product line (sneak peek)

While The Cat spent the afternoon making pavlova, I worked on a forest scene with a hollow tree trunk and photographed some of my needle felted creations on it.  Here is a preview of some of what I have created so far:

Little grey owl sitting inside the hollow tree.

Peach-coloured bunny hopping about the forest scene.

Blue-eyed satyr peeping out of tree.

Red-haired nymph wrapped in vines taking a dip in the pond.

Red-haired faun with green ribbons in her hair.

Dark-haired faun standing by moss-covered rocks.

Elusive white stag saying hello.

And somewhere near the South Pole...

Mr Yeti is collecting ice slabs to patch his igloo.

You can now visit my Etsy store at faunfare.etsy.com!

wet felting scarves

After the resounding success of our last felting day, my felting buddy and I had another on Monday, this time with the seemingly monumental challenge of making a ‘kimono collar’ as seen in Felt by India Flint and Toyoko Sugiwaka. Over the weekend, I had dyed some kid mohair curls in deep green so I thought it would make the perfect fringing for a foresty collar.

To our surprise, it was complete within a couple of hours, so we laid them out to dry and began flipping through her many felting books for inspiration. The book on the top in the photograph was particularly breathtaking. The artist draws her muse from the natural world and attempts the most incredible simulations of landscapes and natural textures like honeycomb, moss and fossil with wool. I drew from her ‘fossil’ technique and attempted a thin scarf. This striking effect is created by layering cream-coloured silk ribbons and caps (thin tissues of silk) in between black wool so they become trapped. As the scarf is felted, the black wool shrinks around the silk, causing the silk to crinkle.

My creativity is still aflame. I’m planning on making a shawl next if I can find the space for such a large project and eventually attempt even more difficult techniques like hats and vases.

While The Cat was out at a concert on Sunday, I also (at long last) made a prototype for a felted faun that I’m really happy with. However, my camera’s battery was on charge all afternoon so I didn't have the opportunity to capture her. I promise I will share her, and more of my needle felted creations with you later in the week.

product line (slowly but surely)

Since receiving my wool on Thursday, I have compromised eating and sleeping to begin bringing my sketched designs to life.  However, the process has been very challenging.  Here's a sneak peek at what I have created so far:

I imagined that I would have had several creations completed by now but sadly, I find myself struggling over countless prototypes that I'm still not 100% satisfied with.

I'm doing a little bit of work today from home so that I may take tomorrow off and join my friend for another day of wet felting.  I crave a creative shoulder to lean on now, to push me to keep working on something rather than demand immediate genius and perfection of myself.  My goal is to complete both a faun and satyr design that I'm happy with.  Only when I have achieved that will I know my store is ready to launch.  I intend for them to be my signature pieces so they will need to be absolutely adorable.  So far, I have created and rejected four prototypes (probably to become cat toys for Salmon).  Here's hoping for a wonderfully productive day ahead.

there's something about felting

Those of you who knew me before I began this blog would know that my first craft was making jewellery and that I even had a brief stint selling my handmade jewellery on Etsy last July. The crocus necklace pictured on the right is one of my personal favourites, featuring antiqued brass and Czech glass beads in garnet.

My jewellery making hobby was always a little conflicted. I really don’t wear a lot of jewellery myself, but when I do, I’m drawn to elaborate and unusual designs like this necklace I made four years ago that converts to a bracelet, or this beaded choker featuring tiny framed illustrations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll’s self-portraits I made one of my past Mad Hatter’s Tea Party themed birthdays. However, it was not easy for me to learn to accommodate for more tastefully restrained styles, and even when I tried, I just didn’t have as much fun with making jewellery.

Since I have picked up wet and needle felting in the last month, I feel as though I have found my calling.

Felting supplies are simple and affordable, while the beads, charms, components, findings and tools required in jewellery making are mind-boggling. Each of those categories also comprises an almost infinite range of sizes, colours, and materials. All my needle and wet felted projects come from wool roving, which differs most importantly by coarseness and colour. The latter can even be customised with hand dyeing.

