Needle Felting: Roving and Hand Dyed Silk

It's been really cold and foggy in Seattle for the last five days. I've been battling the dreariness with color! Coral and Turquoise have been the basis of my color palette and roving, hand dyed silk and beads have been my materials.

I wanted to experiment with dyeing very lightweight silk and used ColorHue dyes which are used in cold water and don't require heat setting. Very simple but you can get some great results.

The roving was already dyed and has great subtleties of color in each bunch.
Here are the results of my experiments.

Coral Roving with silk and embroidered french knots

Turquoise Roving with stitched orange line

Turquoise roving with silk and stitched lines.

Needle felted turquoise roving, hand dyed silk and beads.

Freeform Crochet Neck Garlands

I've been making neck garlands out of fabric scraps and yarn by crocheting in a freeform style. It's fun and addictive. Here are some of the garlands now appearing in my etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/119708294/crochet-upcycled-neck-garland-scarf?ref=v1_other_2

They also look great hanging over a window. What do you think of them?

Drive In Theatre

Photo essay of a lovely, lonely drive-in wasteland somewhere in Oklahoma.....

One more helicopter seed photos

It looks like a wing...

Progression - Fall and Helicopter Seed pods

The leaves are falling from the trees and my sidewalk is littered with what we used to call "helicopters". I've been fascinated by the shapes and today I painted some.

New Season, new beginnings

It's beginning to feel a little like fall here, though the days have been gloriously sunny. We had a beautiful blue moon over the weekend and I am accepting that summer is over. There are some other changes happening in my life...letting some things go, to allow space for new things to come in.

Wet Stones 

I got out the watercolor crayons I took with me to Penland and spent half an hour in the morning at my kitchen table drawing. I'm pleased with the results. I wet the paper first with a watercolor brush, then started drawing shapes...love how the color feathers out on the wet paper. The paper is Rives BFK which deliciously takes color and ink. I plan to do more of this.

Inspiration: Leonore Tawney

I have just come across this artist who lived to be 100 years old, Leonore Tawney. She was quite a revolutionary artist, working as a weaver and collage artist.

"She manipulated her weavings into sculptural forms such as The King Iand The Queen, 1962, a revolutionary concept at the time.

Many of her works incorporate handwritten and printed manuscripts in a variety of languages from the early Discours Historiques,1966, and Epîtres, 1967, to That Other Sea, 1967, and Distilla, 1967. More often than not she employed strips of paper in a weaverly fashion."

http://craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/lenore-tawney-spiritual-revolutionary

Google her to find out more about this inspiring woman and artist.