The Angel of the North

Nuno in snow

Nuno close up

Making the detail

The laying of wool on silk

Silk side up, in snow

For the winter Solstice I had a blog give away. Caio Fernandes of Mien Welt was one of the winners. I was pretty stumped as to what to make Caio that would suit his tastes and also his climate. I'm guessing there is not much need for a felted hat or scarf in Brazil during summertime!

Eventually I decided upon the iconic landmark 'The Angel of the North' by Antony Gormley. I am from the North East so it is a representation of modern art from my home land. It is a sculpture. I often see a sculpture waiting to be made when I look at Caio's work. Angels are symbolic of Christianity which is very important to Caio. To me, the Angel of the North feels like a different type of angel. An Angel devoid of any specific faith, instead, representing hope. This is reinforced by the sapling trees growing around the hillside. The Angel reminds me of Daedalus and Icarus from the Greek mythology.

Its funny how public modern art is received. When this was first erected, I hated it. I think many people perceived it as tasteless and a waste of money. In my minds eye, the angel was originally silver and rusted with time, which made it beautiful. Now I love it. The Angel of the North has become an institution. Happy couples get married at its feet. You can even download oragami or knitting patterns of the angel for free.

Another reason for choosing to make a nuno felt representation of one of Antony Gormley's pieces of work, was that Caio lived in London. Antony Gormley may be better known for 'The Fourth Plinth' project in Trafalgar Square. The project lasted 100 days and invited the public to take to the plinth for an hour each, thus the plinth would be occupied 24 hours a day for 100 days.

My first Nuno

Tomorrow I travel to London to visit my friend and newborn fairy god daughter, Mia. I wanted to make something bright and cheerful that could either be hung on a wall or used as a little cosy blanket to give as a gift. I had intended to make a picture with elves and toadstools with maybe a rainbow in it, but instead i found myself dreaming of bright suns, Mediterranean skies and beaches, so that's what I made.

Here you can see a pile of ten sheets of prefelt made from my lovely Christmas wools and fabulous washboard (everybody should have a washboard!)

The laying out on silk prior to nuno felting

I literally cut out pieces of prefelt like jigsaw pieces to fit the design I wanted.

The finished piece after nuno felting (wool side up)

And again (silk side up)

Its been quite an educational piece for me. I have not made nuno felt with silk gauze before. It behaves very differently than cotton gauze. For a start, the cotton nuno gauze is very similar to bandage lint, which is good for reinforcing large pieces of felt that you wish to keep thin, but in practice, the wool is felting with itself and not migrating through the gauze.

I made a couple of mistakes with this. I've been reading so much, and asking questions on the felting forum, but in the end you learn most through trying it out yourself. Only then does the advice given and techniques read make full sense.

With this piece, I wrung the reed mat I was rolling it in. Big mistake. I also used boiling water. I later read that this is a mistake too as using hot or boiling water causes the wool to felt with itself and not to migrate through the silk.

I managed to salvage the piece, and I can see the wool hairs poking through the silk when I hold it at eye level. All in all I am pretty pleased with this as a piece of felt. All of the rolling done to make the wool migrate through the silk produces very soft, compact felt. Much better than I usually make it.

I now also have an understanding on how to make my Tiffany designs work best, so all in all, a very productive day.

If you are considering making nuno felt, I found this very good online tutorial.

I would also like to thank Dorie for advising me on another method of nuno felting x

The Erosion Bundle Project

Whilst over at Love Stitching Red's place the other day, I saw her post on The Erosion Bundle Project. It sounds like a lot of fun and a great incentive to produce a piece of eco art guided by nature and our wonderfully unpredictable English weather, so I thought I'd join in!

Here are some things that i have gathered to include in my bundle. There is a lot of natural coloured wool and wool that has been dyed with use of plants, vegetables or berries. To the bottom right hand corner you can see my blackberry and nettle dyed wools. Next to it is wool dyed in blueberries and felted into the shape of a heart which was a gift from my friend Judy at CJ Stitching & Blooms. I love the heart and have been wondering how best to incorporate it into one of my own felt projects. The erosion bundle will be perfect. I have included natural coloured hand made paper, an olive soap box, leaves, acorns, pine cones and an ear of barley. There is also some small swatches of the predyed pre-felt made from the blended silk and merino that I was given for Christmas. Finally, I added the tag from my feet felt kit which I bought from Yuli Somme last spring. It felt like this should be included in the parcel as making the feet felt was my first encounter with felt making and lets just say, I have not looked back since.

I have wrapped the bundle in layers like the party game 'passy-the-parcel'.

The first layer began with an old key that is no longer needed. I wrapped it in a 50cm2 piece of nuno silk which in tun had oak leaves, pine cones, and acorn cups inserted in between each roll of the silk. This bundle was then tied with a piece of merino lace that I had tried to make into lace jewelry back in the summer (I didn't get very far with that project!).

Next I wound the silk parcel in a mixture of natural blended Gotland wool and some blended Blue Faced Leicester wool. I wrapped some wildflower seed heads inside and bound it with a little apricot dyed alpaca wool.

Next I wrapped the natural wool bundle alongside a sprig of Anglesey heather and dried beech leaves and the last of the pine cones inside a small square of green cotton nuno gauze.

This was then placed inside the olive soap box, surrounded with the dyed wool, wrapped in natural paper and then wrapped again in recycled metallic gift paper before being tied inside a white cotton men's handkerchief and being placed in the snow between the heather and red robin in my front garden.

I will probably move it to my dads garden and suspend it from his cherry tree in the next few days. My dads garden gets a lot more exposure to sunlight, and well, its much prettier and has more wildlife in it.

It will stay in my dads garden and will be left untouched until the end of April/beginning of May, when I will open it again and begin making a piece of eco art with the contents.

Fun stuff!

Winter Wonders & Winter Comforts

The Tender Thaw

Before outlines were applied

This design is intended for felt. I've had a lot of fun playing with colour and making stained glass style designs. It strikes me that the simpler nature of outlining work for stained glass would make it easier to convert the image into textile format. I'm not sure if it would be wisest to Batik the silk before nuno felting or to arrange the wool and prefelts into the design using coloured wool and then nuno felt.

Any thoughts on this one, my felting friends?

A Cast, A Kettle, A Convocation...

An new tiffany style collage. Another design for felt...

Happy New Year!

Today I made a collage incorporating many positive words and sentiments to begin the new year with. I then painted over in acrylic paints to create a tiffany style design which I will use for felt making in the future.