If you wanted to move into metal smithing (welding your own metals) or lampworking (making your own glass beads), the space, equipment and resources needed for them will set you back several hundred dollars at least. I stuck with cold working, which meant I only ever worked with stringing bought beads on to silver, brass or copper wire, and even then I spent a couple of hundred dollars every month on supplies. All my tools and equipment for both wet and needle felting have not yet set me over $50 and $100 worth of wool will keep me in good stead for a long time.

Second only to those cotton/hemp friendship bracelets you learn to make in primary school, cold working is the easiest jewellery making technique to learn, and hence also the least skilful and unique. In my experience, jewellery makers, particularly cold workers, are very secretive about their suppliers. Finding cheap supplies is sometimes the only way we can compete with each other, but if someone else discovers where you purchased that antiqued brass crocus charm, there is virtually nothing preventing them from making the same piece as yours. I love that there is no deception to felting. Everything you see is wool and a lot of love, patience and elbow grease. Although I’m sure felters can still try to replicate another’s designs, it’s not as easy as buying the same beads and charms and stringing them together. You still need to build something from scratch and it will never really be the same as the original. Each creation is imbued with the soul of its creator.

wet felting day

I had the most fun I have had in a long time yesterday! I met up with a friend in my neighbourhood and we spent the entire day wet felting.

When I first arrived, she set me up with a DVD called On Gentle Threads, a whimsically inspiring short feature on Hungarian felt artist, Judit Pócs, while she prepared the outdoor felting studio. After feeling ready to dive into a bucket of hot, soapy water and squeeze out ten hats, I came out to find that we had a generous-sized table laid out with a pile of clean towels, bamboo mats and homemade soap formula, all ready to go.

Before our felting day, I spent the free moments of this Easter long weekend experimenting with wet felting projects on my own. At first, I grossly underestimated the difficulty of making a simple pouch until my make-it-up-as-I-go attempt failed miserably. I then watched a few videos on YouTube, including this great Threadbanger tutorial on making a beret, which requires the same techniques.

So I went at it again, making a white pouch with orange stripes that was covered in holes, but at least was less of a disaster than my first attempt, which is still laying in pieces right now on my armchair. I took it to show my friend yesterday who convinced me after a lot of gentle persuasion and persistence to patch the holes and work on it more. I was sceptical it would do any good, but a lot of faith and an hour of elbow grease later, including some great destressing sessions on a washboard, my failed pouch shrunk by a quarter at least (that’s a good thing in wet felting), with all the holes firmly patched, and actually useable now as a sleeve or heatable rice pillow. I was over the moon!

Galvanised by this experience, I made another pouch after the colours of my cat. It ended up shrinking to the size of an iPhone cover, a little too small to use as a rice pillow for us big cats and bunnies, but I thought our Salmon might appreciate it once the winter season sets in.

The homemade soap formula worked a treat. Prior to this, I simply used ordinary dishwashing detergent, but my friend had attended a felting workshop by Janet Page that provided a recipe to make your own soap ‘paste’. It involves adding one part soap flakes to two parts boiling water and leaving the mixture to set in a container. It will become the consistency of sorbet and can be scooped into the hot water when wet felting. I found this recipe much kinder on my hands than detergent and lathered up really nicely. If you live in the Sydney region, Janet Page is running a workshop in 10 days.

After lunch, we tried dyeing some wool with Landscape Elements dyes. This is the colour Shell, which turned out a lovely sandy, tea colour.

We are making a joint order of wool together in the following week and will be dyeing more wool to create scarves in time for winter. We found two great designs in Felt by India Flint and Toyoko Sugiwaka which will be perfect for our next challenge together.

i am a daughter of the glade

I am charmed by the idea of wild-hearted fauns roaming the forest at dusk and satyrs serenading blackbirds with their pipes. With my last of my Corriedale wool, I crafted this little faun friend yesterday.

Although I’m quite happy with the design, I’m also in the process of ordering more beautiful Corriedale fibres in a larger variety of natural, earthy tones to experiment with other designs as well. I think it would be magical to make some small playboxes featuring scenes of dark thickets and forest clearings overgrown with mushrooms and toadstools. Possibly even to sell or trade.

While I’m felting, I have been listening to the amazing début studio album by Tricky Pixie, Mythcreants. Their songs Daughter of the Glade, Carousel, The Mushroom Song and Tam Lin are probably solely responsible for the vivid scenes of deep forests and mythical woodland creatures that unravel in my mind as I work. Do visit their website. All the songs on their album can be streamed at great quality or alternatively, you can purchase the digital download of their album for whatever price you choose.

Can you tell I am a little more than enamoured with this new craft? I find felting so therapeutic, and yet I’m constantly struck by inspiration to push myself with new techniques and challenges. My order of Merino from Virginia Farm Woolworks arrived on Thursday and I have been busy wet felting bases for future needle felted scenes I intend to work over the top. Although it will probably never been seen in the final product unless you were to cut the sculpture open, I’m taking great delight in layering strands of blue and deep brown together to represent the water and soil beneath forest glades.

It’s hard though, for an impatient soul like myself, to have to slowly and gradually work on a piece before it comes to life. First, I take numerous layers of soft and silky Merino and massage them in hot, soap water until it becomes a mat, then stabbing unruly strands of Corriedale wool roving with a needle until my desired form takes shape. It takes hours to work on even the smallest figures, and that’s not including the amount of time it takes for wet felted projects to dry, let alone if I were to be dyeing my own wool (a challenge planned for next week). But I would rather be doing nothing else!

friday moments

Trial felting project for a friend’s birthday gift.

This week, I'm grateful for...

• The Cat’s masterful cooking.
• Reconnecting with old friends and finishing the second draft of my Methodology chapter.
• Making my first order from a local fibre supplier and being completely delighted with it.
• Four-day weekends.

felting along

Since felting the forest home, I have happily stabbed my way through a few other small projects to keep my felting skills honed. On Friday night, The Cat celebrated another year in his life with good friends and a couple of glasses of wine. The next morning, I scavenged a wine bottle cap and made this little mushroom scene inside it.

I also made a little black bunny and gnome girl with her toadstool cottage. I decided that the bunny belonged to a friend whose birthday just passed. He’s teaching English in Japan but had to leave his pet bunny behind.

 

Yesterday afternoon, I found a kindred spirit who has recently delved into wet felting. She introduced me to a flock (teehee!) of local wool suppliers, such as Virginia Farm Woolworks, Glenora Weaving and Wool and Waratah Fibres and Crafts, all of whom carry exquisite ranges of fibres and dyes. I feel so thrilled to know that I can now make all my felted crafts with fibres from Australian plants and animals, lowering the carbon output from otherwise shipping wool from overseas.

I admit that since my bookshelves have turned into humble abodes for my new felted friends, I have been eyeing Etsy with a hopeful sense of longing. I long for a marketplace to find loving homes for my creations so I may make room for more. However, I look at my designs and I know they are still very beginner, and I look at my schedule and know I’m still a very busy Bun! For now, I’m content in the knowledge I’m developing my skills and (hopefully) finding my voice and a unique personal style. That being said, if you see anything at all you like among the pages of this blog, you simply need to ask, and I will be happy to send it along to its new home!

happy first day of autumn

Finally turned my wet felted balls into acorns!

Unfortunately, the front page headline of the paper today reported that the landfills in my city will be full by 2012. This was allegedly uncovered a year ago in a report that was deliberately hidden to save the State government from embarrassment. When The Cat and I visited the supermarket today, I thumped down my foot and insisted we finally jump on the green wagon and buy canvas bags. At first, The Cat protested because, well, he’s a big fat greedy hoarder (Exhibit A: Cat food. I rest my case), but then I sweetened the deal by buying a thermo canvas bag specially to store the meats and diary. Second to having his cat food stolen, The Cat gets annoyed when his milk gets warm, so he seemed much more content with my decision to switch to canvas bags when I presented him with his thermo one.

felted forest home progress

Back in the beginning of March, I blogged about finding Beccijo's amazing wooden playboxes.  At the end of the post, I told you all how inspired I felt and began planning an enchanted forest home.  Well, it's almost done, let me share with you my progress.

