, roving, yarn or thread if desired.


Step 1: Set up your Sandwich like this:
pan
towel
bubble wrap or bamboo mat
tulle or net
prefelt (or 4-6 pieces of alternating roving which will become the backing when felted)
your fabric design*
tulle or net

*For your fabric design, you may layer up fabric. However, make sure that there is roving between any layers of fabric. Also make sure there is roving on the top of the whole project so that the wool will bind through the layers of non-wool and felt everything.



Step 2: Once you've completed your fabric design and put the tulle/net on top, wet it down with some water with a couple of drops of soap (don't over-soap it--it will become a bubbly mess!)



Step 4: Rub in small circles for 10-15 minutes until the design is tacked down.
You can do this either with a wadded up ball of plastic, or you can use rubber gloves or a plastic sack on your hand.
Start out rubbing gently in small circles. As you go, you can press more firmly and make bigger circles.
Give extra care to the edges of fabric to make sure they get tacked down.
Every couple of minutes, pull both layers of tulle away from your fabric piece to make sure they are not getting felted into the piece. At that point, you can also re-position anything that has slipped.
Keep rubbing until everything in your piece is tacked down and doesn't move around.


When everything is tacked, it's time to roll up your sandwich and start the second part...

Nuno Felting: Part 2

Step B1: Once your patterned is stuck together a bit, it's time to roll it up and get to serious felting.
I used a rolling pin covered with Saran Press N Seal (to keep the wood from getting too wet) as the center of my roll. You could also use PVC pipe, a dowel, or whatever you have around.
Wrap the sandwich (bubble wrap, net, your fabric piece, net) around your core and secure it.
I used rubber bands. You can also use old panty hose or whatever.


Step B2: Roll! Roll! Roll! and Roll some more!
Roll it at least 100 times in one direction.
Then undo your package turn your fabric 1/4 turn, package it together again, and roll 100 times.
Undo package, turn fabric 1/4 turn, and then roll at least 100 times.
Again.
Make sure you roll it in all 4 directions at least 100 times.

You can roll any way you like--on a table, up and down the wall (a REALLY good workout), or on the floor using your feet (gliders work great for this step).
When you roll, put your body into it--use lots of pressure. But be gentle with your body, too.

Note: the fabric shrinks in the direction you are rolling it. So if you want to make it skinnier than it is, roll it up sideways then roll, roll, roll.


Step B-3: Squishing.
When you're done with all the rolling, then unroll it and pull your fabric out of the sandwich.
Get a bowl of hot water and dip your fabric into it.

Then squeeze it out 3-4 times.
Open the fabric and gently pull on the edges to "clean them up."
Then drop it into the water, squeeze the water out several times, and pull the edges.
Repeat, repeat, repeat until it's as small and tight as you want it.



When it's the size you like, spread it out and let it dry. You're done!

Magnetic Fabric Photo Frames

I've been away from my blog for so long, I can't figure out how to turn a picture or how to turn off underlining. Please excuse my unintended emphsis.

Each Christmas, we get dozens of photos from family and friends. And I'm not good about putting them in a photo album. So this year, we decided to send pictures ready to put onto your fridge. It was a really fun little project. Turn your head to see how they turned out:


Step 1:
Cut Timtex to your desired "frame" size.
(I prefer Timtex because it is very stiff and is sticky on both sides. You may use any sort of batting or stiffener, and separate sticky stuff if you prefer.)

If making mulitples (which I encourage you to do), cut them all at once. Remember, the frames don't all have to be the same size.


Step 2: Iron on your backing fabric.
Backing fabric can be just one piece of material, or you can sew together many scraps. I suggest using those things that take up room in your stash but never call out to you.

If you are making multiple frames, save yourself some energy here and place all the timtex close together and lay a large piece of fabric over all of it and iron all at once. Then cut the rectangles apart, leaving just a tiny bit of fabric overhanging the edge.

Step 3: Iron on your front fabric.
I did lots of strip piecing of my favorite scraps of fabric to make the fronts. I was really happy to be able to use tiny pieces of my favorite bits.

Again, if you're making multiple frames, put the timtex pieces beside one another and iron all at once. Cut rectangles apart, leaving a tiny overhang of fabric.

Step 4: zigzag around all edges of your frames:




Step 5: Sew on a vinyl cover for your photo. You may choose to cut the vinyl the same size as your frame, or just slightly bigger than your photo.
Sew around 3 sides of the vinyl.


