post image

The Hugging Blanket

Spinning is an unusual hobby because you do not produce a final product. As beautiful and fascinating skeins of yarn can be to look at, they represent an in-between stage waiting to be crocheted, knit, woven or otherwise used to make something out of them. I suspect most people who get introduced to spinning already knowing how to crochet, knit or weave, but that wasn’t the case for me. I only accepted the old spinning wheel I was offered because I might know someone else who would be interested in it. In the meantime I would keep it in my atelier, and maybe give spinning a try because I had all this wool laying around anyway. Long story short: I discovered I absolutely love spinning and pretty soon I had a big pile of skeins of yarn that just kept getting bigger because I didn’t know what to do with them.

I figured crochet was the easiest of the yarn crafts to get into so I decided to crochet my yarns into simple ‘granny squares’ and see if eventually I could make a whole bunch of them into a big blanket. All this time this project had been a pleasant on-the-side project, a fun way to finally do something with the yarns I was spinning. That changed suddenly as I was one third into crocheting the squares together. As I sat on the ground arranging the next row, I thought of a friend who was going through a rough time and instantly knew this was her blanket. It felt like discovering I had been making it for her all this time. The blanket was becoming pretty heavy because of its size and the relatively think, heavy yarn used to make it, and it reminded me of a hug. This giant rainbow was how I could give her a hug and wrap her in love, from a distance. Making things, anything, means you can make meaningful things. Making meaningful things for people who are dear to me is one of the greatest joys in my life.

post image

Big book of felt samples

Two leather binders to neatly organize my wet felting samples and their accompanying fact sheets. The challenge here was to create a ‘growing book’; I wanted to be able to flip through my samples as through the pages of a book, but also to keep adding new samples to my collection. I solved this by making a wraparound cover, long enough to accommodate the expanding stack of samples that are held neatly in place by leather string.

  • Each sample has a form describing materials and methods used.
  • The leather protector on top of the stack protects the paper forms.
  • The samples can easily be added to, taken out and/or rearranged.
  • The top one holds my fiber samples, the bottom one my felting technique samples

I had heard about the importance of creating samples for wet felting for years but I never really did it because it felt like homework and not like actually making the things I wanted to create. The examples I had seen of sample books where just binders with each individual sample put in a plastic sleeve. It all felt like having to do paperwork instead of having fun creating pretty things.

In Januari 2020 I joined a wet felting class and of course, the first thing that came up was that we were expected to take home little amounts of different kinds of wool and other fibers to make lots of samples and to bring them back for next month’s class. The teacher brought an example along for us; one of those binders with plastic sleeves. I wanted to make the most from the course so I knew I had to find a way to make this fun or I’d be frustrated pretty quickly. Then it suddenly clicked for me: making AND organizing my samples had to became an art project in and of itself (without any plastic sleeves). That way I’d be able to get into the habit of making wet felting samples and I’d end up with a beautiful personal sample library that could grow with me for many years to come.

  • Some samples include other fibers (like bamboo) added to the wool
  • Some samples include a dip dye test.
  • Sampling wool and fiber blends that I created myself
  • I made blending samples, like this one using just 2 colors in different amounts
  • I blended an entire rainbow using just 3 colors of wool top
  • I sampled fibers for nuno felting, like these three different silks
  • Sampling different yarns to include in wet felting.
  • Sampling how the colors of sari silk fibers change depending on the color of wool underneath
  • Exploring how bits of muga silk ‘cake’ (in between stage of processing silk) can be included
  • I sampled adding shapes cut from prefelt or silk paper
  • Sampling ‘nuno felt drawing’ with wool top on silk fabric
  • I sampled ‘drawing’ with wool top to create extremely open felt.
post image

The image of a loving family

In 2016 I was so lucky to be be allowed to make the wedding dresses for two of my friends; the most deeply cherished project I ever did. As they welcomed their son in December 2019 I knew I wanted to give the three of them something special. This wonderful baby boy will probably see few representations of families that look like his own, so I wanted to make sure that at least one thing that he gets to watch for hours and hours actually does.

The mobile is simple in design: strings of brightly colored felted balls hang in a circle. In the middle two relatively abstract faerie-like figures hold hands and lovingly look down. The dresses, skin and hair style of the figures are based on his moms and their wedding dresses.

post image

A delightfully quirky winter coat

Pattern used: Vogue 1649. Fitted winter coat with shoulder pads, collar, lapels, flaps, side seam pockets, and left lower front drape with shaped hem. Made with aubergine wool fabric and a yellow leather trim. I left the buttons off and opted for a belt instead.

post image

Felted scarf inspired by Monet’s waterlilies

For Christmas 2018 I gifted my favorite aunt ‘a day spent together, making you a beautiful nuno felt scarf’. My aunt is one of those people who rarely feels chilly and will often leave her house in winter just wearing a blazer instead of a winter coat, so I knew it wouldn’t make sense to make her a scarf to stay warm. However, as she is someone who enjoys going to the theater and classical music performances and appreciates stylish and expressive fashion, I wanted to make her a light nuno felt scarf that drapes beautifully. Perfect for a fashionable night out!

Green and teal are colors that suit her very well and as frogs are her favorite animal and she has a little pond in her back yard I had the idea of an abstract depiction of waterlilies on the scarf. I asked her for ideas and she came up with Monet’s waterlilies, which turned out to be a perfect fit to use with the wet felting technique.

It took us a while to finally plan for that day but in November 2019 we made this absolutely gorgeous nuno felted scarf on teal silk. My aunt prepared all the fibers by laying them out on a tray in tiny amounts, while I divided each tray’s contents on the two halfs of them scarf. The entire process of laying out the fibers on the silk took many many hours as we built up the design very slowly using little bits of fiber each time. But the result proved worth it!

The waterlilies themselves we created separately, felting them untill they were strong enough to keep their shape. Only then did we add them to the scarf (which was by then felted halfway), continuing to roll to felt the lilies onto the scarf.

Wedding guestbook reinvented

This is Sander & Vicky’s wedding guestbook. Inside each envelope is a card made or chosen especially for them by one of their wedding guests. Instead of writing a message in a regular guestbook during the festivities the guests wrote their message to the happy couple in advance and brought it along on the wedding day. I created this book of envelopes to hold all the card.

post image

M’s diary / art journal

A diary/artbook made as a personalized gift for a wonderful little girl (‘M’, whose favorite color is pink, and whose favorite animals are cats, I’d been told) with the hope to support her developing her creative talents and a strong, healthy self-image.

1 2