I’m proud to announce two shows I will be selling at this Spring:

Saline Spring Craft Show, Saturday March 24th

Chelsea Fine Art and Craft Fair, May 19th-20th

Last year I posted about my foray into shyrdak making.  It is a time consuming process that involves both felting and sewing and quilting techniques to create beautiful traditional patterns from Central Asia.

I’ve been experimenting with prefelt techniques to create some of the same patterns only significantly quicker.

This rug is made of Icelandic wool from Fence Row Farm.  The blue is a mix of two colors I dyed myself then put through the drum carder.

These purses are made from the same wool as the rug above.  The design is cut from one piece of prefelt.  The mirror image is used to create a whole new purse.  This is one of the advantages of this type of design.  The negative space is designed to create an equally beautiful, often mirror image of the positive space.  There is very little waste.

These bags are another experiment in design.  They are made from one piece of flat felt that is cut and sewn together on the sewing machine.  Most of my bags are wet felted in one piece but that process takes longer than felting flat sheets.  I’m still trying to decide if it really saves me time if I have to add the steps of cutting and sewing, and deal with some scrap felt that is created.  Also there are aesthetic questions, which way is more beautiful?

These are two pictures of the same bag.  The positive and negatives were used on both sides.  Again it was made from a sheet of cut and sewn felt .  This felt is created with a merino felting bat.  Merino and Icelandic are now my two favorite wools, which I plan on using almost exclusively from now on, because both are extremely fast felters.

I have been making a great quantity of felt the last couple of months because I am getting ready to sell at public crafts shows this season.  The Spring Craft Show in Saline Michigan, on March 24th will be the first.

Changing from selling only at medieval themed to modern events gives me freedom to create new designs…

and use modern colors!

These are my newest toys.  The royals are all my design but the dragon is from a pattern in the Fall 2011 issue of Living Crafts magazine.  Before putting the dragon “into production”, I’ll be creating my own pattern, both to make it faster to sew and to avoid copyright issues.  I’m choosing to leave the faces off the dolls this time to be more true to the Waldorf philosophy they are inspired by.  In the Waldorf philosophy of education, dolls for young children do not have faces so that the child has the freedom to imagine any face he or she wants, whether it is the face of her mother or father or whether the doll has a happy, sad or angry face depending on the child’s mood.

Here’s a picture of the heads before they were attached to the bodies.  I’m trying to find ways to create my products in an assembly fashion, which is not the way I’m used to doing things.  However I am finding that it really does save a lot of time.  It takes time to gather materials for each stage of the process and then to put them away again to ready the work space for the next project.

I’ve been branching out into sewn felt toys.  I made this play mat to display my toys, but if someone buys it I will make more to sell.

I’ve made some horses…

and rabbits,

and people.

And here’s the whole gang so far!

Here are a few of my felt balls I’ve turned into ornaments for the Holiday Handspinners’s Fair on November 26th.  The photo doesn’t show it well, but I’ve mixed in some synthetic sparkly fibers.  I’ve added them on a few other projects including children’s crowns, candle holders and a scarf.  

If you are able please come to the sale and support local artisans this holiday season.  If you are not able to make this sale, think about how you could fulfill your holiday shopping list with local products.  When you support a local business you are supporting more than just that person, you are also supporting everyone they buy goods and services from.   This keeps more you your money in your community.

I’ve also updated my Etsy store.  Did you know that you can search for local products on Etsy? 

For SCA people coming to the Holiday sale, know that I will not be bringing most of the SCA specific items like hats and belt pouches, but I will also have a few things not listed on Etsy, like balls and cat nip mice.  However if you see a hat  you would like to try on let me know and I’ll bring it along.

I made this hat for my husband.  It is knitted from llama hair that I bought at Pennsic.  I spun it on a drop spindle, single ply.

I’ve been using some of my wool and felt scraps to create some toys for my preschool classroom.

In these dolls you don’t see the wool, but they are stuffed with it, which creates a doll that holds some of the warmth of the child holding it.   These dolls are called Waldorf dolls because they are used in Waldorf Schools, a style of education that values simple, open ended toys made from natural materials.

I also made a Three Billy Goats Gruff story set, entirely made from felt scraps.  Young children love to tell this favorite story over and over. 

Through serendipity two awsome fiber events happened on the same day, Felt United and Cynnabar’s first Fiber Faire.  Felt United is a day that felters around the world make and display felt acording to a yearly theme.  Cynnabar’s Fiber Faire was the first SCA event where I was the Event Steward.  To celebrate both days at the same time I taught a felt hat making class and made this cute hat.

While I had the photography equipment set up I did a whole photo shoot of the hats I have at the moment.

This has been my latest artistic endeavor. Ever since I started felting I wanted to make one of these.  In Kyrgyzystan they are called Shyrdak, in Kazakstan there is also a similar product. These rugs are cut, pieced and quilted from plain sheets of felt, which seriously increases the amount of work hours need to create them as opposed to rugs with felted in designs.  Shyrdaks are a traditional art that has been passed down for generations.  Like many traditional arts these days, it is being kept alive by a few conscientious artisans.  Here is a video of women from the Altyn Kol Women’s Handicraft Cooperative in Kyrgyzystan  making shyrdaks.

shrydak making video

My shyrdak began a while ago when I experimented with and indigo dye pot and dipped half a sheet of Icelandic felt into it. 

Indigo is a magical dye that is green when you pull it out of the pot and as it hits the air turns to blue before your eyes.

My next step was to cut a design from paper and cut the same design from both the white and the blue felt.

Pieces are then swapped into the opposite color blocks.  The felt is then sewn back together. 

And then two oppositely spun cords are couched down to hide the seam.

The two blocks are then sewn together and the whole thing is then quilted to another layer of felt.

It has been an amazing experience making a small sample of shyrdak.  The craft reminds me of the level of work that goes into a traditional American quilt.  Both crafts are passed from mother to daughter, usually done in community, and have a rich history of meaning associated with the traditional patterns.  The design I chose represents a ram’s horn.  Great atention is given to creating a design that has ballence in its possitive and negative images.  In mine the blue design creates an almost identical design in the white and vice versa.