Final Step: Glue magnetic strips or circles onto the back of your frames. Insert photo.

SpirARTuality: Fabric Beads

We began today's SpirARTuality by celebrating Jo's birthday with honey bran mango chocolate chip muffins. Then we were off to making fabric beads. Everyone has told me that making them is quite easy--and it's true. It is!

Supply list:
hollow coffee stirrers, straws etc
bits of fabric
glue
irridecent paint, glitter glue, etc
string, yarn, fabric shreds etc

Here's a nice picture of the process. You can see the unused fabric scraps on the right, a bunch of rolled beads on the bottom left, and the clear plate has the paint and a sponge.


Jo uses a pattern, seen here, to help her tear her fabric into 2 inch by 1 inch bits.
I just approximate and even do some triangles and other shapes when the mood hits.


How To:
1) Cut the stirrers down to about 1" pieces
2) Cut or tear fabric into about 1" by 2" pieces
3) put a dab of glue on the end of a piece of fabric
4) place stirrer on glue and roll fabric up til only 1/4" is left
5) put a dab of glue on fabric just before the end to hold it together and roll the last 1/4 inch
repeat
repeat
repeat
6) daub on small bits of irridecent paint onto the fabric beads. This *really* makes a difference
7) wind and tie bits of string, yarn, or tiny fabric strips around the beads

And Ta-Da!


These are going right home and getting glued on some more Inchies to send off to Sacred Path Book and Arts.

The SpirARTuality reflection question for today is:
Imagine your life is a string of beads. Attach an event in your life to each bead, and list those events. What does your life-as-beads look like? Pearls? Diamonds? Fabric beads? Muliti-strand seed beads? A maccaroni necklace?

A break from art: MDGs

September 25th is a national day of prayer, fasting, and advocacy for the Millennium Development Goals. Whatever day you happen to read this post, please take a moment to DO SOMETHING to support these.



There are about 1 BILLION people in the world living on less than $1 a day.
Every 3 seconds, a child dies of preventable, treatable causes (diarrhea, malaria, etc).
Some things you can do include:

Go to the Hunger Site. Click there and food will be donated by the sponsors just because you saw the advertising on their page. You can also sign up to get a daily e-mail reminder. I've been doing this for years. It takes about 10 seconds a day, and it gives someone food for the day.

Sign up to receive Action Alerts from EPPN or another group. When you receive one, it will take you about 1 minute to complete a form to send a statement to your legislators about issues around poverty and justice.

Loan $25 (or more) thru KIVA.org. It is really fun to look through their lists of people approved for micro-loans and choose the actual person and business you'll support.

Donate money to the Heifer Project, ERD, Curamericas, or the charity of your choice that helps "the least of these."

Have you DONE something yet? If not, stop right now and do one of these things.

I thank you, and God thanks you.

SpirARTuality: Marbling Fabric

September's SpirARTuality activity was marbling fabric using shaving cream.

Step 1: Spread a layer of shaving cream in a bin or on any sort of flat surface (even the gravel patio worked!)


Step 2: Blob on some paint, and swosh it around (this picture is actually taken after step 3...)

Step 3: Press a damp piece of fabric down into the color. "The Directions" say leave it there to dry. But what fun is that?! We Must Make More!!


Step 4: Lay flat or hang to dry (and don't be embarassed about your big rump in the side of the photo)



Jo came out with some beautiful marbling when she did this alone. As a group, we made some interestingly painted pieces...but I'm not sure they could actually be considered "marbled."

The question of the day came from someone being surprised at how little control they had of the process of getting the colors onto the fabric:
How much control do you believe God has in your life? Does God drop the colors and let them smoosh where they may, or is God more careful about getting things just so?

Ad Astera Per Aspera

A wonderful artist friend let me come raid her stash, and I came home with a big sackful of wonderful new bits of material.
I couldn't resists so just started sewing and sewing and sewing them together, planning on doing the sew-cut-sew-cut-sew-cut until I got backgrounds like #2 in my Prayer Resurrected piece.
Instead, at some point several really simply sewed pieces jumped out at me and said they were done. So I used them as the background, added some wonderful raw silk on the edge, and pieces of debris I picked up after the Chapman Tornado.

I call them Ad Astera Per Aspera 1 and 2. Kansas' motto is Ad Astera Per Aspera--to the stars through difficulty. That is what this tornado recovery has seemed like to me.

AAPA 2:

AAPA 1: