3 SILVER BIRCHES

My latest wall hanging is a felted and hand embroidered depiction of the three silver birches growing in our garden.  We planted them about 16 years ago and as they are visible from my kitchen window I'm always observing the changes through the seasons and over the years.  I've sketched and painted them many times as they have grown but this is their first incarnation in stitch.

I started with a base made of coloured wool tops which I had bought a few years ago when I thought I would try my hand at felting.

 I built up the layers using appropriate colours and pulling the wisps apart to make the shapes I required and added some chopped up pieces of mohair and silk yarn for the twiggy bits at the top of the branches At this stage the image is very loose and fluffy.

 I then began the felting process which involves wetting the piece, rubbing soap all over, covering it with nylon net curtain, wrapping in bubble wrap and then spending about 15 minutes massaging and turning the piece around until all the wool has begun to blend together.

Then I rolled it up in a bamboo place mat and rolled it in all directions till the felting process was complete, another 15 minutes of rolling and rinsing in hot water to remove the soap and I ended up with a piece of felt quite a bit smaller than I had started with.  I put it in a warm place to dry ready for the next step.

I started to hand stitch the details on the trunks, shrubs and distant trees.

I decided to extend the piece with another piece of felt which I prepared and then attached by extending the branches beyond the edge of the first part.

This picture shows some of the equipment necessary to do the felting, the original photo of the trees and the work in process.

A close up of the felted on yarns of the extension ready to be joined to the bottom part of the picture.

It's nearly finished and now all I had to do was add some extra long branches to use to tie to the twig I cut from a fallen branch of the tree to make the wall hanging you can see at the top of this story.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this description of my work and maybe you'll think of having a go at felting too, just remember the yarns must be wool to be sure they blend together in the felting process.

 

FLOODED WOODS

This month has been rather wet and there are many flooded areas all over the country.  We are fortunate to live at the top of the hill and don't see much standing water so when I spotted this view in the woods on our regular Saturday walk I had to stop and take a photo.

The sky looked wonderful reflected in the pool and I knew this could be the inspiration for a textile art piece.

The first thing I always do is to make a sketch to try and understand the layout of the elements of the picture and to think about how to set about portraying it in fabric and stitch.

I had a handful of fabrics treated with matt acrylic medium already painted with a home made mixture of natural ochre pigments from Roussillon and acrylic medium, just waiting for their chance to be used.

I discovered the treated fabrics adhered to each other with the application of heat so first I ironed the base layer of crinkly cotton fabric to some plain white cotton using a sheet of baking parchment to protect my iron.

I then built up the picture with an assortment of scraps cut from the remains of other recent projects.  

I should say here that nothing is ever thrown away in my workroom where I have a big bag under my table where everything is put to wait for re-purposing.

I machine embroidered the first layer of trees and grasses, then cut some more trees out of a lighter brown for the foreground tree trunk.

Lots more machining to give texture and complete the picture.

The back looked rather interesting too so I decided to use a translucent iron on interfacing for the title.

I edged the trimmed picture with brown overlocking stitch then went round again stitching on a length of brown woollen yarn.

The finished picture, photographed on my pine desk, measures 28 x 20 cms.