The day after, I visited my local craft store and purchased a 'book box' for $9AUD.

I lightly sanded the rough edges and primed it with a layer of gesso.

Over a couple of days, I laid the inside of the box with green felt for a grass carpet, and painted the inside of the lid with a deep green.  The outsides of the box were painted in brown but to give it some interest, I also painted wood grain patterns on the front and back of the box.

 

I sprayed the entire box inside and out with a sealing gloss that The Cat had around from his charcoal sketching days.  If you don't have a sealer, my art teacher used to say that hairspray works as a substitute.  Meanwhile, my first order of wool roving and felting needles were on their way to me so I reluctantly left my box for a couple of weeks as I waited for my felting kit to arrive.  Of course, many of you know already that when it did, the felting needles were missing so I waited another week for them to be replaced while I did some wet felting.

Finally, my needles arrived two days ago and my enchanted forest home began filling up with inhabitants!

Indoors on the grassy carpet, The Cat (who owns this enchanted forest home) is having a chat with Hoo over his oyster mushroom table.  (I'm waiting on some bright red roving from Wales from which I'll be making a toadstool 'tablecloth'.)

Hoo's job is to tell everybody in the forest when night time is.  Even though you may think the sky does that already, some animal friends like earthworms, moles and other creatures live underground, so they appreciate knowing when night is without having to poke their heads out of the earth all the time.

It's also Bring Your Daughter to Work Day today, which is why Hoo has brought her owlet, Hoo Junior (or Hoo-Ju) to The Cat's house, but she's gotten herself stuck in a hollow tree trunk in The Cat's backyard.

The Cat's fishing pond has been newly made home to Mother Quack and of course, as it's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, Quack-Ju is with her.  In the far corner of The Cat's yard, a small veggie patch has been planted and carrots are ready to pick.  A tipped bucket is beside it with two carrots inside, but picking carrots is hard work so The Cat's taken a break.  The Cat doesn't eat carrots but he's stocking up for a special friend who will be moving in next week.

Here, Hoo helped Hoo-Ju out of the tree trunk.  See the little toadstool stool beside the pond?  The Cat likes to sit on it when he's fishing and the bucket of water beside it is the best place to put the fish he's caught.

The bucket of carrots have been brought inside and the two carrots placed on the mushroom table, ready to be washed and eaten.

What's left to do:

• Finish table with red wool roving to make a toadstool.
• Make a woodsy bed (maybe bark bed with a big green leaf as a blanket?) for The Cat and his friend.
• Make fish for the cat to eat.
• Felt another playbox!

My first attempt was not without some mistakes!  I left the hinges on while painting the box.  In retrospect, I should have taken them out and painted the lid and box separately to avoid getting paint on the hinges, which made them rust slightly, and where the lid touches the box, some paint stuck together there and became a little messy.

I made this one for no one in mind but as it's The Cat's birthday next weekend, I turned this into his gift, which is why the owner of the forest home is a cat modelled after his likeness.  I would love to make more of these and hone my technique, but unfortunately, the only children I have in my family in the age range for whom something like this would suit are two Cat cousins.  However, I need to respect their parents' wishes of not giving them soft, plush toys to play with that can collect dust, so please feel free to suggest people you know (including yourself!) who might appreciate some of my felted creations.

wet felting balls

This Bun is a little bit worse for wear this week (but just a little!).  I have juggled tutoring, with data collection, meetings, editing my thesis and teaching training and it feels like I have managed to cram three full-time workloads into the one week.  But please keep your condolences!  I’ve also been feeling exuberant for the opportunity to get out of the house, the exercise and sensory delight of walking through the leafy cobblestone trails of my campus, and the scintillating company of my colleagues and students.

I had a meeting with my supervisors yesterday to receive some feedback for the last piece of work I sent them.  As always, my supervisors were extremely constructive, although honest about the fact that my first draft needed more work, yet they continually praised me for what I did right and assured me that some imperfection and uncertainty is definitely to be expected so that I didn’t walk away feeling discouraged.  Despite this, I have accepted the truth that supervisory meetings are more often than not, very overwhelming for me.  No matter the feedback, you walk away from any (good) meeting with a full plate of work, even if your supervisors gave you detailed and valuable information and guidance to complete them, you’re reminded that you’re treading the deep waters of a PhD.

I have decided that from now on after all my supervisory meetings, my schedule remains clear for me to return home to a hot shower, a cup of tea and a leisurely evening spent watching comedies (I have developed a new addiction to The Colbert Report).

In the morning, I also picked up the felting kit I ordered from Etsy from the post office, but was crushed to find that the seller had forgotten to pack felting needles.  Luckily, she separately mailed them out to me today, and in the meantime I had some fun making wet felted balls for acorns and toys for Salmon!

Although it requires a lot more elbow grease than it looks and my fingers got all pruny after 40 minutes of rolling a wet wad of wool around in my hands (renewed respect for felters!), it was so much fun!  I think I have found my favourite craft.

To make these, all you need is:

• Wool roving, tear into small tufts
• Dishwashing detergent (or soap will do)
• Bowl of hot water
• Bowl of cold water (optional)
• Tea towel

Begin by taking a small tuft of roving, drizzle hot water over it and very gently, begin rolling it in your hands until it starts to form a puffy ball.  Gently tease apart your tufts of wool roving so that they become more like thin sheets and wrap around your loose ball.  Squeeze a small drop of detergent on your hand and keep rolling the ball until it is covered in detergent and begins to lather.  Every now and then, drizzle hot water onto your ball, and keep rolling.  It’s the combination of the hot water, detergent and your rolling that makes wool fibres ‘lock’ together.  Your ball should start to feel more solid and you’ll find you can apply more pressure without crushing it.  Keep wrapping it in sheets of wool until you get the size you want.  Some people recommend dunking or drizzling your ball in cold water to ‘shock’ it and hasten the felting process.  I did find it helps, but it's not necessary.  When you are satisfied with the size, shape and firmness of your felted balls, rinse any excess soap off with water and rest on your tea towel.  Leave in a sunny spot (away from curious cats) to dry.

I found it was very important to begin very gently and gradually build up even pressure, otherwise you get cracks in the ball.  After making 2-3 balls, you will find your bowls water get very soap, after which you don’t even have to add detergent to your balls for them to felt.

I collected some acorn caps last week from a grand oak tree on my campus.  I’ve never noticed the tree before as it’s on my ‘scenic’ route and I used to always be in such a rush to get from one class to another.  I gathered a small handful of caps in my glasses case so they wouldn’t get crushed in my bag, and rinsed them in my leftover bowl of hot soapy water from felting the balls to clean off dirt.  I'll be hot-gluing them to the balls in time for the Autumn Equinox.

I definitely recommend this very tactile and therapeutic craft for anyone, perhaps we can learn together?

learning to needle felt

Since reading The Magical Onions, I’ve been inspired to dabble in needle felting.  I would personally love to try my hand at miniature figurines and dolls, rabbit and cat toys.  I watched some video tutorials on YouTube last night and it looks very therapeutic, the needle poking looks great for anger relief!  After dinner, I called a bunch of craft stores around my local area but unfortunately, none of them carried any felting supplies, but then I spent a good few minutes searching online and I’m really excited to say that I will soon be expecting this charming little beginner’s felting kit in the mail!

wool roving from the wild hare

It looks like it has everything I need to get me started (wool roving in a great variety of colours, 4 needles, and a foam sponge so that I don’t risk stabbing my desk with the needles).  Bonus bunny points for the fellow bunny seller at Wild Hare Fibre Studio.

When I have learnt to stand on my own four paws in my felting craft, I’m also keen to purchase some of the luscious roving at The Rainbow Room.  The colours are so earthy yet vibrant and the prices are not too shabby either.